Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucdavis.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!ucdavis!ccrrick From: ccrrick@ucdavis.UUCP (Rick Heli) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Star Trek novels Message-ID: <31@ucdavis.UUCP> Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 02:42:54 EDT Article-I.D.: ucdavis.31 Posted: Wed Aug 28 02:42:54 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 30-Aug-85 07:22:32 EDT Distribution: net Organization: University of California, Davis Lines: 93 >rick heli == >> & >> > L S Chabot .EQ. > >> You misconstrue the issue. > >No, you let yourself wide-open for this one >> > I have been told by a fairly knowledgable source that anyone who >> > writes Star Trek novels has basically sold out and probably can't >this is kind of nasty------------------------^ ^ >this implies that Paramount won't let them------------------------^ > or that they're incapable of it > If it implied that Paramount won't let them, there would be no qualifier like "probably." Either Paramount does or does not. Why don't you stick to reading what it says, not what you want it to say? >> > sell non-Star Trek material. Apparently Paramount holds all the >> > rights to Star Trek stories and pretty much has such writers at >> > their mercy. >this ------^ > sounds like the "slavery" clause we thought you were claiming--why else > "mercy": hacks can always find work > "at their mercy" as in authors have no bargaining power as Paramount holds all the rights. Of course, you went right ahead and compounded your earlier error. >> It is not that Paramount would seek to >> prevent writers from writing non-Star Trek related materials, only >> that their restrictions are so bad that no writer would want to >> write for them. So who does? Simply those who can't write anywhere >> else... in general, anyway... if not in every particular... >> >> And, PUHleeze, don't hold up Vonda McIntyre as an example of good >> SF writing... or even good Star Trek writing... not to me at any >> rate... > >Look, just don't get nasty. Vonda McIntyre has sold a lot more fiction that you >have, unless you're publishing under a pseudonym, and you originally said >"...probably can't sell non-Star Trek material." You've been given other >examples of authors who've published non-ST material: John M. Ford, Diane >Duane, A C Crispin, Greg Bear, Barbara Hambly (and she even has non-science- >fiction-fantasy stuff published, and fantasy, and I think even non-fiction), >Lawrence Yep. Now, that's 7 authors: how about you, or your knowledgeable >source, come up with a list of those who aren't published elsewhere. > Who's getting nasty? I'm simply repeating a statement made to me and checking it out. My, aren't you the sensitive one. Is Vonda McIntyre your grandmother or what? And where do you get off defending her when you admit you haven't even read any of her ST schtuff? Probably saying that these people couldn't get published was giving the wrong slant to it. In an ideal world, they couldn't. Sadly, in this day and age, you make a pittance on some ST novel and other publishers figure you must be good and start publishing. Kind of reminds me of prime time TV. You need to hunt pretty hard to find anything that rises above the dreck. Or, you get someone like Vonda McIntyre who, coming out of the Clarion "homogenizing" school hasn't had an original idea in years. Look at her "Entropy Effect," the book which garnered the most votes in the recent ST novel poll. About time travel for pete's sake. That idea's as old as the hills. Sure time travel can be used, but let's try a new variation on it. These are the 1980's folks. A story can't live on time travel alone. First it makes no logical sense and second it's been done to death since H. G. Wells himself! And as for the characters... who are they? Not the Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Sulu I know. Spock & McCoy try a harebrained scheme and not even tell Mr. Scott? McCoy the captain? The characters don't even feel like the TV shows or am I the only one who remembers? > >If your issue was just to say nasty things about those who've published ST >novels, well, you've done that. Congratulations. We've given you >counter-examples: what do you say to that? Perhaps they're not to your taste. >Oh, well. What *do* you like and KNOW about ST: let's talk about that instead. > Not for the sake of being nasty. Just letting a little light shine. If the net votes for (and thereby recommends) a book that I think is lousy, I'm going to let someone know. The same goes for the idea of the ST novels in a larger sense. It appears to me, sad but true, that there are lots of good ST fans out there willing to put up this inferior stuff that you are defending so vigorously. -- --rick heli (... ucbvax!ucdavis!groucho!ccrrick)