Gimme That Star Trek Ep.54: Son of Spock

In the Pocket Books continuity, Spock had a son! Siskoid and the Irredeemable Shagg answered a call from FW Patron Corey Moosa and spent the summer reading Ann Crispin's Yesterday's Son and Time for Yesterday. Their impromptu book club has yielded some thoughts about this sequel to Star Trek's "All Our Yesterdays"...

Listen to Episode 54 below!

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Credits:
"Star Trek Theme" by Alexander Courage, with the Irredeemable Shagg on vocals. End theme: "Deep Space Nine Theme" by Dennis McCarthy.

Bonus clips from: Star Trek's "All Our Yesterdays", starring Leonard Nimoy, Mariette Hartley, and DeForest Kelley.

And thanks for leaving a comment!

18 responses to “Gimme That Star Trek Ep.54: Son of Spock

  1. First off, we need to have an intervention with Shag. Haven’t seen all of TOS? Put those damn books down and watch some TV, son!

    Second, “All Our Yesterdays” is Cindy’s absolute favorite Trek episode. She loves these books dearly as well. One of these days, I need to read them, but I don’t know if I will enjoy the experience as much as her enthusiastic retelling of them. Heck, she made ME consider them canon! You can catch some of that enthusiasm on a very early episode of Super Mates where we cover the original episode, and Cindy also breaks down the sequels: http://fireandwaterpodcast.com/podcast/super-mates-episode-4-star-trek-all-our-yesterdays/

    Chris

      1. If you were going with this idea, then I agree. Personally, I like the “uniform” look of the uniforms, much like the DS9 gray shoulders, so I wouldn’t mess with it. Well, except for changing the material they’re made out of wool gabardine is HOT (and not in the Shag version of the term).

  2. As much as I enjoy science fiction, I’m a fantasy fan at heart. So, I may have to check out Time for Yesterday.

    Also, I’m right there with you, Shag. I hate it when science fiction and fantasy get lumped together, as if they were the same thing.

    1. Like, sometimes, SF tropes allow for the visit to a fantasy-ish environment (a primitive culture that might equate with sword if not exactly sorcery) – Time for Yesterday is one, but I might mention Fire Time, Janissaries, heck, even Dune – but the means by which we go to that world is sci-fi. That’s not the same as proper fantasy.

  3. I don’t know that I to the blending of SF AND fantasy if there IS a line it gets very blurry. Superhero universes you almost have to go concept by concept Hulk ok that’s science fiction, Doctor strange that’s fantasy…but wait sometimes there’s hyper rational explainpations how his powers work. Spider-man? Pretty clearly SF just SPider-powers at man-size! Oh wait Spider’s cant REALLY TELL IF YOU pull a gun on them.
    even if we decide what genre every superhero is there’s still time travel multiverses and stories with very science fictional ghosts. Heck was ghostbusters fantasy or science fiction? That one will REALLY MAKE YOUR HEAD Hurt.

    1. You can have hybrids. Superhero fiction is a big mix of everything possible – crime, action, SF, fantasy, horror, etc. – and you can have a fantasy world where science is a force, or where technology works by magic, or where it’s all very strange and metafictional (how do we categorize much of China MiĂ©ville’s work?). But in fairness to Shagg, Star Trek is a SF universe, and when we’ve seen “magic”, it’s always come with a science-fictional explanation Ă  la Clarke’s Law. Doctor Who’s a little crazier as to what can happen, but it’s still SF and Clarke’s Law is in effect. I bring up that franchise because they’ve done a couple of novels where there’s magic, somehow, but whether pervasive nanites manipulated by “wizards” or god-like beings able to change the laws of the universe, there’s always been a scientific explanation.

      None of which renders Shagg’s opinion wrong-headed because you still have the Doctor (or Kirk or whoever) hanging out with unicorns and fighting sorcerers. He can still dislike the tropes and find them lacking in “Trekness”, even if we perhaps better remember Kirk vs. witches in Catspaw or vs. a Greek god in “Who Mourns for Adonais?”. In other words, there’s plenty of fantasy in Star Trek (if not the exact type we see in Time for Yesterday), so it’s bound to come up (there are some very Sword&Sorcery TNG novels too, and I don’t affect them).

  4. Great show, guys. Sorry to hear it’s going on hiatus for a few months.

    I read a lot of Trek novels from around the time of or slightly before Star Trek IV until the first couple years of TNG. I remember Diane Duane, Diane Carey, Margaret Wander Bonano, Vonda McIntyre. And while A.C. Crispin’s name loomed large in the Trek literary canon and I certainly knew of this pair of novels, I don’t think I ever read them.

    I was wondering if the chicken salad sandwich thing was a reference to what Shatner likes to eat. Kirk does complain about a Tribble eating his chicken sandwich and coffee in The Trouble with Tribbles. And I’d remembered Shatner had emotional scars from the low-budget meals at a five-and-dime store, which he mentions in The Making of Star Trek, but it was Kresge’s fruit salad that scarred his soul.

  5. This is absolutely in my head canon as a genuine part of the Star Trek Lore!
    The main reason is that when Time for Yesterday had come out I was still a very new to Trek. (I really only had become a full all-in Trekkie in 1986)
    As a result, Yesterday’s Son was very new to me as I had only just read it (and listened to the audiobook) a few months prior to Time for Yesterday’s release.
    Actually I think the audiobooks are another reason I hold these books as “Canon” because Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan’s involvement in their being dramtilzed lends more legitimacy to the story that other stories (though equally good) may lack.
    As I said on Facebook, I stayed up all night reading Time for Yesterday the night before my English Mid-Term Exam. (It had nothing at all to do with the test I was just reading it for fun and couldn’t put it down!)
    I’m sad to hear that you guys really didn’t mention Ensign McNaire as her discovering Zara face in the cave painting is what alerted Spock and Company to Zara existence in the first place and she and Zar actually have a very nice interaction where she takes a private credit for his discovery (she may be the only lower decks crew member who is aware of Zara’s origins (At least partially)
    My favorite moment however is In Time for Yesterday, when Kirk wishes for a landing party assignment where none of the usual “Trek Tropes” rear their ugly heads
    “

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