Two Star Treks

[supergee]

Girl Trek and Boy Trek

Thanx to Tor.com.

Comments

[weofodthignen]

Interesting take. I don't believe it's true that the first fanzines were by women, is it? Perhaps she means the first Trek zines? Even there, I doubt it, although the campaign to get TOS back on the air was spearheaded by a woman. And Trek slash, which I've seen it said with credibility was the first published speculative fiction fanfic (you can argue that medieval literature was the first published fanfic per se) was begun by women, and gave rise to that first series of Trek paperbacks that many people would like to forget about, in particular Triangle (not the one talked about in this article, obviously), which I believe was by two of the pioneers. And which is my touchstone for awfulness. Then there is the significant participation by women in TOS, not just Number One/Nurse Chappell, but Diane Duane as a writer and inputter of canon features (later expanded upon in the newer series of paperbacks: Saavik paved the way for other "feminine" explorations such as the book(s) featuring a sensitive Klingon scientist at a disadvantage due to being male in a culture that leaves science to the women). And of course Troi and the Betazed culture were deliberately introduced in TNG to make the new series less lopsidedly male-adventurer. In short, it's been an interweaving of such concerns from the start, and that's accepting the writer's premise about what women and girls like to read about and see on TV and what men and boys think is important. Although my memory of specifics has faded since I gafiated even from Trek many years ago: I don't remember much about Imzadi, though I made sure to read it when it came out, that being a huge gap in the series' backstory.

M

[supergee]

As I said over at the other venue, some people believe that in the beginning Roddenberry created science fiction and fandom, cleverly scattering fake fossils of an imagined earlier time the way the Creationist God did.