Schovil

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	Schovil
Author(s):	Joyce Tullock & Ingrid Cross
Date(s):	1983
Length:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
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Schovil is a Star Trek: TOS story by Joyce Tullock & Ingrid Cross.

It was published in the print zine Galactic Discourse #4.

Summary

McCoy's efforts to investigate mistreatment of inmates in a prison camp lead to his secret imprisonment on a planet uhere the climate is often fatal to humans. The doctor is befriended by a fellow prisoner while Kirk and Spock search for him.

Reactions and Reviews

"Schovil," by Joyce Tullock and Ingrid Cross, loses McCoy in a concentration camp, where he is befriended by a Zan named Schovil. The small humanoid keeps the doctor alive through some rather graphic sickroom scenes till the Enterprise can retrieve him. Tullock and Cross delineate the personalities of Schovil, the camp warders, an old enemy of McCoy, and the Big E regulars with precision, economy, clarity, and finesse; each character's speech and behavior typify him throughout the story. Well done.

Post-TMP. McCoy H/C. On assignment to train Zanatan surgeons, McCoy gets nosy about conditions in the "corrections" work camps that underpin the planet's society (which is divided into diminutive, deft Zans with eyes adjustable to microscopic focus and the more humanoid Outminders). A former colleague with an axe to grind and a bribery scandal to avoid has McCoy sentenced to the camps, where he contracts a nasty parasitic infection and is looked after by the Zan convict Schovil. Kirk and Spock effect a rescue just in time. Good relationship scenes, but the comfort here is mostly provided by Schovil. Cross & Tullock's usual good writing and characterization of the Big Three relationships. Points for nicely alien aliens - loved the eyes - and a really icky new disease, a gelatinous mass that must be physically removed as it crawls up the throat.

'Schovil' is one of the best McCoy stories I have ever read, and one of the best ST stories period. The good Doctor mysteriously disappears while assigned to do some teaching on the planet Zan, leaving his friends on the Enterprise to search for him. What raises this from a run-of-the-mill 'Missing Persons' story is the fine writing and extra fine characterizations. 'Schovil' is a Zan, by the way, and once you read the story, you'll never forget him. The authors' attention to detail here (even down to an idiomatic speech pattern for Schovil) really pays off.

'Best of Zine' is a toss-up between 'Schovil' and 'Conundrum.' The former finds McCoy the victim of a vengeul collegue and a prison planet whose bureaucracy and environment are equally unhealthy. Help comes from an unexpected quarter, via a lively alien created with care. The story is written with vigor, blending fast action and solid characterizations.