Star Trek “Vulcan!” paperback cover by Bob Larkin

Below are two terrible excerpts from the 1978 novel Vulcans!

(McCoy is helping the Vulcan-phobic specialist who’s already leashed out at Spock unpack) …McCoy could have felt himself completely at ease with the woman, and very attracted. In fact, a whole lot attracted.

As he unpacked a drawer full of soft, sheer night-robes, McCoy felt that he had to know more about her phobia. The transparent garments, scented with lavender, were telling him a great deal about her romantic nature, and he wanted to know what sort of mental mine field he might have to walk through on the way to seeing her model those delicious bits of silk and lace. Spock and Vulcans were no competition for a pretty woman, nightgowns, and a bedroom.

“Tell me Katalya,” he said, tucking the last of the negligees away, “just why do you hate Vulcans so much? It’s a s ad flaw in a lady as nice as you are. It’s a downright pity too.”

McCoy joined her on the fur-covered bed. He reached his arm around her unprotesting shoulder and pulled her closer. “I generally like to see what makes a lady tick before I start wanting to play doctor with her mind or body-and I mean in that in the nonmedical sense.”

McCoy grinned at her, waiting to see what she might say to his rather bold proposition. She was new to the ship and he knew that as soon as the rest of the crew got a look at her, the offered would be coming thick and fast. It was better to be a little too hasty about this sort of thing than to run the risk of some fellow officer grabbing her up from under his eyes. Hid did hope she had no major hangups in the sexual area; it would be a waste of very good material if she did.

“What? You’re going to forgive me for being prejudiced against Vulcans so quickly?” She tilted her head to look up at him. “You must have a very flexible mind, Doctor.”

“No, just a well-compartmented one. I don’t like the way you act about Vulcans, but I don’t see anything about you as a woman to object to-or is there something I don’t know?”

i didn’t think I’d find a prepocket TOS worse than The Price of the Phoenix (which features a distraught Spock and a Kirk clone wearing nothing but lingerie held at the whims of an immortal madman with a western fetish, and the Romulan Commander is there too.) but lo here comes Kathleen Sky’s Vulcan! (exclamation point in the title) and this gem has some scientist who hates vulcans so much and Bones cant figure out whether to hump her or stick her in his freud machine.

im 25% thru. gonna try to crunch it.