Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2023: Week 45
Kista is a 1986 Star Trek: The Original Series zine novel by Jane Land, focusing on the pairing Spock/Christine Chapel. The story follows the characters Spock and Christine after they are kidnapped by Orion slave traders. A sequel, Demeter, also written by Land, was released in 1987.
Kista is notable in the Star Trek fandom for its minimalist black and white cover art, and Land's depiction of Christine and her relationship with Spock. Many fans praised Land's characterization of Christine, describing Land's deception of Christine as intelligent and strong, often in contrast to other fanfiction written at the time and the source material. In an editorial for Kista, Land described the novel as "an attempt to rescue one of Star Trek's female characters from an artificially imposed case of foolishness."
In 2009, the Organization for Transformative Works' Open Doors Project archived Kista and Demeter both as PDFs and on Archive of Our Own.