Star Trek TOS Zinedex: Authors (T)

Jill Tanner

"Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name" Duet #8, 1984 (p.82-127): Spock is planning to go off and die in pon farr again, as he is drawn only to Kirk, who could not survive even if willing. However, they encounter the Romulan Commander, who comes up with a solution to both save Spock and let Kirk accept his feelings. Points for added touches of alien physiology, and nice dialogue between Spock's Vulcan and Human sides.

Zaquia Tarhuntassa

* Scryer (novel) Spartiwerks, Pacific Grove, CA (Hupe), 1990. 112p.: The Enterprise gang are transported into medieval romancery on a planet with a Vulcanoid population and Celtic culture. Well written and well told -- a real pleasure despite not being really a favorite genre of mine. Marvelously evocative little art sketches sprinkled throughout. McCoy: 'I don't think: we're in Kansas any longer, Toto.'
Gaesa (novel) 1990, 180p. Spartiwerks (Hupe).: Sequel to Scryer.
A decade after Scryer, the planet Temennu has not received the promised protection from the Federation. Instead, evil Maeve has become Queen. She is negotiating with Romulans and hunting for Findtan Usheen, who turns out to be a supernode, able to attract ley lines and use them for transportation. Maeve plans to use Usheen to open Tir Na n’Og (heaven), thereby obtaining a ghostly army to do her will. She intends to capture Uhura and McCoy as bait for Usheen. Usheen kidnaps Uhura first, taking Rand along incidentally, and goes for McCoy, but misses. Lots of fun lovers’ quarrel stuff between Uhura and Usheen as he sulkily refuses to explain himself and she doesn’t know whether to trust him. Rand falls in love with the mute Samair, also a Daoine. Fleet Intelligence agent Pilar ibn Sina (female) sets up an undercover operation with Kirk to get Maeve - she turns into a dragon first, killing Scleth, who thereby gains them enough time to finish her off. Survivors are united in sickbay. Best bits are a rather consistently gruff McCoy and Zaquia’s marvelous portrait sketches sprinkled throughout. Otherwise, fun, but not as compelling as Scryer.

Pierette Therene

"Guardians of Tomorrow" Abode of Strife #19, May 1993 (p.46-49): Berylians reward Kirk, Spock and McCoy for saving their planet, by showing them a time in the next generation when their descendents will fill their places in harmonious camaraderie on another Enterprise.

Jill Thomasson


"Quest for Glory" DeForest Kelley Compendium, June 1991 (p.166-178): Romulans capture and torture McCoy to get to Kirk.
"The Replacement" DeForest Kelley Compendium Suppl #1, June 1992 (p.125-143): Klingons nab McCoy to do some doctoring.
"The Deception" Abode of Strife #19, May 1993 (p.62-90): A Perils of Leonard story. McCoy stumbles into a smuggling operation Kirk is investigating and is captured and beaten up by the smugglers. The smugglers continue to haunt him with threats to himself and to Joanna, escaping from their trial with him as hostage, and torturing him.

Alice Thompson

"Mudd's Bequest" Interphase #4, May 1977 (p. 26-27): Christine takes the last of the Venus drug, with startling effects on her bosom and the command crew.

Virginia Tilley

Alternate Universe 4 #1, 1974, 62p. (with Anna Mary Hall & Shirley Maiewsky): First installment of a serialized novel.; Kirk is distracted by headache at a critical battle moment, and three planets are destroyed by the enemy. The guilt-ridden Kirk is drummed out of the fleet and sent penniless into the world. Spock and McCoy prevent him from committing suicide, and he becomes a freight navigator under an assumed name. However, he is recognized by an agent of Light Fleet - benevolent meddlers in societies, the same folks who employed Gary Seven, and whose aim is a peaceful galaxy. This issue ends with Kirk recruited to Light Fleet as an “Action Agent.” When a mission goes awry, Kirk is briefly captured on the Enterprise, but Spock and McCoy, trusting him, allow him to escape. A pleasant enough read with decent writing, though the angst was a bit overdone, and I found I didn't care much for the whole idea of Light Fleet - too much Big Brother, perhaps.

Alternate Universe 4 #2: "The Debt," 1976, 140p. (with Anna Mary Hall, Daphne Hamilton & Shirley Maiewsky): My same criticisms apply to this second installment - everybody's guilt-ridden agonizing is heavy-handed and Light Fleet is a disturbing concept. But again, the writing is frequently quite good, and the plot kept me reading - or at least scanning for the most interesting bits. On assignment, agent Kirk is rescued from hanging by the Enterprise - alerted by Light Fleet. (Uhura, conveniently, is also an agent.) When McCoy discovers his communications chip, Kirk, per Light Fleet orders, escapes by staging his own suicide. Blaming himself for having betrayed Jim in obeying his Starfleet oath, McCoy becomes such a total wreck that Spock suspends him and he goes to soak his sorrows on leave planet Gagarin. Meanwhile, back in Light Fleet, Vulcan agent Malon is assigned to assassinate the Klingon leader to stop intergalactic war. She does so, but is devastated at having killed. She compares sorrows with Kirk, and they get permission to collect Dival, a Light Fleet telepathic psychologist, and go to Gagarin to put McCoy right. McCoy, however, detects and prevents the healer's telepathic contact, and cannot be cured in the short time left before Dival must go home to undergo a type of spontaneous fission in which a Child is formed. Distracted by McCoy's problems, Dival leaves it too late and goes into the "creation" phase with McCoy witnessing the weirdness. Meanwhile, the war has not stopped after all - Klingons attack Gagarin with a new, indestructible ship, and Enterprise roars into the fray. Dival's friends arrive to help him in his Creation, and Kirk shows himself to McCoy, opting for personal over professional loyalty. But McCoy has now seen too much. He is invited into Light Fleet, but refuses to abandon Spock and has them mind-wipe him, all except for the knowledge that Kirk is alive, which he is allowed to share with Spock. Oh, meanwhile... Malon has had to participate in a Vulcan gang-mind-meld and Spock - also drafted into the group - recognizes her from long ago and questions her supposed death and motives, but she escapes thanks to Light Fleet training. Enterprise, with a little help from Light Fleet, defeats the invincible Klingon ship - leaving Spock to ponder the impossibility of that victory and start putting 2 & 2 together. Kirk and Malon go off to new Light Fleet adventures.


"Alternate Universe 4" Interphase #3, August 1976 (p. 16-21): [with Anna Mary Hall]; Article. Explanation of the AU4 series.

Josephine Timmins

"This Side of Paradise" Log Entries #23, April 1979 (p. 8-10): Christine overcomes her jealousy of Leila to comfort her over her loss of Spock, pointing out that he would eventually have overcome the spores and died had he stayed on Omicron.

Kathy Tipton

"The Jaws of Night" Beside Myself #3 (/), undated (p.20-29): Mirror Spock and Mirror Kirk confront their desire for one another, taunting one another. Most interesting bit is that this Spock would have settled for Kirk in Janice Lester's body – but didn't take her when he had the chance. Spock insists on commitment; Kirk gives in, with the implication that their love will light their dark universe.

"Crystal Wall" Beside Myself #3 (/), undated (p.32-58): Best plotted of this zine, until it all turned into a dream. Spock rescues an asphyxiated Kirk from a crystal cage, only to have him fall unconscious in the shuttle, and docks the shuttle on Enterprise only to find himself back outside the crystal cage, another Kirk asphyxiating within. Yet a third Kirk comes on the scene and shoots the other two. Back in reality, we find that McCoy is doing psych-therapy on him. The three all review Spock's dreams and discuss the meanings. All ends well with Kirk and Spock falling into bed together.

Donna Toutant

"Girl of My Dreams" Alpha Continuum # 4, March 1980 (p.26-29): Illo interp. Kirk, adrift on a sea after a shuttle wreck, finds a mirage-woman -- only to wake in Sickba

B.E. Trimble

"Valley of the Sentinel" Beyond Antares (CA) #10, April 1987 (p. 12-19): Mystic poop about a magic Moonstone, and a near-death experience for Kirk.

"Weststar" Beyond Antares (CA) #11, Oct. 1987 (p. 8-15): Kirk, Spock, Sarek, Amanda, McCoy, and Spock's wife Paula (in labor) are kidnapped and sold to a Klingon bent on vengeance for Terran war crimes. The good bad guy has to help deliver when McCoy's arm is broken protecting Paula in a crash landing.

Holly Trueblood

* Only Human (novel) Orion Press, 1996, 176p.: Lovely color cover Spock portrait by Christine Meyers.
     Nice explanation of Spock's motivation for going off to kohlinar - in this one, he explores his human side, falls rather in love with it as he falls in love with his colleague Lauren, and ultimately becomes thoroughly disillusioned with it and determined to eliminate it. Spock's increasing humanness is not really adequately explained in a physiological sense, but very nicely portrayed. He cottons on rather later than we do, of course.
     Basic plotline: Spock goes undercover working on the campaign of the Unity (as opposed to the human-centrist Separationist) party candidate to see if there is something amiss about him. He needs to look human but be Vulcan to get an impression from his handshake. Meanwhile he finds himself enjoying his human side and exploring it even to the extent of hangovers and dreams. In a nicely done subplot, he is furious with Sarek for impregnating Amanda and endangering her life. His newly found beloved, unfortunately (and rather predictably, I thought), turns out to be violently anti-alien from a childhood incident.
     Very well written and enjoyable, if a bit long on introspection about Spock's romance, even though the Federation political arena is not one I would normally take much interest in.

** The Dorian Solution (novel) Orion Press, 1998, 232p.: Wonderful color cover by Christine Meyers.
Very nicely written novel with a premise that is more fantasy than scifi and has been done many times since (and perhaps before) Wilde, but makes a fine story with an absolutely delicious dilemma for Captain Kirk. In a first-contact situation with the Dorian world, they find that it has avoided many of the expected social problems of its stage in technological development, but is oddly behind in medicine. Kirk and McCoy discover the cause, too late, when they participate in a local ceremony and become linked so that McCoy suffers whatever befalls Kirk. Kirk is horrified when he finds himself in a situation where his only logical course of action is to take a life-threatening leap.
Keywords: Dorian Gray. Honored Ones, meteorite, flying machines, communicator interference, leap, affirmation of the Way.
McCoy: "This'll hurt me more than it does you..."

Joyce Tullock


* "Side Effects" Plak-Tow #4, May 1980 (p. 49-57): Nice mood piece on the Spock/McCoy relationship. The pair are quarantined in Sickbay after McCoy is poisoned by tangling with a thornbush. [McCoy is having a hard time with the botanicals this issue...] A little spaced-out from the toxin, McCoy -- almost tenderly -- points out Spock's fears of becoming attached to vulnerable, short-lived humans and argues the resiliency of the species, urging Spock to "Just stick with Jim. The more you observe him, the more you'll understand the nature of our strength... and you won't mind us so much."

* "A Hero’s Return" Galactic Discourse #3, July 1980 (p. 44-49): McCoy has worked himself into exhaustion on a plague assignment and is blaming himself for sitting communing with the computers while other medical personnel were out assisting patients and dying with honor - though he was forcibly kept in safety and reduced the projected plague deaths by three-quarters. Kirk gets him out of the funk by telling him (falsely) that Spock had said the computer could have done it without him; the argument against Spock shows him that he really did make a difference. Nice touch with McCoy’s mercurial personality here - he really is rather irrational, but keeps all his good martyr points.
"A Test of Pride" Entercomm #5, 1982 (p.14-29): Shortly after McCoy's reactivation and the V'Ger affair, the doctor is sent on loan to an archaeological team - which then abandons him for dead in a flooded city. Kirk agonizes over having dragged McCoy away from home and to his death. It is Spock who urges optimism, and Chekov who finally finds the doctor, who has survived by using himself as bait to kill and eat the local blood-sucking fauna. Excellent characterization all around and a good combination of adventure story and relationship dilemma.

"Crossing Visions" Galactic Discourse #4, April 1983 (p. 138-145): Post-V'ger. Exploration of the estrangement of Spock and McCoy, from Spock's pov while trying to meditate. Spock seeks to "turn away" from the human contamination - nice emphasis on the smells, here - and recover the clean, dry logic of his recent time on Vulcan. But he is haunted by phrases from McCoy... "Capture God?" Visions of the encounter with V'ger blend with that of McCoy's battering at the hands of the Vians, and Spock experiences the chaos of McCoy's passionate loneliness, contrasting with the clean, sterile loneliness of V'ger. Much of this was unclear to me, but I liked it anyway - very evocative. Reconciliation occurs when McCoy tentatively approaches, and Spock requests to see the tapes of his new grandchild.

* "Schovil" Galactic Discourse #4, April 1983 (p. 188-224): [with Ingrid Cross]; Post-TMP. McCoy H/C.; On assignment to train Zanatan surgeons, McCoy gets nosy about conditions in the "corrections" work camps that underpin the planet's society (which is divided into diminutive, deft Zans with eyes adjustable to microscopic focus and the more humanoid Outminders). A former colleague with an axe to grind and a bribery scandal to avoid has McCoy sentenced to the camps, where he contracts a nasty parasitic infection and is looked after by the Zan convict Schovil. Kirk and Spock effect a rescue just in time. Good relationship scenes, but the comfort here is mostly provided by Schovil. Cross & Tullock's usual good writing and characterization of the Big Three relationships. Points for nicely alien aliens - loved the eyes - and a really icky new disease, a gelatinous mass that must be physically removed as it crawls up the throat.

* When Heroes Die: A Starchild's Quest (novel) Odyssey Press, August 1983, 142p.: Cover: Suzan Lovett; Illustrated by Kate Maynard (some very nice illos here!)
      At the end of the five-year mission, McCoy seems to be doing his best to become estranged from Kirk and is constantly battling a general sense of rage. Fleet is analyzing and re-adjusting him to death to "help" him deal with the let-down of Earth life after the heady years in space. He resists both readjustment and the hero treatment he is getting. He has also taken up with Melissa, a young interior decorator sent by the Fleet to provide him with suitably re-adjusting surroundings, and of whom Kirk does not approve. Kirk seems to offer him a job investigating the possible sentience of the Mandois, swamp creatures of planet Our-ri, but then withdraws the offer, and McCoy has already resigned his commission anyway. A young and adoring Our-ri-an (Kunaan) presents him with a medal and kidnaps him to assist in his quest to show the sentience of the Mandois, and turns bitter when McCoy resists. A few days later the boy's ship is destroyed and McCoy takes on the mission.
     The quest to meet the rare and perhaps victimized Mandois takes him through arrest (for having forgotten to pay his hotel bill), suspicions that Kirk and Melissa are not only trying to treat him like a baby but perhaps sleeping together, a long and hazardous journey through the swamps with John Kevin O'Farland, attacks from supporters of joining the Federation - who don't want the Mandois to turn out to be sentient, and a sojourn with the Lady Jha-el, Kunaan's mother, who loves the Mandois and can communicate with them by means of an incense lamp.
     The writing is excellent. Particularly fine are the alien dialogue, full of a believable slang used by the "swampies,"and the descriptions of the wet, chilly environment and its creatures. The plot is compelling, but the denouement is unfortunately dependent on mystic poop. The Mandois are quite charming, if wet. They are telepathic but communicate more holistically than humans, whole blocks of thought pouring in at once, potentially causing brain damage. When McCoy loses all of his equipment, he has them plant their racial memories in his brain so that it can be decoded by psychotricoder later. So far, so good... but I hated the use of the incense lamp to have the entire Mandois population turn out and share thoughts. I am also ambivalent about the final healing - I both like and hate it. When McCoy sees himself through the eyes of the Mandois, he sees that he is truly bound to and part of Spock and Kirk.
    Millie is an interesting character and seems a good match for the doctor, sticking to him but giving him the fights he seems to crave here. A theme that runs through this one is McCoy running from everyone who loves him - shown here as a fear of betrayal so deep he makes sure no one gets the chance to get that close.
    The wrap-up is quite nice. McCoy picks another fight with Kirk (Kirk knocks him on his ass) but is confident that all will be well, and he has come to terms with Kunaan's death. And he finally broaches the subject of making a baby (though not a long-term contract) with Melissa.

When You Were Merlin and I Was King (novella) Odyssey Press, November 1983, 41p. (with Ingrid Cross): McCoy is telepathically drawn to V'Ger, after its union with Decker & Ilya, and told it is up to him to rescue Kirk from himself. If he goes on as he is, he will bring horrible suffering to the universe. McCoy manages to make Admiral Kirk face his pride by letting him beat him up. It's an odd premise - one, because, come on, Kirk isn't *that* important and two, how does McCoy's sacrifice really save him? Some good moments, but rather predictably over-emotional.

"Pegasus and the Starman" Galactic Discourse #5, April 1987 (p. 225-255): McCoy has become fearful, and Kirk assigns him to a rescue mission (with Scott and Uhura) to snap him out of it. They find the missing young scientist, but lose their shuttle and are themselves stranded on the icy and quake-ridden planet. McCoy must lead them in powering and piloting a living spaceship - which drains them all dangerously - in order to return to Enterprise. Rather mystical, with lots of good angst.

Carol Turner

"Star God" Beside Myself #3 (/), undated (p.60-80): In an alternate universe, Kirk stumbles across a young, mute, telepathic Spock who has been cut off from his society for his imperfection. Their telepathic intimacy leads Spock to join him in the stars after Kirk convinces a mean Sarek to grant permission. Fade out on the two on the floor of Kirk's scoutship.

"The Color Green" Beside Myself #3 (/), undated (p.45-50): Mirror universe s & m story, with Mirror Kirk taunting and sexually threatening Mirror Spock, who finds it arousing.

Sarah Two Foxes

"A Sacrifice of Love" Candlelight & Flames #1, date unknown - 90's? (p. 111-116): First person from Spock's pov as he decides to turn down captaincy of the Enterprise to stay with newly-promoted Admiral Kirk..