Offstage Enterprise

Zine
Title:	Offstage Enterprise
Publisher:	Empathy Publications
Editor:
Author(s):	Glen David
Cover Artist(s):
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	1981
Medium:	print
Size:	A4
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS
Language:	English
External Links:
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Offstage Enterprise is a gen Star Trek: TOS 64-page novel by Glen David.

From an ad in Universal Translator: "A new series by Glen David, featuring Dr. Farraday, a new crewmember. The gaps and background of episodes are filled in."

Chapters

• A Problem with Curves (1)
• Eccentric Numbers (13)
• Troubles (29)
• Towards the Horizon (46)
• A Task of Moderate Complexity (62)
• Odds and Evens (82)
• Pieces of Action (99)

1982

'Offstage Enterprise' is a one-story zine by Glen David and with the advent of Dr. Janet Faraday, red-haired, beautiful, super intelligent, on the Enterprise. It sounds as though the author has created a recipe for Mary Sue disaster. Not so, for although Dr. Faraday has all the afore mentioned attributes, she is blissfully unselfconscious of her appearance, being absorbed in her own work and life and this is one of the keys to the story and the explanation of the title.

Behind the familiar bridge crew are approximately four hundred other beings, living, working, loving, gossiping away their lives in the close confines of the ship. Their views of events of dramatic on the bridge are quite different from those of the major characters. How would an ordinary crew member experience the Kelvans? What went on during the long haul to Triskelion? What piece of the action befell Dr. Faraday and what about the tribbles? The answers provide an enthralling peep behind the scenes of Enterprise life, where, to the lowly science staff, Spock is the God in the machine, distant awesome...

This chronicle of the less exalted members of the Enterprise introduces a number of minor new characters, all of whom are immensely believable (except possibly the inefficiencies of Miss Kozuluk — I can't see Spock enduring those for a moment.). Yet the bridge crew, too, are featured and the strength of friendship between Captain and First Officer is conveyed with more deftness and less sentiment than usual.

However, this leads me to my one major criticism that while coincidence is the stuff of fiction, I find it stretched a little too far in the many encounters of Dr. Faraday with the Captain. A new and beautiful face would naturally be an attraction but I doubt there would be that many opportunities for conversation with the lowliest member of the computer staff. Yes, Janet Faraday is a Ph.D. not an M.D, and her speciality is computer sciences; her intellect permitting her detailed analysis of the eccentric number theory with the holder of the A7 computer rating. This I am prepared to accept but not, I think, that one, who played chess only with her father, could win the Enterprise chess tournament. I am not a chess player, but from watching TV's "Master Game", it appears that varied experience is essential.

The second key to this story is based on the author's stardate chronology, extrapolated mainly from the stardates mentioned in the series, which places 'The Trouble With Tribbles', 'Gamesters of Triskelion' and 'A Piece of the Action' in sequence, a familiar grouping but this reviewer had not considered that they followed one another in such close succession. The author has linked the three, drawing together the threads of action using the life of offstage Enterprise to create a unity, a highly original, almost new kind of Trek story. The style is crisply sophisticated and altogether a delight to read. I await future efforts with keen anticipation.

1990

This zine covers events aboard the Enterprise around the events of "The Trouble of Tribbles," "The Gamesters of Triskelion," and "A Piece of the Action" - but wlth a difference. The story is told from the viewpoint of one Doctor Janet Faraday, a new member of the Science team, and the aforementioned are not the only things that see is involved in: she 'volunteers' to take part in a show being put on by some of the crew, and is 'persuaded' to join the ship's chess tournament, despite, as she says, having "only ever played my father"!

This is a really clever zine, and very well written. The reader gets to see Kirk, Spock, McCoy et all from someone else's point of view, and very interesting it is, too. The story is cleverly constructed around the 'known' section; it all fits in perfectly together. One of the things I like about it is that Doctor Faraday becomes friends with Spock without either a) mooning about dribbling over him or b) trying to attract his advances; on the contrary, she ends up discussing eccentric numbers with him. Brilliant! I got this zine at Frontiers for 50p - a bargain if ever there was one - although I would have paid more; it would be well worth it. Get it if you can!