The Thousandth Man (Star Trek: TOS story)
| Star Trek TOS Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Thousandth Man |
| Author(s): | Claire Gabriel |
| Date(s): | 1987 |
| Length: | |
| Genre: | gen |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: The Original Series |
| External Links: | The Thousandth Man online, Archived version |
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The Thousandth Man is a Star Trek: TOS story by Claire Gabriel.
It was published in the print zine Quartet #3.
This story is the original version of Ni Var, a story that was first published in Star Trek: The New Voyages in 1976.
Like many of the stories in that pro book, what the author originally wrote was not published as such.
Author's Notes
The last story in this volume is the original manuscript of "Ni Var"."Ni Var" was published professionally in Star Trek: The New Voyages (Bantam, 1976). It was about half as long as "The Thousandth Man," had one additional scene and a number of other changes that were necessitated by the exigencies of professional publishing. More important, a number of scenes in the original manuscript were drastically cut or eliminated altogether.
I did some of this editing myself, and the editors of The New Voyages did the rest. The result was generally much tighter and more closely knit than the original manuscript, but it was not the same story.
"The Thousandth Man" is the manuscript as I originally drafted it. I have asked that it be included in this volume because some of the readers of both versions have indicated to me that the additional material in the first draft enhanced the emotional impact inherent in the situation around which the story was created. Two scenes in particular -- one between Spock and Kirk and one between Spock and Scotty -- seemed to give the story an added dimension for many readers.
It is not uncommon these days to see variations of the same sf story published under differing circumstances. The most obvious example is the short story or (more frequently) novelette that is published in a magazine and later becomes part of a novel. In some cases, the separately copyrighted novel may even have the same title as the shorter piece.
I have chosen to re-title the original manuscript "The Thousandth Man" in order to avoid confusion and to emphasize that it is not the same story as the New Voyages "Ni Var." Happily, I feel that the latter title is as representative as the former was. [1]