Stardate 0832.6
(April 30th 2008)
We're still in the midst of a tremendously large litigation copying order. This is where every employee stands before their own copier and makes a copy of every single document in a banker's box, and usually involves unstapling, stapling, restapling, collating, rubber banding, large format document copying, etc. Frankly, it's a nightmare, and we're now about thirty days into what looks to be a forty-five day order. I'm personally staying late after work to keep on top of our regular business, as well as keeping up with the boys' high school baseball and pony league schedules.
To that end, I'm definitely going to hold off on releasing ANTARES 17 until June. That allows me a little latitude for anyone who wants to get a last-minute story into the zine. I'm still looking for some pen and ink artwork to accompany the stories we've got. If you'd like to contribute your artwork, please contact Randy immediately!
Our first contest was back in 1980, and we were looking for a Spock/Romulan Commander story. Rick Endres won with his submission, "Homecoming." There were a couple of other submissions, but none were as good as Rick's, and it was published in 1981's STARDATE 10. To my recollection, that was the last writers' contest we sponsored, although we did a few art and story challenges.
For this contest, we're looking for an original short story set on the bridge of the Enterprise, NCC-1701, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, during the original series/animated series timeframe. Any station of the bridge may be used, including some of the more unusual stations such as the navigation sub-station or defensive weaponry station. The entire story must be set on the bridge. No alien planets, no other locations aboard the Enterprise.
Characters that can appear: Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, Doctor McCoy, Chief Engineer Scott, Lieutenant Sulu, Lieutenant Uhura, Ensign Chekov and Nurse Chapel. Also, Ensign Garrovick can appear, along with Lieutenant Anne Nored, an Andorian crewman, a Tellarite crewman, and any other needed crewmembers. Sorry, no M'ress or Arex this time. No exotic aliens. Characters should be described in their regular uniforms (Kirk can wear either his gold command tunic or his green wrap around).
The length of the story should be no more than ten (10) pages, but we will gladly accept longer or shorter submissions providing you can sustain the readers' interest in your story. Stories cannot have been previously published or posted to the internet or usenet. There will be no exceptions to this rule.
Your story can take any of the following forms: comedy, drama, action. Sorry, no parodies. Themes can be first contact, post-script (i.e. stories set immediately after an episode, either live action or animated), pre-script (immediately before an episode), character studies or anything else, even romance between minor characters. Stories must remain true to Star Trek, and can focus on any character or any character relationships. The most challenging aspect of this story is that it must remain a "bottle" story (set only on the ship). We will concede that visual communication and interaction with Klingons, Romulans and other aliens may be necessary, but should be kept to a minimum.
Stories should remain G or PG rated. No nudity, no excessive swearing, no excessive violence, no destruction of the bridge.
The deadline for this contest is 6:00pm EDST August 1st 2008. The winner(s) of this contest will be chosen on or about August 10th 2008. Judges will include a panel of three readers, including senior editor Randy Landers, his wife Linda Marcusky and a third party to be chosen at that time. The winning entry or entries will be published either in ANTARES 18 or in a special collection of the entries. Winning entries will be published simultaneously on-line.
The author(s) of the winning entry or entries each will receive a $150 gift certificate that can be used to obtain any of our fanzines available (i.e. any ten ORION PRESS fanzines of your choice) as well as a free copy of the publication in which it appears.
Submissions should be submitted in either simple, unformatted Microsoft Word or Publisher, Corel Wordperfect or Wordpad format and sent to: orionpress@fastcopyinc.com with the phrase "CONTEST SUBMISSION" in the Subject field of your email. Orion Press is not responsible for any submissions not received, and authors can use the REQUEST READ RECEIPT tool to confirm your submission has been received.
We're excited about this contest, and we hope that you will be, too. We realize that this is going to be quite a challenge for many writers simply because of the extreme limitations we're placing on the stories, but we're hoping for a good crop of short stories! If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us immediately!
This Month's New Fiction Offerings...
"The Sun and the Wind" *NEW*
written by Rob Morris; set in 2295/97
first published on-line on April 30th 2008Fleet Captain Chekov takes his senior officers to task...
"Rescue Operation" *NEW*
written by Jim Ausfahl; set in 2297/55
available in Hyperion 3
first published in 2007: Hyperion 3Captain Uhura and her officers must attempt to rescue the survivors of a science research station where dinosaurs reign supreme...
"Gone Missing" *NEW*
written by Randall Landers; set in 2297/71
available in Hyperion 3
first published in 2007: Hyperion 3While exploring an icy world, Hardav and Reichard appear to have ‘gone missing'...
"Beside Himself" *NEW*
written by Jim Ausfahl; set in 2297/75
available in Hyperion 3
first published in 2007: Hyperion 3In attempt to develop a new energy source for the Federation, a researcher has unintentionally created a weird, energy doppleganger of the darker side of his self, and it's up to Uhura and her crew to defeat the entity before it takes over the Hyperion.
Presently, I'm reviewing several Classic Trek stories from our long-defunct X-rated fanzine, BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR, to see if they could be added. Some of those stories already appear on the website ("The Lesson," "Tryst" and "Southern Comfort"), and a few others may join them. I'm just concerned about how explicit these stories tend to be and whether or not they should be a part of the site as a whole. I'm not inclined to publish any of the sex for the sake of sex stories, but I am finding a few character-emphasis stories that may make these pages.
This Month's New Non-Fiction Offerings...
In addition to our monthly Star Trek News & Rumors update by Diane Doyle, we have several new articles...
From our page on the professionally published STAR TREK NOVELS, we have the following NEW reviews:
Gamin Davis' review of the novelization of Star Trek: The Search for Spock
From our FAN FILMS page:
There are five fan film productions with updates, including Star Trek: Aurora, Star Trek: Lexington, Star Trek: New Voyages (aka Star Trek: Phase II), Starship Farragut and Tales of the Seventh Fleet.
William Batross contributed a review of Tales of the Seventh Fleet's "Upgrade" and is at work on their third episode, "A Touch of Home."
Fred Dixon has reviewed Star Trek: Aurora's first two parts of their first episode, "Chamber of Justice."
ORION PRESS LEXICON UPDATED
APPENDIX A (Starships) is 99% done. All I have to do is complete the write-ups on Orion starships, and commit the designs for the Orion starships into the document. But overall, I'm very please with the work, and I welcome the comments and criticisms I'm sure it will generate. Any designs found on the Internet were properly credited, but if I've missed your design, let me know.
APPENDIX B (Aliens) will be my next major project. I've been collecting various photos and illustrations of the aliens featured in the ORION UNIVERSE, and hopefully it won't take nearly as long as APPENDIX A did. If you'd like to contribute your alien artwork, please contact Randy immediately! We have plenty of hitherto unseen aliens we'd be glad to have illustrated. Contributors will receive a complete copy of the entire lexicon.
APPENDIX C (Uniforms, Insignia, etc.) will be relatively easy. We've already got the Romulans and Klingons taken care of, and completing the uniforms for the rest won't be very challenging. If you'd like to contribute your uniform art, please contact Randy immediately! As noted above, contributors will receive a complete copy of the entire lexicon.
APPENDIX D (Star Maps) is about 33% completed. We are having some success now that the math has been nailed down, and we have three charts ready with this update. Jim Ausfahl and I are continue to evaluate what works and what doesn't work in terms of producing the charts. The data is sound, and Jim's even considering a STAR SEARCH program (similar to his other utilities) which will allow an author to pick a REAL star for their stories. Please let us know what you think so we can proceed with the rest of the uploads or make any needed changes. You'll note this first chart contains three starbases along with a sector general hospital and the outline of the Kzinti territory. Other charts will be updated with these starbases and territories in the coming month.
APPENDIX E (Crew Lists) is 100% COMPLETE. Diane Doyle has done an outstanding job putting up with all the formatting requirements in order to create a chart in HTML. Her diligence is well-appreciated, and the work continues on ironing out any minor inconsistencies she's finding in the source material.
This Month's Fanzine Update:
ANTARES 17 is no longer accepting submissions. We've got Chekov short stories from Patricia Wright and Diane Doyle, a diplomatic mission for the Enterprise by Jim Ausfahl, Peter Kirk takes the Kobayashi Maru and a sequel to "All Our Yesterdays" by Rob Morris. We're only interested in Classic Star Trek stories for ANTARES 18, and if you've got something in mind outself of contributing to our writing contest, let me know. Secondary and tertiary character stories will be accepted for on-line exclusives consideration, but not for publication at this time. ANTARES 17 is scheduled to be published in May 2008.
Other Related News:
From Patricia Wright: For those of you who aren't aware of it yet, and are interested, the Chekov 40th Anniversary Magazine created as a gift for Walter is now available to view, download, etc at either www.walterkoenigsite.com or www.chekovsite.com. You can also order a copy of the magazine from her as well.
Nico Declerck's ERIDANI archive site now has over 299 stories on the site from our Star Trek: The Next Generation offerings such as ERIDANI, IDYLLS, INVOLUTION, TANTALUS and others. Nico is always looking for help with his site, so please contact him if you can help out with the proofreading and that sort of thing. He's updating it monthly. This month's updates include quite a few stories from our hurt-comfort fanzine, TANTALUS.
Guess that's all for now. Next update will be on our about May 31st or so. Please drop me an email and let me know what you think of the website.
Randy
Landers
editor-in-chief
ORION PRESS
For Excellence in Star Trek: The Original Series Fan Fiction