Review

Apr

2014

Review – Take Back the Night

Take Back the Night!

Take Back the Night Background

Once The Cure is Worse Than the Disease was posted, readers began asking me about a sequel. Nobody wanted to leave it the way it had been left, which was with Doctor An Nguyen becoming disillusioned and the Daranaeans left to their own devices and sexist ways, with lip service being paid to the Prime Directive.

I decided I wanted a small piece of a revolution, and so I got an idea. There would be an injustice, and the women would rise up.

Plot

The real Take Back the Night movement is about women holding forth against violence against women, including rape, particularly date rape.

For the Daranaean, the elder Inta, this would be a form of marital rape that would spark the powder keg of a plot. I had already established that third caste women had no right to refuse sexual relations, and so the beginning is her refusing to sleep with her husband, Arnis. In fact, the first word of the story is simply her saying, “No!”

That is the only word she says in the entire piece. And in fact, that is the only word I have from her. Yet it is enough.

Violence

For her refusal, she is hit, hard, and she falls to the floor, hitting her head. This causes her death and, just as importantly, the death of her unborn fetus.

While her death is not actionable, the first legal question is whether the death of the unborn child is. This is, of course, distasteful to most of us, but I figure that alien cultures may very well have rather alien ideas about justice and mercy.

Take Back the Night

As the story unfolds, someone other than Arnis gets the blame. Hence the Cochrane and the Columbia both play a part in helping that person be exonerated. And they also help in having the real killer charged with the crime.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K+.

Upshot

I think this is one of the better stories I have written, as the action moves from Daranaean home to both starships, a space battle, and eventually a courtroom and even the Beta Council chamber on Daranaea. Perhaps the best part about the story is that, while it resolves the immediate issue, it doesn’t fix all of the Daranaeans’ problems overnight. There’s plenty more story fodder, and many injustices remain. But at least there are a few less of them. I’m very proud of this story.

Mar

2014

Review – Dear Captain

Dear Captain, I …

Background

In response to a prompt about letters from home, I decided to go full throttle in the direction of mail that, most decidedly, is unwelcome.

Namely, spam.

The idea was to create a small comedy piece that would, as I often do, zig rather than zag.

Plot

There is not too much of a plot; this is mainly a collection of obvious spammy messages which go our intrepid future heroes. Because no one is mentioned by name, the messages could have been sent at any time, to anyone. Hence the story doesn’t really fit into any time period or series, and could cover any or all of them. I am not even certain as to which captain it is referring. It could be any or all of them, I suppose.

And when I have absolutely needed to categorize it (a necessity at some fan fiction posting sites), I tend to come down on the side of it being a part of the In Between Days universe, which takes place during Star Trek: Enterprise. So this makes some sense, as those people are the closest to use chronologically. They can maybe still be using email, and I write them as doing just that. Hence it all fits together rather nicely.

In addition, this gives us a deeper connection to that era than usual. I like the idea of them battling similar issues. It’s a lot like Tripp Tucker dealing with the financing company, in Letters From Home.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

As a bit of comedy, I think the piece works. And it’s no more than a bit of fluff, and fluff it is.

You can find me on Google+.

Mar

2014

Review – Shell Shock

Shell Shock is a story with strong themes.

NOTE: If rape is a trigger for you, you may want to stop reading right now.

Shell Shock Background

In response to a prompt about crimes, I decided to forego murder and instead concentrate on the equally nasty crime of rape.

Plot

Hence, at the conclusion of the Earth-Romulan War, Star Trek: Enterprise canon character Malcolm and the remainder of the crew of the NX-01 are back on Earth. While seeking to forget a horrible incident with a dying crewman, Reed seeks solace by going to the 602 Club. While there, he sees the waitress-turned-proprietress, Ruby Brannagh.

Brigid Brannagh as Ruby Brannagh

Malcolm leaves early, but not before he sees some fellow crew members, plus an unfamiliar military fellow (this turns out to be Jay Hayes‘s replacement, Bud Dawson) and some protesters from Earth.

However, the next day, he is woken up by a knock on the door of his temporary quarters at Starfleet Headquarters. There’s been a crime committed. And he and other men are to report to the mess hall.

Slowly, suspects are ruled out, as male crew members from the Enterprise and the Columbia present adequate alibis. Or the forensic evidence rules them out.

Franz Kafka’s The Trial

Frank Todd presents proof that he was at a gay bar. And others are eventually eliminated. However, one of the last persons to stand accused is Malcolm, although Dan Chang is also in the final list. And so is a Columbia crewman, Josef Kastle. Kastle is a direct reference to the author Franz Kafka, who wrote The Trial.

Malcolm’s lawyer, Dash Nolan, works hard to get him off the suspect list. And Malcolm is humiliated and forced to dredge up embarrassing personal details, including about his relationship with Pamela Hudson. The story also sets up Saturn Rise as a way for him to heal from not only this experience, but also the experience of seeing a crewman suffer and die during the war.

But of course it’s the gravely injured Ruby who’s got it far worse.

Music

While there isn’t really a theme song for this story, I thought of New Orders’s Shell Shock quite a bit as I was writing it.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated T/M.

Upshot

So beyond covering Malcolm and Ruby’s very different species of distress, the story also serves to convey the horrors of an accusation of rape. And even the innocent don’t come out of the experience unscathed.

Mar

2014

Review – The Cure is Worse Than the Disease

The Cure is Worse Than the Disease was the kick off for a series.

Background

In response to a prompt about diseases and their cures, the title, as a phrase, lodged itself into my head and would not get out.

At the same time, I read an article about the marsupial wolf (this extinct creature was also called the Tasmanian tiger). A scrap of paper held the tiniest of plot bunnies – smart kangaroos.

Plot

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Cria | The Cure is Worse Than the Disease

Cria, a tween secondary female Daranaean

At the conclusion of Intolerance, Pamela Hudson is poised to leave the Nereid Medical Academy. Will Owen is distraught and is about to be kicked out, but Blair Claymore, Mark Stone, and An Nguyen are still going to be there. What happens to those newly minted doctors once they graduate?

I decided that An would graduate at the top of his class. And he would get a job with Erika Hernandez and become the Chief Medical Officer on her canon ship, the USS Columbia (the NX-02).

While on a routine voyage, they come across a pleasure craft which is emanating a distress call, a medical emergency. When they answer it, they come upon a most curious species, the Daranaeans.

It seems that there’s already a physician on board, Doctor Rechal. So, why isn’t he treating the sick individual? Because she’s a second-caste female, and he doesn’t treat their kind. As An, Erika and the remainder of the Columbia‘s crew learn, there is institutional sexism in this species. Everyone seems to be in on it. The men look down on the women. The Prime Wife looks down at the secondary. The secondary looks down on the third-caste female. And the women are kept barefoot and pregnant.

Doctor Nguyen loses a lot of his innocence then, as he learns that even a species that could be an ally can have some rather nasty personal practices.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K+.

Upshot

The story was so well-received that fellow authors demanded a sequel. I wrote a few, and created a series for the Daranaeans, called Emergence. And it all sprang from this one story.

Feb

2014

Review – The Way to a Man’s Heart

The Way to a Man’s Heart turns an old trope on its head.

Background

As a sequel to Detached Curiosity & Idle Speculation, I wanted to follow Frank and Dave a bit in their relationship.

While the story was written considerably later than There’s Something About Hoshi, this story takes place earlier than that one.

Plot

The Way to a Man’s Heart

The premise was a ship-wide (and, most likely, Starfleet-wide) celebration of diversity.

This included all sorts of nods to non-mainstream expressions of sexuality. Several films are mentioned, including Personal Best, the film that inspired me to cast Mariel Hemingway as Eriecho. Because of the mentionings of films, Chip shows up. Hoshi also announces the revival of the book club, a feature of the E² stories.

In order to do something nice for his new beloved, Frank Todd asks Lili to make a special dessert for Dave Constantine. When Lili realizes that Dave likes blueberries, and recalls that the recently-deceased Jay Hayes did, too, it sets off a fit of crying.

Frank performs an act of kindness when he sees how much Dave loves the blueberry pie that Lili has baked. Remembering that Major Hayes was always the last one on the chow line – likely because he had wanted to share some short conversations with her – he vows that, from then on, he’ll always be last in line.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

I love this relationship, and I particularly think my treatment of it has improved over the years. Instead of being the slightly campy lovesick guys of There’s Something About Hoshi, the two men are here, instead, more like true partners, even though their relationship is still very new. They will be followed along as I think up new adventures for them, both large and small.

Feb

2014

Review – Conversations with Heroes

Conversations with Heroes was a lot like taking dictation.

Background

As a part of the 2013 ficlet flashdance challenge, we were tasked with creating a posting every day of one week, with at least 1,000 words. I decided to tie the whole shebang together with a documentary filmmaker creating a work about the Xindi War.

Plot

In Between Days

It’s just after the war has ended, and independent filmmaker Carlos Castillo has an assignment to cover the Xindi War from the perspective of the people who fought it.

Sharp-eyed readers should spot that Carlos is a prime universe counterpart to one of the men killed by Doug Beckett, as is outlined in Fortune.

The prime universe Carlos comes to the NX-01, but he also tracks down crew members like Lili, who are off the ship (as is established in Everybody Knows This is Nowhere). He interviews the following crew members –

Jonathan Archer – he discusses the turning point for this character, a Star Trek: Enterprise canon act where he forced an Ossarian pirate into an airlock.
Maryam Haroun – Maryam mentions her Muslim faith. Also, she talks about the deaths of fellow crew members and feels that her failure to pray may have had a correlation with that.
Lili O’Day – Lili relives killing She Who Almost Didn’t Breed in Time, which was originally outlined in Reversal and The Mess.
Jennifer Crossman – her memory is of the canon act of deceiving Degra.
Malcolm Reed – Malcolm talks about Jay‘s death.

The final piece is Carlos’s own statements about having met the Enterprise‘s crew. And he mentions the effect this assignment has personally had on him.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

The story was well-received. I also loved the pressure creativity aspect of it. This story also has the third-highest number of reviews of any story of mine (only Reversal and Revved Up have more).

I can’t wait to do this kind of story again.

Feb

2014

Review – Party on Risa

Party on Risa is just fluff.

Background

At a much smaller Star Trek site that I really don’t go to anymore, they celebrated once I’d hit a certain number of posts. As a thank you for that, I posted this little party story. It’s only meant to be a bit of fluff. However, I was able to add a bit to my lore. For a long time, this was the first story in my saga.

Plot

In Between Days

Hence as a fill in for the canon episode Two Days and Two Nights, I wrote this story in order to give a little depth to Travis. After all, in the episode, about all that happens is that he suffers an injury while rock climbing on Risa. But he didn’t start off rock climbing. At least, I didn’t want him to.

Hence, the little bit of fan fiction.

One thing I was able to do with this small story was to bring in Witannen a lot faster and earlier than before. With no statement of the name of the species (and Travis leaves quickly, plus in Star Trek: Enterprise canon he’s knocked out not too long after that), there’s no real first contact. However, for sharp-eyed readers, the stage is set for this species. Hence when the Witannen show up in Together, he really should have remembered them. But with him losing consciousness in canon, it fits that he would either not remember or maybe even suffer just a tiny bit of amnesia.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

The story has little purpose, other than to be a little fluff. It succeeds in that area, to be sure.

You can find me on Google+.

Jan

2014

Review – Escape

Escape Background

Escape has irony on its side.

Hall of Mirrors

For a weekly prompt about escapes, I chose what would be, to some, the only way out of the mirror.

Suicide.

For Andrew Miller, who has become the Empress‘s toy, and has been so for years, life is too much of a burden, and he wants it all to end, and end soon.

And so he goes about figuring out how to end it all.

Plot

Sick of everything, and sick of the Empress, Andy sets about putting together the means and opportunity to kill himself. He obtains a tricoulamine capsule but the later investigation shows it’s from Crossman Pharmaceuticals and is of an older design, so it was possibly from the earlier doctor, Cyril Morgan.

It’s all because of the death of Melissa Madden, a fact disclosed in Fortune. After Andy and Melissa meet (during The Play at the Plate), a sexual relationship develops between them. When Melissa becomes pregnant, Andrew will have to get her off the ship without the Empress finding out, as Hoshi will kill both of them. Because he can never see his child, he at least wants to try to support the baby, who they have agreed to name Tommy.

Andrew asks his friend, Josh Rosen, to help set up a dummy fund to help support Tommy and Melissa. Josh agrees to launder the funds and make it appear as if it’s an account comprised of the payment of old gambling debts from Game Night. Melissa’s death, in a shuttle crash, moots all of that work.

Several years later, Andrew has the nerve, the means, and the privacy. He write a short note and takes the drug, thereby finally getting away from Hoshi.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

I like this neat and tidy little story, and reprised it in The Point is Probably Moot, where I cover the aftermath.

Jan

2014

Review – Detached Curiosity & Idle Speculation

Detached curiosity?

Background

The prompt was about IDIC, infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

That is, the urging was to write something featuring a pairing that was not traditional male-female.

I had my two favorite gay men on the NX-01 already created – Frank and Dave, who had been introduced in There’s Something About Hoshi and expanded upon in The Three of Us.

There are two other gay men on board, Preston Jennings and Lucas Donnelly, plus Christian Harris is asexual and Kelsey Haber is possibly bi (main character Melissa Madden definitely is) and is definitely trans (I’m still kind of on the fence about Kelsey these days). Plus Diana Jones is a lesbian, as are the Starfleet Rabbi, Leah Benson and main character Leonora Digiorno.

But it was Dave and Frank’s relationship that I wanted to show at its absolute beginning, in the prime timeline.

Plot

Jason Patric as Dave Constantine

The premise is that E² has just concluded in the prime timeline.

Of course, people are talking about what happened, who was chosen, etc. Dave and Frank realize that they were together. But they only know about the second of two kicks back in time. So they just think it was some sort of a mutual decision. However, the reality of the first kick back is that Dave approached Frank. This was after Frank rather loudly and angrily came out.

Be that as it may, things are a little different. The ship is not generational and they are not desperate. But that’s all right. There is still an attraction there.

And there was some mental meandering on both sides. This was as to who was available and who was interested. For a minority sexuality, there are not only are there questions of attraction and availability. There are also questions of wiring and preference. Even if Dave had the biggest-ever crush on Frank, if Frank was only interested in women, it would not have happened. Hence, the moves are cautious. It’s a little tentative.

But they happen all the same.

Story Postings

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

I have read slash online. So much of it is either out and out PWP (porn without plot) or angst-filled hurt/comfort or unfulfilled adolescent-style longing. So it makes me wonder about genuine romance between either two men or two women. Fortunately, Star Trek Discovery changes all that!

Who writes gentle slash? I suppose I do. I love this story, love how it came out (wordplay intended). And I love that it’s in my own personal fan fiction. Plus it’s even got a sequel. Viva Dave and Frank!

Jan

2014

Review – Consider the Lilies of the Field

Lilies and Lili!

Background

So for a prompt about sweetness, I gave two answers.

This was the second one. My idea was to get across the sweetness of relationships, both the long-term and the fairly new.

In addition, in Fortune, one of the family photographs was of Joss and Jia at their prom. I wanted to fill in the blanks, the missing details, of that.

Plot

Joss, a little jumpy in a tuxedo, is cooling his heels before Jia and her parents arrive to take him to the prom at their little school on Lafa II. Marie Patrice is, as she often is, a little snarky. Declan even jokes a bit. Lili is of course more supportive. Malcolm is mentioned very briefly.

There is a little bustling as Doug arrives with groceries. The kids go out to help (after Lili tells them to), but she holds back Joss so that he won’t get dirty. There is a mysterious blue bag. No one is allowed to touch it.

Once the food is put away, Doug opens up the bag, revealing a carnation boutonniere for Joss and a corsage for Jia. Jia’s parents, Mai and Geming, arrive with their daughter. Savvy readers will recognize Geming’s counterpart as being Doug’s final deliberate kill in the Mirror Universe.

After they depart, and the other two children return to their homework, Lili laments that Doug never had a prom. He confirms that, at the time, he was finishing up at West Point and about to go into Basic Training. But he’s got one more surprise for her.

Story Postings

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

I enjoyed bringing this story together, and I think it works rather well. So Doug and Lili’s love is obvious, and Jia and Joss’s relationship is on the cusp of becoming something great, too.

Review – Take Back the Night

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Review – Dear Captain

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Review – The Cure is Worse Than the Disease

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Review – The Way to a Man’s Heart

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Review – Conversations with Heroes

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Review – Party on Risa

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Review – Detached Curiosity & Idle Speculation

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Review – Consider the Lilies of the Field

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