Lazy Zucker's Tangent . . .
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Well, How nice. excretion. can be.
We've all but given up reading Star Trek: Prime Directive.  Oh it's
not that it's badly written per se.  It's not that it's not really
a novel of any note.  In fact, as pulp goes, it's rather an OK read.
 
No the problem , it suddenly dawned, is I was reading a 
"Star Trek" novel.
^Raise-Eyebrow.
Und this lends itself to the obvious question
           "why won't Helena Bonham Carter return my calls?"
though second to that, we were left wondering what precipitated this
outstanding breech of literary protocol.  Certainly there is nothing
"new" in a Star Trek novel.  No sparkling prose, No cerebral pontifications
No engaging waxing philosophical.  For in these we find the written word 
most profound.  
The pages turned much slower as these whispers grew loud.  I can tell you.
:`why are you reading this?'
"don't start"
:`you're not nearly as happy with the writing as you had hoped you'd be'
"would you leave me alone, I'm trying to read"
:`no you're not, you're trying to hide'
^Raise-Eyebrow
:`yes, you're trying to escape'
"literature as escapism? how original, you'll have to do better than that"
:`you're trying to return'
"return where?"
:`to an ordered world based on the synaptic patterns of a man, now dead
  that also desperately sought a clean ordered existance'
"I know we can make that world ourselves, I don't need to escape into
 literature to find it"
:`if you know it already, why do you read it again?'
"To re-inforce it"
:`you cannot alter reality by re-inforcing irreality'
"reality is subjective"
:`so apparently, is your definition of literature - you are learning
  nothing new, you are experiencing nothing new'
""
Until, in the end, there was not I could do but withdraw from the book..
James T. Kirk, dissipated back into Roddenberry's childhood, Sulu and
Chekov crumbled to fine white sand and sifted through a grating, Scotty
und Uhura were drawn into the singularity of a fast draining chrome
kitchen sink. etc., etc., etcetera.
The illusion shattered, utterly disconnected from the characters I had 
days and moments earlier, existed within.
But you know, they will always be there and I will always return.  The voices
may be right, but perhaps only in context to literature.  Because when
you alter the medium, Star Trek, is still one of the most profound items 
in the Cable Television Universe.
        --   Michael Xavier Maelstrom, The Avante Guardian, TAG
  M o n t r e a l, Q u e b e c, C a n a d a, E a r t h, S o m e t i m e s.
... A new standard in obfuscation, ambiguity, & equivocation.
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30
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