Time and Time Again (Star Trek: TNG zine)

You may be looking for the multimedia zine Time and Again.

Zine
Title:	Time and Time Again
Publisher:	Ruff & Ready Press
Editor:
Author(s):	Michael Ruff
Cover Artist(s):
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	April 1990
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Trek: TNG/Star Trek: TOS
Language:	English
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

cover by David Lawrence

Time and Time Again is a gen 184-page Star Trek: TNG/Star Trek: TOS zine by Michael Ruff.

The art is by David Lawrence and Donna Hull.

It is a crossover time travel novel.

This zine is the winner of a 1991 Fan Q Award for Best Star Trek Novel.

It has a sequel, Time After Time And Time Again.

From the Editorial

Writing TIME AND TIME AGAIN has been a very enjoyable endeavor for me, especially since it is my first attempt at penning something for fandom. At first, my skills were a bit rusty, but eventually the kinks worked themselves out, thanks to the help of a few friends. Bob Gusciora and Lorraine Bartlett each tore my manuscript to shreds before we were all satisfied with its outcome. Lorraine was the one to rewrite or cut whole segments and Bob meticulously screened every word and every bit of punctuation before he let me rest. Thanks also to Patti Heyes for catching what they missed.

Art fandom was something completely new to me, so I'm lucky that there are any illios at all in TIME AND TIME AGAIN. But commendations go out to David Lawrence for his exceptional artwork, (all produced under unreasonable deadlines.) Thanks again David. Also, thanks to Donna Hull, whom I pulled out of the ranks of retirement to do a few sketches. I really appreciate the wonderful and quick work.

I had the idea for combining the classic Trek and Next Gen crews a long time before I entered fandom, and started writing this novel for fun. It was something that I wanted to see written, so I decided to develop it. Now I realize that there are a lot of people who would also be interested in reading my work, so here it is. After you're finished reading this novel, if you wish to comment I'd be more than happy to hear from you. Also, I have a sequel in the works, and hope to have it done by this time next year. Send me a SASE and I'll keep it on file and let you know of its progress.

Thanks for your interest, and I really hope you enjoy TIME AND TIME AGAIN as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Sample Interior Gallery

• 

  David Lawrence

• 

  David Lawrence

• 

  Donna Hull

• 

  Donna Hull

Reactions and Reviews

Unknown Date

Delightful TOS/TNG crossover. Kirk & Co. rescue a nasty race of slimy, toothy, large but quick slugs from an impending asteroid. This results in the slugs surviving to develop craft that are invincible due to a time-distorting mechanism, which they use to harvest humans on which to feast in TNG's era. No doubt there are plenty of plot flaws revolving about the time-distorter, but it's a heck of a good yarn and the dialog and characterization are very fine. Nice parallels of the Kirk/Spock and Picard/Data relationships, good McCoy scenes, and a generally fine rollick. Excellent denouement as Kirk, in opposition to Picard, once again refuses to obey the Prime Directive (which would mean destroying the Demokians) - and throws the ball (er, asteroid) into Picard's court.

1990

This zine needs a dual score.

In order to deal with it, presentation has to be separated from the story idea. Time and Time Again is one of the most clever, best-plotted concepts of all the "James T. Kirk meets Jean-Luc Picard" crossovers. On a one-to-five scale, this novella is reaching for a ten.

But to the everlasting misfortune of those who've paid their cold, hard cash, its presentation— and this covers both writing and art—is so poorly executed that one cannot help but weep for the trees that died for the paper. We want to take Mr. Ruff by the collar and shake him for letting such an ingenious story out for public scrutiny without polishing it, and also for failing to round up the really class-A artwork it deserves.

It is difficult to know where to begin to comment on this zine. First of all, the story cannot seem to make up its mind who its audience is—fans, or someone who's just stopped by for the ride. I'm aware that we have to consider a fairly broad audience these days, but let's get real about it. Anyone who's chosen to read Time and Time Again probably knows enough about the characters to make Mr. Ruff's endless set-off descriptions such as "Spock, the Vulcan First Officer" almost silly. This reads like ninth grade composition class. Sentences like "The youth smiled at his friend and laid his ultra technical tools on Data's bunk," are just plain ludicrous. Amateurish. Yes, yes, we know that we're not pros, here, but can't we strive? This pronouncedly juvenile style is a tremendous deterrent to anyone who attempts to slog through this gem-in-the-rough.

But we'd heard there was a really clever story under it, so slog we did. That such fannish luminaries as are referred to in his opening letter encouraged Mr. Ruff to publish this story in this condition is incomprehensible. One in particular produces such a high quality piece of work that we can only assume it had been a long day when the time came to comment on this piece. It needed a serious red pencil taken to it, and some wholesale deletion of the proliferation of puerilisms. Hey, what are friends for when they, too, are in the business?

Noteworthy art might have assuaged some of our disappointment, but that was not to be had, either. Correction: there's one truly stellar piece, of Uhura (and who cares what her first name is, really?) with Geordi, but the rest is either so stock — such as Spock with the three-dimensional chess set that we've seen repeatedly for the past twenty-plus years—as to be trite and boring or so totally devoid of any quality--like the Kirk and Picard portraits—as to be embarrassing.

The Big E illos used to indicate the time switches would've been much more effective if they had been about one-fourth of the size they are. Again, we cannot fathom why Mr. Ruff did not get out and hustle for some high-quality artwork. Securing one artist to illustrate overall would have maintained continuity of style, since this is a novella, if he had to go with different artists, good Lord, man, let's have something worth the ink used to print it, if not worth the story itself! That's the truly frustrating thing about Time and Time Again.

How the kidnapping of research colonists on Singus 12 creates the conditions for the crossover required a lot of fancy footwork that was well-planned. But the quality of the writing is so abysmally poor that everyone we've talked with said they gave up after the first few, horrendous pages.

Buy it, by all means. It's a nifty idea. But grit your teeth and be prepared to wade through some of the most insufferably sophomoric prose fandom's seen in a while.

1994

If you love mixing your universes, if you can't wait till the new Star Trek movie comes out with its promise of Kirk and Co. together with Picard and Co., and especially if you enjoy any type of story dealing with time travel and all its convolutions and paradoxes, then sit down and pull up a chair because, my friend, these zines are for you.

I happen to be a sucker for crossover and time travel stories. (My all time favorite pro novel of just sheer fun is Ishmael by Barbara Hambly. For anyone who hasn't read this, it is a crossover novel mixing Star Trek and Here Come the Brides, a 70's TV show. In this novel Spock travels back in time, loses his memory and becomes a member of the Seattle community. Mark Lenard, who plays the role of Sarek, played the part of Aaron Stemple in this show and Hambly creates a wonderful, finely etched character of the man who eventually saves the United States from an alien invasion and ends up being Spock's ancestor. I won't go into more detail but do highly recommend it.)

T&TA was published in 1990. It is 180 pages long and features artwork by David Lawrence. This zine won Best Star Trek Novel in the 1990 Fan Q Awards and is the better of the two zines [referring to its sequel]. The television contacts between Classic and Next Generation casts have been less than satisfactory. I disliked intensely the depiction of Sarek — a strong, logical character reduced to a man clinging to the shreds of his logic. True, as some writers have noted, it reflects life but must everything reflect real life? Why can't Star Trek reflect a touch of fantasy, a touch of greater than life grandeur? There are certainly a multitude of true to life stories out there, usually showing up as a movie of the week with all the harshness and bleakness of everyday life anyone could ask for. Star Trek is something much more reflecting our dreams and our hopes...

T&TA opens in the Next Generation's present with a dramatic attack by mechanical dinosaur birds that decimate a scientific colony and a neighboring world. As Picard and the crew rush to the rescue, they are confronted with a seemingly impossible enigma. The ships, which have kidnapped the colonists, seem to be able to move through time avoiding every attempt at rescue or attack the Enterprise can devise. The ships are heading toward a remote planet named Demok which has been declared off limits to Starfleet ships. Accessing the classified files, Picard discovers their only contact was with the Enterprise of 70 years ago. Meanwhile, Kirk and his crew attempt to open diplomatic negotiations with the Demok inhabitants. They are portrayed as vicious, slimy snails with protruding jaws similar to Ripley's alien. Their only contact leads to a narrow escape as the Demokians attempt to eat the Enterprise crew. Kirk decides to deflect an asteroid bearing down on their planet, in violation of the Prime Directive, since he simply can't bear to let the entire world suffer. After deflection, the ship is confronted by a power drain emanating from the planet. He decides to beam down and try to resolve the situation. Picard is also attempting to resolve the situation in the future and Riker prepares an away team. As each team transports away, a strange energy beam from the planet transposes each crew. They materialize on different Enterprises and begin to work their way to a solution that will both stop the Demokians from using their time altering weapon and restore each person to the past or present where they belong. T&TA contains many enjoyable scenes. The villains are creatively written and the scenes describing confrontations are quite intense. The interaction between crews is all that could be wished for. Riker, Worf and Wesley are stranded on Kirk's ship. Worf gives Scott, Chekov, and Sulu lots of headaches as they attempt to confine a dreaded KLINGON! Spock, Kirk and Uhura are are Picard's ship. Uhura and Geordi are instantly smitten. Spock and Data play chess together and Kirk and Picard clash over leadership techniques with no preference given to either style.

The ending is particularly well-written as Kirk and Picard argue over a solution (Should Kirk violate the Prime Directive in the past? Has that led to this problem?) and each finds a solution that working together they couldn't have found alone...

My final score is 80 points for Time and Time again...