xparrot | born to be a fangirl

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born to be a fangirl

I was fanning before I knew what fanning was, long before I ever got online. In early high school, thanks to my town library's "YA*" paperback collection, I got into Star Trek (TOS, mostly) novels; they were my first exposure to fanfic, in particular the really gooey/sappy/smarmy/pre-slashy stuff that I'd always thought of as the "good bits" - usually a few paragraphs, at best a page or two of most books (except Lord of the Rings, which is crammed full of it). I used to keep a notebook noting the page numbers of my favorite bits. But in some of the Star Trek novels the yumminess (usually h/c) just went on and on - at least in the earlier novels; the later ones, not so much. But some of the first were most definitely written by fangirls - at the time I didn't know it; I just knew that what I was reading, while noticeably inferior in elements like plot and prose, was catering to certain tastes of mine more precisely than any book I'd read before.

* "YA" at my library apparently meant either "teen characters" or "sci-fi paperback". I think they got a sci-fi section later, but through my early teen years finding SF was a matter of browsing the unorganized paperback racks. Then I discovered 2nd-hand bookstores...

So it cracked me up when I was on Fanlore today and found that Killing Time was penned by a K/S writer who slipped what was in effect a pre-slash story past the Paramount censors by mysterious means. What gets me is that I remember this novel well - it's one of the dozen or so I bought for myself rather than just rereading the library's copy. I remember at the time of first reading it that I both adored it and thought it over the top in that ridiculous way that made me all deliciously squirmy (It involves a Romulan-made alternate time-line, in which, iffen I recall, the "golden-haired, golden-eyed" Kirk was an oft-abused drug-addict. And Spock was dreaming about him. Yeah.) Now I'm wondering if I actually read the original. Just checked and the copy I have now is the edited version, but I'm curious about the library's copy...

ETA: For my own reference: all the censored bits! (and maybe I'm hallucinating, but I swear I remember some of them...)

ETA2: And here we have a conversation about Kirk/Spock-y Star Trek novels! Should I be embarrassed or proud that almost every novel that's mentioned here is in my "dozen or so" collection? And that I want to reread them? (Nice to see Diane Duane getting credit, her take on the ST 'verse was awesome, love her aliens. --Zomg other folks like Dwellers in the Crucible! Which is really about a pair of female OCs who parallel Kirk & Spock...that being said, it is hands-down the most extreme h/c I have ever read between female chars. Am wanting to reread it just for that...(need to see Xena...))

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Huh, I think I may have Killing Time in my collection of ST:TOS novels, but in looking at the covers, I recognize one of the covers for an edited edition. Poo. ;-)

I just ETA'd with a link that has all the cuts - there weren't that many, but still, awww to the loss of homoeroticism! and really, how foolish of them, considering how slash sells!

I recall reading a very homoerotic pro ST novel in the 80's. I wonder if Killing Time was it? It featured Kirk carrying an injured, naked Spock and other OTT h/c scenes. I didn't even know what slash was at the time, nor even that fan fic existed, but I was pretty amazed by how gay that book was. Also very amused that a straight male colleague loved it and seemed not to notice. Heh.

Hee - I don't think Killing Time has a scene like that, but it's hardly the only ST novel with massive homoeroticism...Price of the Phoenix is incredibly slashy, that I recall, and I'm sure there's others...

Whichever novel you read, there's at least a 50% chance I own it, I'd say ^_^

OH GOD I REMEMBER PRICE OF THE PHOENIX!

Is that one with the women the thing with the human one sleeping with the Klingon who's holding them prisoner and there's pon farr nonsense and...

Huh. I wonder what I've done with all of my own ST novel collection...

Is that one with the women the thing with the human one sleeping with the Klingon who's holding them prisoner and there's pon farr nonsense and...

No, that's Dwellers in the Crucible! which is also awesome. ^^

Price of the Phoenix is one of the older Star Trek novels, before they were numbered - it's got Kirk dying (or was it Spock? no, I think it's Kirk...) and there were...clones? something? There's a renegade scientist named Omni who's playing mind-games with them. Totally ridiculous OTT stuff. I loved it!

Right, right, I mean, I remember both. (AWESOME!)

Or I thought I remembered both, only now I realize I was thinking of yet a third awesome book (though I've also read Price of the Phoenix). God, no wonder I used to think I liked tie in novels and now never read them. The old Star Trek ones have so many deeply special gems ~~of h/c~~.

*laughs*. I was wondering if a couple of older StarTrek books I remembered were mentioned there, and what do you know -- they're the ones specifically mentioned in that ETA2 post! That's awesome, as I'd totally forgotten the titles! No I can see if they're still at the library.

I never read a lot of Star Trek books -- but I did notice the slash! Not that I actually knew the term, at that point.

Edited 2009-12-10 06:46 (UTC)

Heh, yeah...I just checked, and I think of the 18 ST novels I own, only 4 aren't on that post! The slashy ones were the memorable ones! (I actually think they were, for the most part, the best of the Star Trek novels - few of them had much in the way of good prose or good plots, but at least the fangirl-penned novels had heart!)

ETA - no wait, I was wrong; 2 of the ones not mentioned are by Gar and Judith Reeves-Stevens, who are specifically mentioned by one of the posters as authors worth reading. They did fun space opera action stuff. So, yeah. ^^

Edited 2009-12-10 09:49 (UTC)

I love your icon and wish I had one of equal wonderfulness with which to comment.

Classic Trek was my first TV love and I spent my pre and during adolescence reading the books and trading them with my (guy) friends, odd how none of my female friends even liked scifi. Did I know no geekygirls in my high school years? I have to wonder now... And none of my guy friends even mentioned the homoerotic over, under and loud tones. Then again, I grew up in PodunkRepressionville, Western USA, go figure.

Hee, I had a lot of fun making Muncle icons. Old slash is delicious! ^^

Yeah, I think even if most guys notice "something" between the Enterprise crew (and come on, it's hard not to..."Amok Time"? "The Empath"?) they choose to ignore it...!

You know, I'd never thought of Dwellers as being explicitly fanfic-y before, but it really is, inasmuch as the plot is basically an energetically handwavy excuse to get to all the h/c and sex--the kidnapping that drives the novel seems to operate along the lines of "Hey, what if we go to some effort to make off with these important hostages and then do absolutely nothing with them while they get killed and/or emotionally tortured by their guards? Awesome, right?" This is not to say that it's a bad book, just that the author's focus is clearly on the character porn.

Oh, Dwellers is totally fanfic, simply an h/c indulgence - I think the only reason the author got it published was because it was original chars; if it had been Kirk & Spock they wouldn't have gotten away with it. But that's what makes it fun! ^^

Ha! :) Yes, I have Dwellers, and I think I have Wounded Sky. I've read Killing Time, back before I knew there was two different versions, but after reading that list of edits, I'm fairly certain the edition I read was the edited version.

I've also read Price of the Phoenix and some others by the same author - I understand the mixed reactions. They are very slashy, with lots of H/C, but that particular author also seemed to have a weird thing about making Kirk "fragile" - I remember a lot of emphasis on how much weaker Kirk was than Spock. So I kinda had a love/hate relationship with those books.

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...

Yeah, smarm - better word actually. :) I'd forgotten about smarm, although I can't imagine how after reading through Sentinel fandom. LOL! :)

Yes, the spider-alien scientist was awesome! :) She's the reason I remember that book so clearly. I guess it was on that list of slashy novels you linked to, but I didn't remember that about it.

I think the most slashy novel I ever read was one of Marshak's though - I think it was simply called Triangle. It was about this woman who both Kirk and Spock were pursuing, and she needed to bond with one of them, and in the end she somehow bonded with both of them. Have you read that one?

I was a smarm fan way before I was a slasher, so...I admit I miss it sometimes ^_^

Diane Duane's novels weren't really listed as being slashy, I don't think, just as good stuff - in terms of outright quality (instead of just fangirl quality ^^) hers are probably the best. (I've read some of her original fic too and enjoyed it...)

Triangle is part of my collection, too! Though I don't recall liking it as much as the others...I didn't like a woman coming between them, and I didn't like romance anyway. From the slash perspective I'd probably find it more palatable...

Oh god, me too!! I read and re-read those novels obsessively (and still have them today, of course). And I bought them so quickly when they came out that I actually have the original version of Killing Time. *g*

I still remember the one scene where Spock brushes a bit of concealing powder off Kirk's cheek and it's all set up so obviously that even my innocent early teen self thought "Hm, this is odd, if Kirk was a girl Spock would totally kiss him now". *g*

And those Omne novels with the clones and the endless rescuing of each other in a "no, you go and I will sacrifice myself for you because I cannot live without you" way...

And also: "Ishmael" was actually out-and-out crossover fanfic of ST with "Here Come the Brides". The publishers didn't know HCtB, so they didn't realize. :-)

Hee, the slash was quite blatant - even the cut version of Killing Time is obvious, but the uncut, yeah...

I'd heard that about Ishmael before! I think I read that one once but didn't really care for it...of course, not being familiar with the other half of the crossover, that makes sense. Hee that the author got away with it!

*giggle* *snort* I also read these books, mostly between 6th and 8th grade... Diane Duane's I remember to be some of my favorites. Also, Killing Time. :) It didn't occur to be until much later that the main draw was the relationship between the two central characters... :)

I still remember the first time I actually saw the Pon Farr episode... what an eye-opener. ;0

Yup, it was 8th-9th grade for me (7th grade was all Pern, all the time!) I admit to taking guilty pleasure rereading them now. Or at least flipping through them giggling at the good bits ^^

Oh man, I clearly remember the first time I saw Amok Time - I was maybe 8 or 9, my parents were channel-surfing and my mom was like, "ooh, I like this episode!" I remember watching and understanding exactly why she liked it ^__^

I can assure you, you were and are certainly not alone with that habit *G*.

but now, that we are in the electronic age, usally I have word docs named "clips" in my respective fandoms, and just simply cut&paste out my favorite parts of a certain fic, and have the filepath , where the actual saved fic file is located on my harddrive, below the excerpt :D

hmmm, but now you are making me wonder about my own fav novels from TNG...

its christmas!! I go home, and will pillaged my old books!!! :D

Hee - I keep a quote file, too, but I only remember it erratically...these days I just save all the fic I like, and go looking for specific scenes I like when I recall them. Fic tends to be much higher-concentration id-food than the novels... ^_^

Have fun pillaging the TNG novels, hope you find fun stuff! (I loved the TNG show but didn't get into the novels as much. Unless they had Q. Much <3 for Q! ^^)

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. I used to keep a notebook noting the page numbers of my favorite bits.

Re: . I used to keep a notebook noting the page numbers of my favorite bits.