Oh man, I loved Wounded Sky for the spider-alien scientist. She was so cool! (and apparently turned up in the final book of Duane's Rihannsu series. Which I didn't even know was a series, only the first two books were written when I was reading them, I think - now I want the rest of it! only the last book is out of print and very pricey - sigh!)

Price of the Phoenix - heh, yeah, that was Marshak and Culbreath, who I know nothing about except that all their ST novels are ridiculously slashy - they had to have been fangirls; the way they wrote was totally fanfic (plus they edited The New Voyages book of stories, which are fanficcy way beyond the novels...) Maybe they weren't slashers - smarm was more popular then (even if it didn't go by that name) and if they were really old-school they might have rejected the homoeroticisim, but fanficcers, yeah. And being ficcers, they totally woobified Kirk...