Wasted Space

Fanwork
Title:	Wasted Space
Creator:	Paula Smith
Date(s):	July 1977
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS
External Links:
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Wasted Space is a parody by Paula Smith of the zine Warped Space.

This 1977 parody was included in Warped Space #26/27 and Menagerie #13 simultaneously.

Contents

• a parody of Lori Chapek-Carleton editorial ("Editor's Nook") titled "Editor's Neck"
• some fake letter of comments: samples: "Loni Ranger - Treacle OH. Wowee, gee, I certainly enjoyed last Tuesday's WS. Blockparki certainly can write. I mean, when she had Sadie Sue mindlink with Keith, save the ship from the spores, battle the balrog, and leap tall buildings at a single bound, it was all so believable!" and "Jean Borrah - Irving KY. Ingrid Crotch's story in last night's WS reminds me of my own story, Epilept XIV, which I fully intend to write one of these days, as soon as I can find an editor worthy of my series. It deals with an entirely new subject in Trek fiction, tentatively titled, "Sarek and Amanda and Kirk and Spock." Not for those under 18 years of age."
• a vignette making fun of the Landing Party 6 series. Excerpt: "Of course it was inevitable that Gack'N, the ship's resident village idiot, would choose that moment to drag in the 800th new replacement in Latenite Party 6. Those redshirts just don't last. "Hey, Sadie Sue," he yelled, "meet John, from Alpha Base'. Captain Konig, Lt. Sadie Sue Fallswell.""
• a parody of The Weight called "The Wait." Excerpt: "The whole shebang is based on two sentences and a typo Ed Zyxwvutsrqpo wrote three years ago in WASTED SPACE #2, in which the Enterprise, showboating like ever, loop-the-loops thru the Guardian of Forever and winds up in a world where town/gown antipathies have gone slightly amuck. There, the Conartists, a pack of space barbarians who've managed to bootstrap themselves to the Moon via 16 solar heaters and a Captain Neptune Secret Decoder Whistle Ring, have taken over the ship and headed her out for Aquarius, or, failing that, the Moon in the Seventh House. Last time, in case you couldn't figure out what happened and I wouldn't blame you, Juggeth Roundthigh, leader of the Elansinge sect of Conartists and incidentally a size 40 DD, had gone out Moonside with Kirk to explore this strange huge black monolith on the surface, when the homespun spacesuit provided Kirk by the Conartists bust a buckskin and depressurized him halfway back to Alpha Base. Luckily, the only damage sustained was to his brain, and so consequently he climbed the cut-log ladder back up to the Enterprise, only to find himself demoted to seacook for going AWOL. Embittered, Kirk cut himself off from intercourse with his old crew, and took up intercourse with Quetzalcoatl Two-Faces, a halfbreed Indian woman with no slight resemblance to Cher, who is given to green-based facepaint, pointing the tips of her ears, and semi-audible mutterings of "illogical." Tho it is a given of this seemingly interminable series that everybody in this here alternate universe is a conjugate of someone else on the E, you're not supposed to know yet that Quetzal actually represents Surak."
• two poems
• a flyer for a fake ridiculous Star Trek fan club: "A genuine original no-shit, actual reduced microphotograph of Bill Shatner's navel (life-size!)... IT COULD BE YOURS TODAY!!"

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Fan Comments

"Wasted Space" -- I got out my Paradise coloring pencils but found out they only went to 22. Darn! And how come I didn't get my copy of WASTED SPACE 1701? I sent in my three pints of blood and my favorite goldfish, "Rover". Can I help it if he died? Sixth class mail just ain't what it usta be ...

My vote for best-of-zine goes to Paula's "Wasted Space" parody; it practically had me rolling on the floor when I saw the advance copy at SeKWester*Con, and it had the exact same effect this time around, too. Ooh, that lettercol.

"Wasted Space" — from beginning to end, total lunacy, and totally wonderful; Paula, fine job, but be warned, the men in the white suits (and I don't mean Alec

Guinness & Co.) will be coming by any time now to take you away!

I wish you hadn't devoted so much space to your WS parody. A lot of it was wasted space. But I cracked up over the "Editor's Neck" and Connie Fracas' LoC!

... Starting with Paula Smith, her "Wasted Space" is the first example I've seen of a fanzine satirizing itself so well! I didn't realize how seriously I was taking Leslie Fish's "The Weight" until I read and went into hysterical laughter over "The Wait" ...