#j.m. Dillard

[cantorpike]

it's incredibly important to me that everybody knows that before the meeting at starfleet hq at the beginning of star trek: the undiscovered country, bones was busy spoiling his grandchildren and teaching one of them to swim 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

[nevinslibrary]

Make It So Friday

This is the final book in the four book series that takes place after the original series ends, but before the first Star Trek movie. I recommended the first book in the series, The Lost Years. And, the second and third books, A Flag Full of Stars and Traitor Winds were good books too, but, this one, that like the first one was by J.M. Dillard, was my favourite of the series.

The still Admiral Kirk is just done with sitting behind a desk. And, when he decides to get back on a ship, boy does he do it right and fully. He’s invited to observe a new automated rescue ship. Except, suddenly he’s in command of that ship, oh, and that ship is full of quite a few cadets. And, he needs to stop the rescue ship before it (as well as the very very bearded McCoy) sails right into Tholian space (remember the interesting web from the original series?).

As well as a almost thriller like sort of story, it was cool to sort of see some of the ‘new’ computer things that would wind up in Star Trek The Next Generation (after all, this book was being written long after The Next Generation premiered), like the being able to find anyone on the ship at any time from a panel in the hall. I know that I’m an easy mark when it comes to whether I like a Star Trek novel or not, but, this one was a really great read.

You may like this book If you Liked: Moments Asunder by Dayton Ward, Captain to Captain by Greg Cox, or The Body Electric by David Mack

Recovery by JM Dillard

[iamenits]

The doctor’s heart pounded with excitement, but he felt no fear at all, only an intense, glad awareness that he was with Spock, aboard the Enterprise, making a difference in the universe. He wanted the moment never to end—yet, at the same time, if it ended abruptly in death, then that would somehow be all right, too.

-- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - J.M. Dillard (1992)

Spock recalled an earlier, similar death, heat and radiation blasting around him as he struggled to save the Enterprise. That time he had succeeded. This time he feared he must have failed. He glanced for an instant at each of the people in the control room, at each of his friends. Only Leonard McCoy returned his gaze. The doctor looked at him for a long moment. Sweat glistened on his face. The ship plunged obliquely and McCoy had to snatch at the railing to keep his feet. He straightened again. He was frightened, but he showed no evidence of terror or panic. To Spock’s astonishment, he smiled. Spock had no idea how to respond.

-- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Vonda N. McIntyre (1986)

[mrcowboytoyou]

Kirk... you didn't ask Spock to be your first officer for space date part two...?

[flashytoes]

it's now canon in my heart that spock ate sand

[spocks-husband]

J.M. Dillard's "The Lost Years" is SO FUCKING GOOD SO FAR

Look at these dumbasses. Look at them.

[trek-tracks]

Hello! I got a whole shelf of old Star Trek novels from a yard sale and I'm deciding which to read first. Unfortunately none of them are D. Duane. Can you tell me what other Trek novels/authors you've enjoyed?

At the moment, I have far more trek books than I've actually read, partially because I have no self-control when it comes to acquiring them, partially because, when I started to mine them for blog content, reading them started to feel like homework (I thought I put marking pages with tabs behind me after grad school). This is also tough because Diane Duane's novels tend to be far and away my favourites (Spock's World, Doctor's Orders, and The Wounded Sky are all brilliant), but you already knew that! They're also a large chunk of what I've read. I've also read a bunch of Blish novelizations and some of the movie novelizations, which are fun but don't quite count in the same way, since they are retelling known stories.

However, there are a few I can recommend. I really enjoyed A Contest of Principles by Greg Cox, which feels like a real extended TOS episode; our main trio all have plenty to do, and the relationships are very fond and very true to the series. Shell Game by Melissa Crandall also has the character relationships I'm looking for. (Actually, both of these at one point pair Spock and Bones together while Kirk angsts from the sidelines while doing his own part of the mission, which is apparently a fruitful scenario).

J.M. Dillard also knows the characters really well. I enjoyed The Lost Years a lot, though it must be said that it is basically the crew breakup novel because it bridges from the show into TMP, so you'll just have to rewatch the movies after to remember that it all turns out all right in the end.

Jean Lorrah's The Vulcan Academy Murders is fun as long as you don't go in expecting a mystery you can't solve in 30 seconds and just want to appreciate the characters and learn more about Sarek and Amanda.

Brad Ferguson's Crisis on Centaurus is worth it for the backstory look into Jim and Bones' first meeting, as well as giving us some time with Joanna McCoy.

I can't actually fully recommend Carmen Carter's Dreams of the Raven, which has a very strange and queasily unethical romance subplot that doesn't land for several reasons and an unsatisfying ending, but it's an interesting look into McCoy with amnesia (and it did let me coin the term "Character Fondness Power Differential" while writing the review).

This ask did, however, remind me that I need to start making a dent in my book collection before buying more (I store them where I can't see them, so I'm constantly surprised by how many I actually have). I think I'm reading Howard Weinstein's The Covenant of the Crown next.

If you search my "trek books" tag, you'll see more!

[iliketoydinosaurs]

The line break was necessary, that's how you know it's platonic /s

[J.M. Dillard, Recovery, 1995]

[mllebleue]

It is in my hands! Officially out July 1st from McFarland but on order now. 16 essays on Star Trek novels and their authors.

Table of content:

Introduction: Into the Vastness of the Novelverse

­Caroline-Isabelle Caron and Kristin Noone 1

Official, but Not Canon: The ­Tie-In Writer’s Dilemma

David Mack 19

Feinting Forward, Barging Backward: Philosophical Analysis of Spock, Messiah!

Anne Collins Smith and Owen M. Smith 37

Growing Up with Deep Space Nine: Recruiting New Fans and Teaching Ideology Through YA Literature

Judith Clemens-Smucker 52

“300 ­full-color action scenes”: The Star Trek Fotonovels, Multimodal Storytelling as Paper Television?

Caroline-Isabelle Caron 69

Putting the Romance Back into Space Opera

Valerie Estelle Frankel 90

“The dream of stars”: Judith and Garfield ­Reeves-Stevens and the Star Trek Epic

Geoffrey Reiter 107

Imzadi, (Almost) Happily Ever After and the Female Gothic Tradition

Carey Millsap-Spears 124

The ­Tie-In Novels of History: Adaptation and Expansion in Diane Carey’s Star Trek Fiction

Kristin Noone 141

“What’s in a life?” Grappling with Genre, Gender, and Liberal Humanism in The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway

Mareike Spychala 159

Wind-Riders, Divers, and Merry Whales: Vonda N. McIntyre’s Star Trek Novels

Una McCormack 174

“The sheer unpredictability of the insane, demented galaxy”: Peter David’s New Frontier Novels

Val Nolan 192

The Hurt and the Comfort in J.M. Dillard’s Mindshadow: ­Tie-In Novels and/as Fanfiction

Agnieszka Urbańczyk 209

Surviving the Borg? Exploring Vengeance and Humanity in Peter David’s Vendetta

Brian de Ruiter 226

Contaminated Community in Jean Lorrah’s The IDIC Epidemic

Leah Faye Norris 243

Kira Nerys: Bajor and Beyond

Sherry Ginn 255

A Coda on Coda

Caroline-Isabelle Caron 266

[jewish-microwave-laser]

currently reading:

reclaiming dignity - contributors bracha poliakoff and rabbi anthony manning

queering anarchism: addressing and undressing power and desire - eds. c.b. daring, et al

novelization of star trek vi: the undiscovered country - j.m. dillard

inkheart - cornelia funke

read this year:

like dreamers: the story of the israeli paratroopers who reunited jerusalem and divided a nation - yossi klein halevi

figuring jerusalem: politics and poetics in the sacred center - sidra dekoven ezrahi

a place in the tent: intermarriage and conservative judaism - rabbi mark bloom et al

this is real and you are completely unprepared: the days of awe as a journey of transformation - rabbi adam lew

abolish the family: a manifesto for care and liberation - sophia lewis

the price of the phoenix - sondra marshak and myrna culbreath

letters to my palestinian neighbor (with an extensive epilogue of palestinian responses) - yossi klein halevi

[vonnebenan]

I’m currently reading the German translation of "Star Trek V: The final frontier" by J.M. Dillard and guess what? Soup ads soup ads!

Yeah … for some reason, the publishing company (Heyne Verlag) decided to insert ads for Maggi soup into quite a few of its books – in a way that’s apparently meant to give the impression that the ads are part of the text. This, for example, says something like "Sybok promises the concerned Scott a source of strength. However, since that is of a purely spiritual nature, it can’t strengthen the reader, who needs something else – something like Maggi instant soup ..."

So far, I’d only seen these ads in books by Diane Duane, but she clearly wasn’t the only "vicitm".

[nevinslibrary]

Make It So Friday

This wasn't one of the surprising Star Trek novels. But, it was definitely one that made me think.

The Enterprise finds a dying race of people. The crew tries to save them, but can't. In that process T'Pol accidentally kills someone, and so she decides to not carry a weapon any longer. Then an entity contacts them, T'Pol specifically, saying that it will help them figure out why the aliens died. But, not everyone trusts the entity. And then the people on the Enterprise start falling ill.

As, I said, though it didn’t have a lot (or any) twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. It was still a really fun read, my favorite part was that we got to see Hoshi as she was trying to decipher the alien language. I'm not sure if I can put into words just how much I loved those scenes. So awesome.

You may like this book If you Liked: Desperate Hours by David Mack, Broken Bow by Diane Carey, or The Left Hand of Destiny: Book One by J.G. Hertzler

Surak's Soul by J.M Dillard

[arachniasbride]

Tagged by @samabigailalan

Thanks for the tag, I love tag games!

1. Favourite colour: blue.

2. Last song: golden hour by jyke.

3. Currently reading: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Resistance by J.M. Dillard (It's been a couple months, I have to go back to reading).

4. Currently watching: Parks and Recreation.

5. Currently craving: tacacá. i'm always craving for tacacá.

6. Coffee or tea: "Coffee, black!"

7. Favourite animals: dogs and guinea pigs.

No pressure tagging @denzit or anyone who wants to do it, the anxiety is a thing :)

[ollieofthebeholder]

Was originally putting this in the tags, but it got long (and there are commas in it now), so putting it here:

This is actually explicitly brought up in one of the TOS novels I have. I had to dig it out and find the passage, but it's from Recovery by J.M. Dillard (billed as "the final book in the Lost Years Saga", which takes place between the end of TOS and Star Trek: TMP). Kirk has been given the opportunity to be present for a test of a self-piloted recovery vessel, and following the first part of the test, he's talking to the crew, which includes a Vulcan science officer. From pages 89-90 of the original Pocket Books paperback printing (no idea if there are other versions):

Sonak was shorter, slighter of build than Spock, with a rounder face and more prominent ears; but those were not the only differences. The Paladin's science officer seemed more relaxed than Spock ever had been - but Sonak, as a pure Vulcan, had never had to prove worthy of his own heritage. [Emphasis mine.]

This comes up again and again in all of the books I've read, whether it be TOS, TNG, DS9, or Voyager (I've never read any books set during Enterprise or AOS, and I don't think there are any Vulcan characters in the S.C.E. books, come to think of it). Spock feels he has to out-Vulcan the Vulcans to prove he's one of them. The man was raised on Vulcan, by the chief ambassador, his mother went out of her way to only raise him as Vulcan and never to try and influence him with her own culture because that was not where he was being raised - and yet, any time he isn't absolutely rigid and perfect about Vulcan customs and culture, it's because he's broken, because he's half-human.

Surak's teachings were never about eliminating emotions entirely (that's why there's a whole ritual to eliminate them - Kolhinar - and it's something Vulcans do not enter into lightly and that most of them are actively discouraged from doing so), only about controlling them. The idea is to be the master of your emotions rather than letting your emotions master you - because letting your feelings have sway over your decisions is how you end up doing things like almost starting an intergalactic war because an admiral said computers maybe shouldn't make decisions in all situations (which is the plot of the book, kinda - go read it, it's really good).

So yeah, it's a great example of something one of my teachers told me once (keep in mind I'm a USAmerican; different countries may have differences regarding specific demographics, but you get the idea): if a white (straight, cis, Christian) man fails, it's because he can't do the job; if a woman, a BIPOC, a queer person, or a non-Christian fails, it's because women/BIPOC/LGBTQ+s/non-Christians can't do it. The Vulcans see Spock as too human to be truly Vulcan and judge him accordingly.

Which isn't very logical, but it's so easy to justify bigotry sometimes, isn't it?

[spocks-husband]

Okay I'm not a big McKirk person but I just started J.M. Dillard's "The Lost Years" and... These dorks... Oh my god...