Snowfire (Star Trek: TOS story)

Fanfiction
Title:	Snowfire
Author(s):	Pamela Rose and Lezlie Shell
Date(s):	1981
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
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Snowfire is a Kirk/Spock story by Pamela Rose and Lezlie Shell. Some fans know it as the story where "the wood wouldn't burn."

It was published in the print zine T'hy'la #1.

Summary

"Kirk and Spock are stranded when their shuttle crashes, and after Spock is injured Kirk is forced to use his body in order to get help, but misunderstandings abound after they are rescued."

Sample from the Print

• 

  from T'hy'la

• 

  I from T'hy'la, art by Vel Jaeger

Reactions and Reviews

1982

...what I suppose could be called a traditional K/S story (if there is such a thing). It has many of the elements of the aforementioned: a severely injured Spock, an extremely noble Kirk, a somewhat contrived situation, a disgusting and vile character who takes advantage of the noble Kirk, a partially recovered Spock who misunderstands and becomes jealous, a noble Kirk who becomes ill, a penitent Spock, a rescue, some aftereffects to be worked through, and a happy ending. One thing though - I couln't quite swallow the part where Spock strikes Kirk to the floor and walks out, leaving him lying there. Other than that, this story is good, basic, solid K/S.

'Snowfire' One of those 'lost in the snow' stories with a difference. Just as Spock has decided to succumb to Kirk's advances he becomes seriously injured and Kirk has effectively to prostitute himself to care for him. I'm not sure about Kirk's characterisation in this tale. He takes the physical humiliation vary hard for one with command training. To add to his problems, Spock misunderstands his motives as well.

'Snowfire' by Pamela Rose and Lezlie Shell is one of several guilt/recrimination' slanted Storie s which seem to be finding their way into K/S fiction just recently. This one invoLves Kirk being forced into prostitution on a snowbound planet in order to get food aid shelter for an injured Spock, and thereby save his life which is fair enough, but the problems started for me when Spock begins to suspect that Kirk is enjoying his prostitution. There is a great deal of the usual misunderstanding between them and rather too much hurt and not enough comfort for my taste, before things are satisfactorily resolved.

1992

Trapped on a hostile planet, and forced to have sex with a brute of a man in order to save an injured Spock, Kirk's horror and distress at having to endure continuing humiliation is almost palpable. What disturbed me most about this tale was Spock's quickness to condemn and react here, unthinking and cruel. Surely Spock knew Kirk better than to have so easily accepted a stranger's word? Ugly jealousy drowns out logic. Though he does relent in the end the capitulation is not total, and his ultimate solution to Kirk's continuing trauma a tad overdone. However, nitpicks apart, a compelling, evocating read.

1997

The shuttle crashes...

• No means of retrieving other things than blankets and a phaser?
• No means of using the shuttle as temporary lodging till rescue arrives?
• In harsh winter conditions preferring to stay in a makeshift shelter than to seek lodging in town? The planet’s secession from the Federation and the ‘possible’ hostile actions of the inhabitants given as reason, is insufficient to justify that course of action. I don’t know what it is with the portrayal of Kirk, but I have trouble with it. He just doesn’t feel right. No passion, a feeling of non-life-experience, no fighter’s spirit, those are some of the impressions I got, which aren’t compatible with...well...Kirk. I find it highly unlikely that Kirk:
• doesn’t go to a doctor or hospital with Spock first.
• can’t find shelter other than Brinok’s and doesn’t even try to
• thinks he can’t Brinok because he’s taller and weighs more.

What is his Starfleet unarmed combat training good for? Having to take care of Spock wouldn’t exactly make Kirk submissive, on the contrary, it would make him more assertive. Nothing indicates that he had no other choice than to become sexually submissive to Brinok, at least not without putting up a good fight, which he doesn’t. If indeed he saw no other solution to get help for Spock, he would be more...if I may call it that, philosophical about it. After all, he has used his body as a tool to get what he wanted, whether for personal or professional gain, so why not detach himself from what he had to do and in doing so deprive Brinok from his pleasure. Spock is...non-Spock, acting and reacting too human, in fact, all human. If it weren’t for the healing trance, I had doubts they were picturing a Vulcan.

Give Kirk and Spock other names, and the story works.

2006

While it isn’t an original concept, this is a readable story. Spock is injured on an icy planet and Kirk is forced to submit to a local innkeeper to provide warmth and food for the man to whom he had just declared his love. It’s complicated from there on out, with some reactions that I neither expect from Kirk and Spock nor that I like to see from them. Yet, who of us knows how we would react to having been degraded as Kirk was. I like to see more trust between them than was shown here, although it works out in the end – almost too easily. K/S to me is about trust and understanding as much as it is about love or lust. When there is a lapse in that trust, Kirk and Spock become much too ordinary for me – I want to see them able to rise above the petty things that cause us to spoil our relationships in real life. Perhaps the authors were just a bit too convincing!