Mark: Collected
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Mark: Collected |
| Publisher: | Margot Klein out of Germany |
| Editor(s): | |
| Date(s): | 1983 |
| Series?: | |
| Medium: | |
| Genre: | gen |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS & Mark Lenard |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Mark: Collected is a gen anthology of fiction based on the roles of the actor Mark Lenard. It contains nine stories.
- And Now the Twain Shall Meet by Elaine Norwood (Sarek and Amanda meet)
- five other Sarek stories
- a Planet of the Apes story
- a Mission Impossible story
- other unknown content
Reactions and Reviews
This zine is, and is not, many things. It is, above all, a most ambitious attempt to put out a zine in a language other than the editor’s native tongue. That in itself makes this zine noteworthy. I’m sure that most American editors faced with the same project would do far worse than the editor of this zine. Unfortunately, this zine is not one which appears to have totally fulfilled the editor’s expectations, although it is sometimes difficult to know whether the flaws result from actual problems within the stories themselves or just a matter of language problems. That is why this zine is so difficult for me to evaluate.The zine itself is based on a concept that is not totally new to fandom – a whole zine of stories based on the various roles of one actor. The thing that is unusual is that this concept is used outside a fan club. Many fan clubs have featured club zines which were done in precisely this format, but this is the first time I have encountered this in a basically ‘open to the general public’ situation. The obvious drawback to this format is that the zine is bound to have some limited appeal. However, in the world of ST fandom, there are few individual actors outside the series regulars who have inspired as much fan fiction as Mark Lenard. In this zine, that is reflected by the fact that six of the nice pieces are devoted to the role of Sarek. None of these works are especially lengthy (the longest being 12 pages) or thought-provoking.
The best of these works is ‘And Now the Twain Shall Meet.’ It is a rather usual re-telling of how Sarek meets Amanda and how they fall in love. The only thing I have found which distinguished it from other stories of this genre (and they are legion) is that in this case, the author actually allowed the two characters a reasonable amount of time to fall in love. Most other authors seem to find a need to have them fall in love in two weeks or less, while this author actually allowed them ‘one year, six months, two weeks, four days, eight hours and an odd number of minutes and seconds.’ But again, recounting time in this manner has always been a pet peeve of mine; it was over-used and in the series and smacks of triteness here, too.
The works which do not concern Sarek of Vulcan include one about a Romulan Commander, which shows occasional flashes of insight, one totally believable tale base on the role of Urko from the TV series Planet of the Apes, and one extremely confusing story based on the Col. Bakram role from Mission Impossible.
More careful editing might have improved these stories to some degree, but major changes would have been necessary to straighten out the weak fiber of the storylines themselves. They are scarcely more than story ideas with a couple of pages of dialogue thrown in. I can’t in all honestly recommend this zine to fandom in general. However, there are two different types of fans who might find this zine interesting to some degree. First, if you’re an admirer of Mark Lenard, then this zine could prove mildly interesting to you, and it would make a unique addition to your zine collection. Second, this is of interest to anyone who wanted to see what a truly ambitious undertaking looks like. While the stories are not great literature, the accomplishment of working in a second language is evident. [1]