Let's calculate the 'score' for Bantam and see if they can be said to have 'won' the Fizzbin game so far.
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| Title: | "Let's calculate the 'score' for Bantam and see if they can be said to have 'won' the Fizzbin game so far." (the title used here on Fanlore |
| Creator: | Jean Stevenson |
| Date(s): | July 1979 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | a focus on Star Trek: TOS |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Let's calculate the 'score' for Bantam and see if they can be said to have 'won' the Fizzbin game so far. is a 1978 essay by Jean Stevenson.
It was printed in Right of Statement #3 as part of a three-essay series called "For Your Information."
- How about a discussion of one of everybody's favorite topics: money? by Jean Lorrah
- Copyright: at the moment we are stuck with what the Library of Congress says by Jean Lorrah
- Let's calculate the 'score' for Bantam and see if they can be said to have 'won' the Fizzbin game so far. by Jean Stevenson
Some Topics Discussed
- the Star Trek pro book writing guidelines, and the tight reins TPTB keep on creativity [1]
- fandom and profit
- the difficulty in writing Trek books for multiple audiences
- Star Trek Pro Novels
- Bantam Books
- Pocket Books
From the Essay
The above is a list of the total output of original Star Trek (ST) fiction from Bantam Books to date. According to the October 1978 issue of Locus: The Newspaper of the: Science Fiction Field, Kathleen Sky and Stephen Goldin will each be writing more ST novels "to bring the total (of Bantam publications] to twelve before the fall of 1980." At that time, Pocket Books which happens to be a division of Simon & Schuster which happens to be a subsidiary of Gulf & Western Corporation (guess who owns Paramount Pictures!) will begin publishing their own professional, original ST fiction. The November 1978 issue of Locus reports: "Pocket Books now owns all of the publishing rights in Star Trek. There will be no more new Star Trek material from Ballantine or Bantam."
In view of this, it is about time we took a serious look at what is being given to the public - the closet trekkies and the disinterested as well as those science fiction (sf) fans who liked ST when it was on the air and would give anything to read a good sf book.
Let's calculate the 'score' for Bantam and see if they can be said to have 'won' the Fizzbin game so far. We'll also talk about some of the blocks they have thrown up in front of the writers' typewriters.
My simple of a points is a simple one, on asterisk apiece for each of the following:1) recognizable ST characters (even if only occasionally)
2) reasonably exciting depiction of those characters (and no, they are not all exciting all by the themselves. The author has to a little bit of work or it has usually come out in one big yawn!)
3) mind-broadening science problems (to fit the 'science' part of sf) and
4) a consistent narrative style and that unnamable something that gives the whole work such conflict, warmth and cliff-hanging/nail-biting substance that it is instantly and naturally perceived to be within the ST universe, and the reader literally cannot put it down.
OPEN STATEMENT TO THE POWERS THAT BE: Only one of the books listed above has accomplished all four of those goals!
OPEN STATEMENT TO JOE HALDEMAN: Thank ghu, somebody did it right and fun and exhilarating and I loved it! Why couldn't you pull it together as well as this with your first one (which wasn't really all that bad)? And what do you mean "this is my last Star Trek book"!?!
Actually, you know, we cannot blame the authors for some of the deficiencies in that list of books that begins this piece, (You can find my review of Vulcan! elsewhere in these pages.) No, there are hazards awaiting the writer who would like to go pro via Star Trek, or who just wants to earn a little filthy lucre.
Bantam's contract is about to run out...and they're trying to get all they can out of it before the movie arrives. That makes a lot of sense. Pocket Books has let it be known that they will not begin publishing until after the movie, at which time all the new stuff will have to fit whatever changes in costume and culture are found in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Pocket Books has also picked up the guidelines for writing ST fiction that Bantam has always used...and PB has added some.
We'll discuss that in a minute.
Let's admit, first, that Roddenberry and Paramount have a genuine interest and right to say what kind of literature is published. A professionally published work is supposedly in the REAL Star Trek Universe (not one of the alternates we have been so pleased to enjoy). They have had no choice but to be a little lax in the area of fanzines, but considering some of the arguments that go on among the relative few who are active in fandom, it is obviously even,more difficult to produce a story-line and characters who will be familiar and exciting and welcome to the more than 25,000 ST fans there are in the U.S. alone. However, if we use this reasoning (i.e. the option for the 'real' ST universe), we cone to a depressing conclusion that they (the publishers and the studio) are no longer capable of judging (Roddenberry was at one time, you know... and publishers supposedly gain sure-fire knowledge the older and more-prestigious, they get), judging what makes good literature, good sf, and above all, good, fun Star Trek. I think they just need to get better authors and more interested ones to do the writing for them.
Earlier I mentioned the guidelines of writing ST fiction for possible professional publication. They are seen occasionally in some one of the letterzines or the few regularly published fanzines. What do they really say about the vision or lack of it of the people who put them together?
The Ratings
Spock Must Die! *** The main objection to this book is that it is a little cold. It's as if there's an invisible screen between the reader and what he/she is reading. This was never true in aired ST.
Spock, Messiah! [no asterisks] This one is a too obviously an exploitation of the popularity of Spock the Alien without a corresponding attempt to understand the true causes of that popularity or the character itself.
Price of the Phoenix ** Although well-endowed with the warmth of emotion popular among ST fans and possessed of a scientific problem and philosophical 'gordion knot', this book tends to lack the overall joi de vivre of the ST universe. A most 'dour' piece.
Planet of Judgement ** The science problem is nice and involves some really exciting aliens and the climax meets the single criterion of 'great' love that a man 'lay down his life for a friend.' However, the inattention to some of the smaller details which makes the universe in which the book takes place is not quite recognizable as a 'genuine' ST article. (See, Joe, the better you are, the pickier we get.)
Vulcan! [no asterisks] Actually, a perfect review of this can be found on page 14, paragraph 1, of "World Without End."
Starless World * Has fascinating sf but is always a little off-kilter as per the characters. They're there, but they resemble echoing tin-men... no hearts.
Trek to Madworld * The most interesting characters turned out to be the visitor and her Romulan pal. This after almost 100 pages of blah about Kirk et al.
World Without End **** Is like watching 'Bread and Circuses,' or 'Shore Leave,' or 'The City on the Edge of Forever,' or 'Turnabout Intruder,' or ... sigh.
In closing (great ghu, at last!) Joe Haldeman (in WWE), thanks some local fen for helping him, keep consistent with the aired show...but that's not all. He stayed consistent with the spirit of the show as well. I'm looking forward to the movie. Dare we look forward to the rest of the books?
References
- ^ Guidelines put in place six years later: Pocket Book's Star Trek Pro Novel Guidelines (1985). One can only assume that in 1979, there weren't so many of them, but that the tone was the same.