A Brief Encounter in a Timeless War

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	A Brief Encounter in a Timeless War
Author(s):	Jim Van Hise
Date(s):	1979
Length:	10,000 words
Genre:
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
External Links:	A Brief Encounter in a Timeless War at AO3, archive-locked
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A Brief Encounter in a Timeless War is a gen Star Trek: TOS story by Jim Van Hise.

It takes place in The Weight universe.

This story was published in Enterprise Incidents #7.

From a flyer for the zine this story appeared in:

This is the untold tale of the Romulan Invasion of Earth alluded to in Leslie Fish's epic serial "The Weight". The story is written by James Van Hise but has been overseen by Leslie Fish for continuity and does contain ideas she suggested upon reading the first draft. It is an unusual story of an Enterprise crewman who remains behind on the Earth of the altered universe and experiences first hand the savagery of the invasion. It is illustrated by RALPH FOWLER and MICHAEL VERINA.

Author's Comments

In response to a LoC in Enterprise Incidents regarding how talented writers should stop writing Trek stories and instead write professional fiction to make money, the author responded:

Actually, I think that these writers find writing Star Trek fiction, or whatever kind of derivative fiction, good practice in putting one word after the other. Not every piece of fiction I write is going to be something I'll put in the mail to a professional editor. A writer should be able to write things just for themselves, or just for fun, or just for practice, and in fan fiction writers can write and publish things wherein they can deal with subjects that the professional markets have no interest in. Plus, they can get feedback on their style and ability. I really got into writing "A Brief Encounter in a Timeless War." I wrote the first draft in two days and three months later I sat down and wrote the second draft in one day (over a period of 12 hours) in what writers call a "white heat" of total involvement and high energy. I enjoyed it. I got into these characters, and even without the backdrop of the ST universe this tale would still be interesting, as would "The Weight", from which it was derived.

Reactions and Reviews

"A Brief Encounter In A Timeless War." That was great... It's all a real mind trlx. Really, imagine to die and then wake up and know that the whole other timeline was real, and that you really died in another time, but it didn't really happen be­cause it was erased from time. I think I got that right now as it's all very confusing but very imaginative. It's enough to make you have a nervous break-down. Poor Kirk.