Nimbus: The Fanzine of Galactic Peace

Zine
Title:	Nimbus: The Fanzine of Galactic Peace
Publisher:	U.S.S. Polaris
Editor(s):	Gail Sakurai
Date(s):	1991-?
Series?:
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS and Star Trek: TNG
Language:	English
External Links:
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Nimbus: The Fanzine of Galactic Peace is a gen Star Trek: TOS and TNG anthology of fiction, poetry, parodies, and art.

Issue 1

Nimbus: The Fanzine of Galactic Peace 1 was published in 1991 and contains just over 100 pages, spiral-bound.

• Preface
• Cover Artist
• Meet Our Contributors
• The Cause Was Sufficient by Sherry Hopper (1)
• The Aubra Incident by Nicholas Sakurai (5)
• Are We Not Fans? by Tom Milinski (17)
• Lovely Lady by Gail Sakurai (12)
• Where the Heart Is by Tom Wagner (14)
• Polaris by Starlight by Anonymous (17)
• Feud by Flenna Juifs, Cynthia Paugh and Alan Collier (22)
• Soliloquy by Sherry Hopper (25)
• Crater's Paradise? by Carolyn Cook (29)
• Trek in Unlikely Places by Joy Menges (37)
• A Question of Innocence by Diane K. McCarty (39)

Reactions and Reviews: Issue 1

Nimbus 1 is the first fanzine put out by the USS Polaris, a Starfleet chapter located in Hamilton, Ohio, between Dayton and Cincinnati. Despite the fact that it is a club publication, many of the writers are non-Starfleet-member Trek fans from the area. The result is a general issue Star Trek zine that covers both Classic and New Gen.

A section in the zine gives biographical information about the writers and where they got the ideas for their stories. This was a good idea I would like to see repeated by other zines. Art work is scarce, except for a great two-part front cover. The stories are varied between emotional and adventure-type stories. There is even a "choose your own adventure" Star Trek, which is short but very sweet. There are some stories that are more understandable to the Polaris' members, but they are short and the in-jokes are pretty general to anyone who has been in a club. There are some good non-fiction articles; one is called "Are We Not Fans" and defends Star Trek fen against "normal people," while "Heroes With Pocket Protectors" is a look at the reasons why Trek has been so popular the last 25 years. The main story in the zine is "The Chronicles of Bob: The Wayward Travel Pod" (Parts One and Two). This is sort of cute, but it has the same sort of problems that nearly all the stories do—a real lack of emotional weight. In all the stories there is a good amount of action and plot but there is more to writing a story than adventure. Characterization seems to have fallen by the wayside as the number of one-dimensional characters shows. In all, I ended up not caring if Bob, The Travel Pod, arrives through the time warp with his female crew to the New Gen time where, of course, all the male bridge members fall in love with the members of Bob's crew, and so on.

This is not a fatal flaw, but one which should be worked on for future issues. Many of the writers are first time in print and show a great deal of promise. For a person new to fanzines, Nimbus 1 would still be a good buy. At $10, it's a good buy for limited budgets. For me, I am used to more well-drawn characters. Their lack is the only black mark against the editors. This is the first zine put out by this club and I am sure that with time and experience, the zines will get better.

Issue 2

Nimbus: The Fanzine of Galactic Peace 2 was published in 1992 and contains 170 pages.

Note: In a 1992 issue of the Starfleet Communique newsletter the following ad was listed: "SPOCK’S ADVENTURE hosts the USS Polaris, and offers its own newsletter and a hardcopy fanzine, NIMBUS, for which on-line submissions are accepted, The number for this BBS is... SPOCK’S ADVENTURE is also on TrekNet and FidoNet, the addresses are 87:6001/1839 (TrekNet) and 1:108/174 FidoNet)." [1]