The Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah

They weren’t canon at all, but when you’re a little kid, the idea of what does and doesn’t count in the overall “real” story of Star Trek hardly counts. These were the real-deal licensed Star Trek novels that were totally approved. To be clear, the Star Trek novels I read in the ‘80s and ‘90s were not sexy fanfiction in which Kirk and Spock made-out or Data was fully-functional. In other words, the novel versions of Spock, Riker and Data are infinitely better for kids than, say, the Hardy Boys, who are the kids of kids whose social awareness is closer to racist Johnny Quest than anything else. These books contained the same progressive pathos of the shows but made you think about the characters in a more multidimensional light. But even the male-centric Trek novels I adored weren’t macho or regressive. I mean, I freaking loved a book called A Rock and a Hard Place by Peter David in which Riker basically fights mutant snow wolves and the whole thing is like TNG-meets-Gary-Paulson’s- Hatchet. And that’s because, I think, the Trek novels of the ‘80s and ‘90s (regardless of the gender of the author) tended to have a non-gendered approach to their narratives. The idea that my favorite authors as a young boy were women, was to me at the time, just a given. What both of these books had common is they dealt with Spock as a sexual entity, and both of them, with their initial only first name credits, were written by women.

In Black Fire, Spock becomes a smooth space pirate, and in Yesterday’s Son, he discovers he has an illegitimate son - with the endlessly cool name of “Zar” - living in the distant past on the planet Sarpeidon. Flipping through these Trek books now, you’ll discover that they are just a scooch racier than your average episode of the original Star Trek. If I had to name a second favorite author, I would have probably said Sonni Cooper, the author of Black Fire. Crispin, author of the novel Yesterday’s Son. If you asked me to name my favorite author at 11-years-old, I would have said unequivocally that my favorite author was A.C.

The Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah