James Benjamin Blish was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his Cities in Flight novels and his series of Star Trek novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel A Case of Conscience won the Hugo Award. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies.
Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex. While the term "slash" originally referred only to stories in which male characters are involved in an explicit sexual relationship as a primary plot element, it is now also used to refer to any fan story containing a romantic pairing between same-sex characters. Many fans distinguish slash with female characters as a separate genre, commonly referred to as femslash.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg is an American science fiction author.
Kirk/Spock, commonly abbreviated as K/S or Spirk and referring to James T. Kirk and Spock from Star Trek, is a popular pair in slash fiction, possibly the first slash pairing, according to Henry Jenkins, an early slash fiction scholar. Early in the history of Star Trek fan fiction, a few fan writers started writing about a romantic and sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock, highlighting a romantic or sexual element to the friendship between the men. As of 1998, most academic studies on slash fiction focused on Kirk/Spock, as Star Trek was by that point one of the longest-lived and most prosperous subjects of slash fiction, while its mainstream popularity made it one of the most accessible titles for academics and their audience. As the first slash pairing, K/S was created and developed largely independently from the influence of other slash fiction, with most of the conventions of the slash genre seeing their debut first in K/S slash.
The Kraith stories are a well-known set of early Star Trek fan fiction. The earliest entries were written by Jacqueline Lichtenberg starting in 1969. These continuing through the first few years after the cancellation of the first Star Trek series. The stories are named after the kraith, a goblet or chalice used in the performance of certain Vulcan rituals which feature prominently in several of the stories.
Spock Must Die! is an American science fiction novel written by James Blish, published February 1970 by Bantam Books. It was the first original novel based on the Star Trek television series intended for adult readers. It was preceded by a tie-in comic book line published by Gold Key and the novel Mission to Horatius by Mack Reynolds, all intended for younger readers.
Star Trek: The New Voyages (1976) is an anthology of short fiction based on Star Trek, edited by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath. Although published professionally, the collected stories were written and submitted by fans. Many of the stories were previously published in fanzines, or collected in fan-published anthologies. The New Voyages was commissioned by Frederik Pohl following his acquisition of Star Trek Lives!, which featured essays on the growing Star Trek fandom, and a chapter on Star Trek fan fiction.
Spock, Messiah! is the second original novel based on television series Star Trek intended for adult readers, written by Theodore R. Cogswell and Charles A. Spano, Jr. It was preceded by Spock Must Die! (1970), and Mission to Horatius (1968). However, Mission was intended for young readers.
The Price of the Phoenix is a science fiction novel by American writers Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, based upon the 1960s television series Star Trek. It was first published by Bantam Books in 1977, and reissued by Corgi and Titan Books in the UK.
Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 (1978) is an anthology of short fiction based on Star Trek, edited by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath. The anthology is follow-up to Star Trek: The New Voyages (1976). Jesco von Puttkamer wrote in the anthology's introduction that science fiction, such as Star Trek, humanizes space, making it "more understandable for the young in mind."
In 1966, Bantam Books acquired the license to publish tie-in fiction based on the science fiction television series Star Trek.
Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion (2006) is a reference work by Jeff Ayers published by Pocket Books. The book contains entries on the production and publication of Star Trek tie-in novels published from 1967 to 2006. Included are brief synopses of plots for each featured novel.
Fan fiction or fanfiction is fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. Fan fiction ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can retain the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. It is a form of fan labor. Fan fiction can be based on any fictional subject. Common bases for fan fiction include novels, movies, comics, musical groups, cartoons, anime, manga, and video games.
Joan Winston was an American Trekker who helped organize the first Star Trek fan convention and became a key figure in the subculture.
A Trekkie or Trekker is a fan of the Star Trek franchise, or of specific television series or films within that franchise.
Sondra Marshak is an American science-fiction writer. She is most well known for her work co-written with Myrna Culbreath. She was a co-writer of Star Trek Lives! (1975), with Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and television producer Joan Winston. She was an early promoter of Star Trek fan culture, and a publisher of fan fiction.
Myrna Lou Culbreath is an American science fiction writer and editor, most well known for the Star Trek tie-in novels and anthologies cowritten with Sondra Marshak. Culbreath was a founding editor of the libertarian editorial magazine The Fire Bringer.
Fan studies is an academic discipline that analyses fans, fandoms, fan cultures and fan activities, including fanworks. It is an interdisciplinary field located at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences, which emerged in the early 1990s as a separate discipline, and draws particularly on audience studies and cultural studies.
