Killing Time by Della van Heis

[watervole]

Star Trek Novel - Killing Time by Della van Heis

This is very frustrating book, mainly because I want to shoot the person who failed to edit it properly.

There are places where the writer uses words incorrectly, substituting a wrong word for the one she actually means.

The point of view, especially early on, hops around like a rabbit on steroids. At one point, it even managed to change mid-sentence.

The author has a real aversion to the word 'said', using an entire Thesaurus of increasingly improbable words to describe the simple act of speaking.

Science doesn't get much of a look in either. Sonar in outer space?

There's some glitches in the time travel plot as well.

All of which is doubly annoying , because I actually like the story. There's some good original characters (and some good female characters) and the Kirk/Spock relationship is as close to slash as you're likely to get in a mainstream novel. Although McCoy is probably the character who has the most spot-on dialogue.

I would have rated this book higher if it had been properly edited - I could have done a much better job.

However, even with all its flaws, I'll probably keep it.

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

The original edition of Killing Timewas recalled because it was too slashy, although many copies got out. (If the title on the cover is in raised letters, you have the original.) I am informed, though, that there's nothing overtly sexual in it. Van Hise was never allowed to write another Trek book, and there is some controversy over whether it was ideology or prose skills.

[julesjones]

I have supplied Watervole with a copy from my stash of first print run copies, which I presume is what's just been reviewed.

When I was living in Silicon Valley, I was about ten minutes' walk from a large sf-orientated second-hand bookshop, which had a lot of Trek Pocket books. I regularly checked the copies of Killing Time and bought the first print run copies when I saw them, on the grounds that I could always find a good home for them. :-) (I'm down to two spares now.)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'm not noticing much difference from the original version - though it's many years since I read it.

I wonder if the later version had any of the POV shifts corrected...

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It's a first run. The slash is totally non-sexual.

I've also read that it was withdrawn becasue Roddenberry didn't like the fact that the AU Kirk was a drug addict.

[da-pol.livejournal.com]

Arguably The Prometheus Design is slashier, albeit somewhat kinky, if you can ignore the dreadful characterisations. We're talking Spock/Kirk D/s here. Quite well written too.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'm find with D/s, but I can't stand bad characterisation.

[da-pol.livejournal.com]

Not "bad" per-se, in fact lots of good characterisation, just in a direction that I found difficult to figure out where it was coming from - the ficwriters habit of taking an established character and skewing it just far enough to fit what they want to write, rather than writing what fits the established character.

To be fair, it's a Marshak/Culbreath book, and all of theirs did that.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

I have "Killing Time" and I read it with my eyes bulging - so frustrating again! Now I wonder if I would be able to find anything wrong after reading your review:-)
As for Marshak/Culbreath books - I have never finished one although I have "Prometheus" and "Triangle" :-)
Speaking about TOS official books, my favourite one among several others is "Ishmael"...

[watervole.livejournal.com]

"eyes bulging" Not quite sure what you mean there. I think you're aiming for a different colloquial phrase, but I'm not sure which one.

I've never read 'Ishamal'. What's it about?

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Ah, sometimes I have to shake my head over myself. Actually I wanted to express my confusion over these books and I translated the Czech expression which means this - literally.
About Ishmael - the title is well chosen. The frame story is about a Klingon plot to get rid of Spock. They want to change the history so that Amanda Grayson could not be born. Spock is kidnapped but manages to escape as soon as the Klingons emerge from a time loop. Badly wounded and with his memory gone, he has to survive in the USA of 19th century, in the state of Washington. In the meantime, Kirk and McCoy search for him.
The historical background and the story are beautiful!