Star Trek Book Review #1
So, over the course of this quarantine I started reading Star Trek novels and got sucked rapidly into this crazy interest. The stories are, like their source material, often inventive, usually entertaining, but sometimes weird or a dud. And dirt cheap on eBay. I may or may not have bought a lot of 133 Star Trek books. At this point I’ve read 15. I have some thoughts.
Star Trek Book Review #1: The Price of the Phoenix
Author(s): Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath
Publish Date: 1977
Some Thoughts:
A fairly early work in the Trek literary genre, this book reexamines the concept of a doppelgänger Kirk. The Original Series in itself turned this idea into a trope which has been reproduced in perpetuity throughout the Trek mythos. In TOS we see at least 3 or 4 Kirk doubles (The Enemy Within brings us our first doppelgänger; Mirror Mirror we briefly see an evil Kirk; in Whom Gods Destroy Garth of Izar transforms into Kirk to impersonate him). And let us not forget the spectacular Shatner Vs. Shatner fight of Star Trek V, the first time we see two Shatners beat each other up face to face: a feat unattainable in the Original Series era without the use of computerized special effects. I would love to compile some sort of coffee table book about the lives of all the Kirk Body Double actors. Has some Trekkie tracked these dudes down yet (especially the Star Trek V guy— but I digress.
In The Price of the Phoenix, we see a double who does not differ from Kirk in personality; a true duplicate. What do you do with an extra James T. Kirk?
The setting is essentially an evil computer game so there’s all sorts of fun descriptions of firemen poles our protagonists must slide down and labrythine walls to blast through to find one another.
The co-authors are a big pillar of Star Trek’s literary development, having written numerous Trek books as well as organizing and compiling Trek fiction anthologies.
Is It Gay?
YES. Infamously so. It’s hard to believe. As devoted as Kirk and Spock are to one another, imagine all the love that is there when you add one more Kirk to this equation. The authors really just go for it in terms of homoerotic devotion.
Must Read or Nah?
Absolute must read; a true classic of the Trek literary oeuvre.
Literary Receipts of Epic Devotion / salacious homosexual content Under the Cut
