Star Trek Interphases

27
Jan
2015

Review – The Three of Us

Review – The Three of Us

The Three of Us is one of my best fan fiction efforts.

Background

As the third piece of the E2 series, I wanted to pursue a Star Trek fan fiction story that I had had in mind for quite a while.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | The Three of Us

The Three of Us

This was an idea about a love triangle/threesome among Lili, Jay, and Malcolm. Of all four stories set during that time period, this one was the most fully realized, and the easiest to write. I had tons of it in my head even before pen went to paper (and then I transcribed it to pixels). I wish all storytelling was like this!

Plot

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | The Sparrow and the Blue Jay

The Sparrow and the Blue Jay

The story begins with Malcolm providing a little news and ship’s gossip to the still-injured Ethan Shapiro.

Malcolm speaks a little about the remaining single women on board the Enterprise, but he mainly discusses an upcoming baseball game between the MACOs and Starfleet. The action shifts as Lili tries out for the Starfleet team and then Shelby and Andrew talk about why she won’t be playing. The first chapter ends with Judy Kelly Rostov going into labor, the mark of the second child to be born on the generational ship (Valleri Rostov, so-named because Davy Jones of the Monkees had recently died when I was writing that part of the story).

As the book continues, more and more of the single women are snapped up, until only two are left ….

Music

Story Postings

Rating

The story has an M rating.

Upshot

As stated above, I had a lot of this storyline in my head as I was writing and even beforehand. From the weddings to the aliens to the spirituality to the triumphs and tragedies, the love and the nastiness, this is one of my absolute favorites of my works.

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Interphases series, Review, 8 comments
20
Jan
2015

Review – Entanglements

A Look at Entanglements

Entanglements was not originally a work I had planned.

Background

Barking Up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Entanglements

Entanglements

The idea was to go straight from Reflections Down a Corridor to The Three of Us. But Reflections ended up being way too long. I like where and how it was split, though, as it serves the title themes moving from individuals to couples to a threesome. Hence this book achieves a kind of bridging effect.

Entanglements is mainly about coupling, both romantic and erotic, and the tangling of fighting and also getting involved – for better or for worse. Just as Reflections is about individual exploration, Entanglements begins to show people colliding with each other. Naturally, there is a great deal of collateral damage from these collisions.

Plot

The story opens with Captain Archer announcing the wedding of Tripp Tucker to T’Pol.  As he makes the announcement, the single men in particular are beginning to notice that it affects them. Part of it may be some desire specifically for T’Pol. But it is also because this is the second wedding on the Enterprise. This generational ship is starting to slowly, inexorably, convert itself into the equivalent of a flying small town.

But the real crisis arises from a different relationship. When Josh Rosen proposes to and, eventually, marries Karin Bernstein, it puts fellow Jewish crew member Ethan Shapiro onto a steep downward spiral. That sequence was one of the first parts of the story that I knew I wanted to write and, once I got to it in the plot, it flowed quickly and smoothly.

Music

Dusty Springfield | Entanglements

Dusty says it all

Story Postings

Rating

The story has an M rating.

Upshot

This story is more transitional and so the beginning and the end are a tad more abrupt than for the other three in the E2 series. But I like the bookending of the Tucker/T’Pol announcement with the Jenny/Aidan wedding, and was particularly pleased to be able to use Jenny’s wedding song again – and to denote that Aidan isn’t quite the right partner (in the prime timeline, she marries Francisco).

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Interphases series, Review, 2 comments
09
Jan
2015

Review – Reflections Down a Corridor

Review – Reflections Down a Corridor

Reflections Down a Corridor kicks off a series which I feel is one of my best.

Background

I had wanted to explore the E2 timeline for quite some time.

Barking Up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Reflections Down a Corridor

Reflections Down a Corridor

The first of four Star Trek fan fiction books covering that era was this one. The title refers to not only the subspace corridor where the Enterprise was hit by a Kovaalan particle wake (and thereby thrown back in time over a century); it also refers to personal reflections.

So personal reflections include the mirrors that we hold up to ourselves (this is, for once, not a reference to the Mirror Universe), the relationship a person has with himself or herself, and reflection in the pure sense of thought. Hence as the NX-01 can no longer perform too many exploratory duties, it’s too early to be defensive and go after the Xindi, and going to Earth is out of the question. So exploration begins to come from within.

Plot

For the crew of the USS Enterprise, the stars are all in the wrong places. The story opens with beginning to understand just what happened. This includes learning just what the date really is, as they can’t just up and ask the Vulcans. Immediately, Captain Archer figures out that there are going to be some uncomfortable restrictions on movement and communications. He enlists the help of not only the regular senior staff (e. g. the other canon characters), but also begins to lean on some heads of the smaller departments, such as Chef Slocum in Food Service, and Shelby Pike in Botany.

Navigating his own depression, and the crew’s, while honorably stepping back as the women begin pairing up with others, Archer in particular is affected. But others’ feelings begin to surface. Ethan Shapiro, Andrew Miller, and Josh Rosen begin cautiously circling the only female Jewish crew member, Karin Bernstein. Maryam Haroun asks Phlox‘s help in deciding between the two Muslim male crew members, Azar Hamidi and Ramih Azar. Lili O’Day does her best to keep it together, but also believes rumors about Jay Hayes and Malcolm Reed.

And then there are Daniel Chang and Sandra Sloane ….

Music

The Belle Stars – Iko Iko

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated T.

Upshot

So these four books really were a labor of love, and I had great fun writing them. This one, I feel, aptly kicks it all off.

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Interphases series, Review, 3 comments
30
Sep
2014

Progress Report – September 2014

Progress Report – September 2014

September 2014 was a time of preparations.

Posted Works

Barking up the Muse Tree | Janet Gershen-Siegel | jespah | Quill | September 2014 I began the month in Star Trek fan fiction by adding to The Three of Us on Fanfiction.net and The Social Media Guide on Wattpad.

On the G & T Show forums, I finished the Daranaean Emergence series by posting Confidence. I then started posting the Eriecho series, with Release, Beats, The Mundane World, A Gathering, Double Helix and began to spin out Recessive.

On Wattpad, I continued adding the the Before Days series with Waiting;  If You Can’t Stand the Heat; More, More, More!, and Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses. 

Progress Report – September 2014

Postmodern Jukebox

Because I’m a silly fan girl, I also got permission from Scott Bradlee and started to post the first-ever (far as anyone can tell) popfic about singing group Postmodern Jukebox! It’s called The Canadian Caper.

On Ad Astra, I responded to the “on my word” challenge with Promise, a Travis–Julie story. In response to a prompt about school, I added a short Inta-centric story, Education.

I added Where No Gerbil Has Gone Before to the Delphic Expanse after some minor tweaking by the beta reader.

Milestones

On combined URLs, over 100 stories have 1,000 or more reads, and over 25 stories have 5,000 or more reads. 15 stories have over 9,750 reads on combined URLs. Twelve individual story URLs have over 10,000 reads. Over 30 have over 50 reviews on combined URLs.  Six have over 100 reads (half of those are on individual URLs). See the Stats page for individual read and review counts for Star Trek fan fiction and other works.

The Fanfic profile on Wattpad added three of my stories to their Star Trek reading list: The New Captain’s Woman (a combination of That’s Not My Name and It Had to be You), Biases, and Before Days (the prequels in the In Between Days series).

WIP Corner

I continued to work on The Polymer Beat, the second book in the wholly original Obolonk series.

Prep Work

Also, I added a little to the Star Trek fan fiction wiki but didn’t really have time to go in depth.

This Month’s Productivity Killers

Class at Quinnipiac (I’m going to start taking 2 classes at a time next semester), and managing The G & T Show’s many social media accounts took up a great deal of my time. The show was also in the midst of a GoFundMe fundraiser.

Progress Report – September 2014

Plus we went on a short vacation to Cape Cod in the middle of the month.

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Posted by jespah in Progress, 1 comment