The Orion Incident

Zine
Title:	The Orion Incident
Publisher:	ScoTpress
Editor:	Sheila Clark, Valerie Piacentini
Author(s):	Pac Deacon
Cover Artist(s):	Roo
Illustrator(s):	Roo
Date(s):	September 1987
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS
Language:	English
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

cover by Roo

The Orion Incident is a 75-page gen Star Trek: TOS novel by Pac Deacon subtitled, "Scenes of a Family Life." Sheila Clark & Valerie Piacentini are the editors.

Sample Interior

• 
• 
• 
• 

Reactions and Reviews

The Orion Incident", penned by Pac Deacon and put out by SCOTPRESS, is aptly subtitled "Scenes of Family Life"--Fair warning that it is not so much a novel as a cozy stroll through the corridors of the Enterprise, arm in arm with your favorite regular. Plot takes a back seat to tenuously related pages of junior and senior officers treating each other with pajama-party familiarity; Spock tenderly tucking his cloak around a sleeping Bones McCoy, and Kirk comforting a sobbing Chekov with the awkward affection usually reserved for exasperating little brothers. All extremely well written; and if you like your Treklit heavily glazed with this kind of comfy camaraderie, this is the zine for you. It's billed as novel in which "the Enterprise rescues the sole survivor from a ship attacked by Orion pirates--a young girl in whom both McCoy and Chekov take a personal interest." Since she is of course, beautiful, Chekov's interest is self-explanatory. McCoy's absorbtion stems from the girl's eerie ability to remind him of his daughter Joanna. The author comes back to this again and again, but it fails as a subplot because it is never explained. Pac's prose is flowing, vivid and professional, but a single strong storyline never emerges. The girl, Marinta, has overheard one of the Orions mention their next destination, the planet Talasson. So Kirk decides to go pirate-hunting, and in a really bone-headed way. On arrival, they all beam down and go poking about in the woods, apparently looking for footprints or burned out campfires to tell them if Talasson is indeed the marauders' base. They do find hoards of friendly macaws and little deerlike things that crowd around to be petted, but no Orions. They try again. Scotty beams everybody back, then sets them down again in another location. Still no luck. Finally, Kirk decides they had better flick on the sensors. I get the idea that the zine was written without an outline, and that the author kept adding scenes until she was tired of the whole thing. There is no game plan; no logical progression of events building to something inevitable. The "climax" is simply an easy out; a way to get everyone back aboard the Enterprise and let the reader know that it's time to come in now. Pac has also missed a golden opportunity to explore the Chekov-McCoy relationship by giving them a common need; a need expressed in their attraction for the same girl. Focusing more on these two might have been a good way to unify events and point the author towards a definite through-line. Possibly she missed the boat because she was too busy trying to give equal time to everybody -- The Big Three share top billing with Chekov, and Sulu and Uhura have respectable supporting roles. She writes dialogue beautifully, but the Britishisms do come creeping in. It's a little jarring to hear Kirk talking about "sea-bathing" instead of swimming, and it's downright weird when Sulu tells Chekov to "come along now, Pavel, there's a good chap". There are 75 pages of text and five accompanying illos, if you don't count the cover. All are excellent likenesses; although the artist, Roo, leaves Chekov out in the cold. Not a single illo includes him; maybe because the little guy is such a phenomenal bitch to draw. Pac's characterizations alone make "The Orion Incident" a good buy for fans of her four principles. In the future though, she'll need a strong editor to take her arm and steer her firmly from initial premise to fatal conclusion. And any zine-ed worth her salt should jump at the chance.

Enterprise recovers the sole survivor of an Orion raid - a young woman in whom McCoy takes a paternal, and Chekov a romantic interest. She is predictably done in by her own hate. Reasonably well written, and a couple of nice illos, but a not-very convincing plot. The author can't make up her mind if the gang are downplanet for shore leave or to catch a bunch of bloodthirsty Orions.