Food for Thought (Star Trek: TOS story by Shelley Butler)

K/S Fanfiction
Title:	Food for Thought
Author(s):	Shelley Butler
Date(s):	1993
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
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Food for Thought is a Kirk/Spock story by Shelley Butler.

It was published in the print zine Against All Odds.

Summary

"The crew of the Enterprise are unaware of the alien force on board as they begin to remember, and then lose, memories."

Reactions and Reviews

This is one of my favorite scenarios; the alien civilization who harms without evil intention merely because it is fulfilling its own destiny. It is handled very well in this story. As per usual with good ideas, it seems so simple that you wonder why the idea never occurred to you. This author has a vivid and varied imagination, and part of the pleasure for me in reading her stories is in seeing what she will come up with next.

This time Kirk and the crew meet the Food Gatherer, a representative of a nearly extinct race of beings who use memories for food.

Especially good, I thought, were the descriptions of the actual abductions of Uhura, McCoy, Sulk, and Kirk. There was a nice repetitive flavor created by the echoing of certain words the alien uses, as well as the sigh at the end.

I also liked the physical description of the alien couched in terms such as, 'The alien face now swirled furiously in a maelstrom contained within the confines of a humanoid shape." And "...the once identifiable form became a whirlwind lit with blinding intensity by lightning bolts flashing from its core." Vague enough to be mysterious, yet detailed enough to give the impression of its vast power.

As has become this author's trademark, there's some very vivid writing in this story. Sometimes an overuse of adjectives as in( "By demand of his own intense desire. Kirk raised his taut, smooth ass in the air, flouting the sight of his hot, blossoming orifice in front of the warrior's eyes." But I did notice the tendency to do this lessened as the story progressed.

Also would this Spock call his captain "James" during lovemaking? Using this name instead of "Jim" makes him sound like the Mirror Spock. And he acted more like him, too, in the loves scenes at least.

And why would the alien not try to take Spock's memories? That wasn't fully explained. Somehow I expected Kirk to fight harder to keep his memories of Spock. I know this was probably unrealistic of me, but he seemed as easily conquered as the others. But I liked Kirk's question and Spock's predictable answer at the end. Nice. I even learned a new word, "xanthous" as in "...the Vulcan clutched the xanthous head to his chest..." (Look it up. Sorry, it's the teacher in me.)

An interesting and enjoyable story. Looking forward to the next one, Shelley.