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3:36am July 27, 2015
One of my other all-time favorite characters on Star Trek – the Horta, who as I mentioned in my last post was unnamed, except for the name of her species.  She was in “The Devil in the Dark”.  Diane Duane wrote one of this Horta’s kids into her version of the Enterprise crew and I loved her for it, including her attention to detail about what sorts of things Hortas would want to eat and drink at cocktail parties (as I recall it was something like metal floating in petroleum).If you’re unfamiliar with the Horta, she’s the creature that looks like a giant melted pepperoni pizza, or a big shaggy blanket thrown over a rock, or something.  I love ST:TOS special effects, shows like that and classic Doctor Who had to be a lot more imaginative than their bigger-budget counterparts in the future.  And to me there’s a lot more charm in that than in the slick special effects that come later.  I still remember when I discovered Doctor Who, like really discovered it and started watching it (not just heard of it), it was like getting a whole new version of ST:TOS to watch, because there’s something very similar about the two.  And I’m talking about “classic” Doctor Who here.  (My favorite Doctors are the fourth and the first, in that order.  And that includes all versions of Doctor Who including the really recent ones.  I also like the fifth and sixth Doctors and think they’re underrated.  And I prefer the classic Doctor Who to the modern Doctor Who even though I like both.  Just like I like ST:TOS better than ST:TNG even though I like both.  I’ve tried and failed many times to get into ST:DS9, and can’t get into it at all.  I’ve had similar problems with Voyager.  I got into Enterprise for awhile but lost it after a point – but I liked Enterprise a lot, until I got bogged down in this one part and never got past it.)Anyway, Hortas.  Love them.  Love this one in particular since she’s the only one we see in the actual series.  Love the Horta character in Diane Duane’s books too.  She’s really good at thinking up lots and lots of details for aliens, both in the Star Trek universe and in the Young Wizards universe, and she’s done some stuff that seems to cross concepts from the two universes at times. (1)But I wholeheartedly recommend all the rest of her Star Trek novels (besides the one warned about in the footnote, if you’re developmentally disabled especially I would approach that book with extreme caution, especially if you’ve ever been in a position to have people in authority, or people at all, consider you mindless or soulless and/or freak themselves out to the point of near-breakdown just by looking at you and imagining your supposed emptiness) that I’ve ever read, especially Spock’s World which was my introduction to her writing in general.  But also The Wounded Sky was really good.  She’s famous for her Rihannsu series set on the Romulan homeworld, which were interesting to me but not as interesting as her other Star Trek novels for whatever reason.  She also co-wrote the ST:TNG episode Where No One Has Gone Before.She also wrote a book (not Star Trek) called Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses which is great and another one that kind of edges into various universes.  My favorite of her books remain the Feline Wizards series, but… cats, wizards, how could I not have that be my favorite?  There’s three books in that series, they’re set in the Young Wizards universe, but they’re cat wizards, not human wizards, and they act more like cats than any other cats I’ve ever read about in fiction.  And now I’m rambling.  But again, my favorite of a series of books being not the main books but a small spinoff series of books about cats, is also in keeping with my taste in just about everything.[[MORE]](1) With a warning that there’s one of her Star Trek novels that hinges so much on horrible horrible ideas about disabled people for its horror, even deliberately comparing mindlessness/soullessness to people with severe developmental disabilities in a way that sounds like it was taken from either one of her life experiences or one of someone she knew, it sounded too much like things I’ve heard real people say – that I can’t ever recommend that novel (Intellivore), and it’s not well-liked among fans either just because it’s not that good of a book in general.  Compared to her others especially, which are mostly excellent beyond belief. 

One of my other all-time favorite characters on Star Trek – the Horta, who as I mentioned in my last post was unnamed, except for the name of her species.  She was in “The Devil in the Dark”.  Diane Duane wrote one of this Horta’s kids into her version of the Enterprise crew and I loved her for it, including her attention to detail about what sorts of things Hortas would want to eat and drink at cocktail parties (as I recall it was something like metal floating in petroleum).

If you’re unfamiliar with the Horta, she’s the creature that looks like a giant melted pepperoni pizza, or a big shaggy blanket thrown over a rock, or something.  I love ST:TOS special effects, shows like that and classic Doctor Who had to be a lot more imaginative than their bigger-budget counterparts in the future.  And to me there’s a lot more charm in that than in the slick special effects that come later. 

I still remember when I discovered Doctor Who, like really discovered it and started watching it (not just heard of it), it was like getting a whole new version of ST:TOS to watch, because there’s something very similar about the two.  And I’m talking about “classic” Doctor Who here.  (My favorite Doctors are the fourth and the first, in that order.  And that includes all versions of Doctor Who including the really recent ones.  I also like the fifth and sixth Doctors and think they’re underrated.  And I prefer the classic Doctor Who to the modern Doctor Who even though I like both.  Just like I like ST:TOS better than ST:TNG even though I like both.  I’ve tried and failed many times to get into ST:DS9, and can’t get into it at all.  I’ve had similar problems with Voyager.  I got into Enterprise for awhile but lost it after a point – but I liked Enterprise a lot, until I got bogged down in this one part and never got past it.)

Anyway, Hortas.  Love them.  Love this one in particular since she’s the only one we see in the actual series.  Love the Horta character in Diane Duane’s books too. 

She’s really good at thinking up lots and lots of details for aliens, both in the Star Trek universe and in the Young Wizards universe, and she’s done some stuff that seems to cross concepts from the two universes at times. (1)

But I wholeheartedly recommend all the rest of her Star Trek novels (besides the one warned about in the footnote, if you’re developmentally disabled especially I would approach that book with extreme caution, especially if you’ve ever been in a position to have people in authority, or people at all, consider you mindless or soulless and/or freak themselves out to the point of near-breakdown just by looking at you and imagining your supposed emptiness) that I’ve ever read, especially Spock’s World which was my introduction to her writing in general.  But also The Wounded Sky was really good.  She’s famous for her Rihannsu series set on the Romulan homeworld, which were interesting to me but not as interesting as her other Star Trek novels for whatever reason.  She also co-wrote the ST:TNG episode Where No One Has Gone Before.

She also wrote a book (not Star Trek) called Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses which is great and another one that kind of edges into various universes.  My favorite of her books remain the Feline Wizards series, but… cats, wizards, how could I not have that be my favorite?  There’s three books in that series, they’re set in the Young Wizards universe, but they’re cat wizards, not human wizards, and they act more like cats than any other cats I’ve ever read about in fiction.  And now I’m rambling.  But again, my favorite of a series of books being not the main books but a small spinoff series of books about cats, is also in keeping with my taste in just about everything.

(1) With a warning that there’s one of her Star Trek novels that hinges so much on horrible horrible ideas about disabled people for its horror, even deliberately comparing mindlessness/soullessness to people with severe developmental disabilities in a way that sounds like it was taken from either one of her life experiences or one of someone she knew, it sounded too much like things I’ve heard real people say – that I can’t ever recommend that novel (Intellivore), and it’s not well-liked among fans either just because it’s not that good of a book in general.  Compared to her others especially, which are mostly excellent beyond belief.