After the Fall

Fanfiction
Title:	After the Fall
Author(s):	M.E.B
Date(s):	1980s
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
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After the Fall is a Kirk/Spock story by M.E.B.

It was published in California K/S 4 Play.

Reactions and Reviews

"After the Fall", by M.E.B., is the longest story in the zine (64 pages), and I may have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn't been so difficult to read and wasn't yet another "Spock brainwashed and turned into a slave" story. The difficult reading stemmed from the fact that the author uses almost no transitionary phrases to get the reader from one scene to the next. This results in reading that is choppy and leaves one with the feeling that the story is being told in short cuts. Another annoying trait was that the author kept referring to Kirk as 'the young captain". I didn't see the point in constantly reminding us of his age. As for the story itself, it begins after 'The Paradise Syndrome" and presents a Kirk who hasn't quite recovered from being zapped by the oblisk, and who is therefore blaming Spock for the death of his wife. Spock resigns from Starfleet via an admiral on a starbase and obtains false identification, so no one can find him, and gets a job in engineering on a lowly freighter. He is raped by an officer on the ship over a period of time, escapes, then is captured by slavers. Thankfully, we aren't given the details of his drugging, brainwashing, and slave training. He ends up at a brothel on a planet of cruel aliens. Eventually, he is rescued and transported to Vulcan, where the healers there are able to help him not only recover from his ordeal, but to acknowledge the tentative link that had developed between he and Kirk before he left the ship. I thought Kirk's characterization was off throughout most of the story, and he came across as rather childish at times. The one aspect of this story that I did like was the Vulcan healer, Selek. He was a well-developed character-warm, gentle, and caring, but still Vulcan. Overall, this novella had too much 'tell" and too little "show" and could only have benefitted from some good editing.