Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [228]
As the navigator was immersed, he found that the water was warmer than it looked—so warm, in fact, that they were all inclined to linger in it. Gardenhire felt like a kid again, splashing and getting splashed, feeling the sun and the waves wash away weeks of tension and fear.
He wished Tarasco had lived to see this. He wished, at the very least, that the captain could have seen the fruits of his sacrifice.
Finally, the navigator and his comrades got too tired to splash anymore. They struck out for shore with long, easy strokes, tugging the pod along in their wake. That is, five of them did.
O’Shaugnessy chose to try to glide above the waves. But then, as Gardenhire had learned from weeks of sharing a pod with the man, O’Shaugnessy could be something of a showoff.
A Look Inside
Star Trek: The Next Generation—Reunion and
Star Trek: The Next Generation—The Valiant
with Michael Jan Friedman
by Kevin Dilmore
Kevin Dilmore: To put our conversation in perspective, Reunion was your fifth Star Trek novel, and it was written only a few years after your first.
Michael Jan Friedman: Yes. Double, Double (Star Trek No. 45) came out first, then came A Call to Darkness (Star Trek: The Next Generation No. 9). After that was Doomsday World (ST: TNG No. 12, written with Peter David, Robert Greenberger, and Carmen Carter), then Fortune’s Light (ST: TNG No. 15).
KD: What started you on the Star Trek writing path? I’m assuming you were a fan of the original Star Trek series before deciding to write one of these novels.
MJF: I watched all of the original-series episodes as they came out—not in reruns. I’ve hardly seen any of them in reruns, even up to today. But I never really thought I’d be writing a Star Trek novel. The few that I had read, I had enjoyed, including one by Howie Weinstein. I had written a couple of fantasy books for Warner (Books), and my agent at the time said that the people at Pocket (Books) were looking for new writers to write the Star Trek books. At the time, they were publishing only original-series books, and it was only six times a year. Dave Stern was the editor, and my agent hooked me up with him. I gave him a proposal, he liked it, and that became Double, Double.
KD: How long did it take for you to put that together?
MJF: Six or seven months, maybe. When I finished the manuscript of Double, Double, I said I wanted to write a Next Generation novel, because by that time the first season of Next Generation was under way on television. Dave Stern agreed, and I gave him a proposal, then started working on A Call to Darkness. It was just a quirk in the publishing schedule that they came out very close together.
KD: With A Call to Darkness coming out in the second season of the show, did you know ahead of time about the change in ship’s doctors from Crusher to Pulaski or did you have to rewrite?
MJF: I think I started at least in the outline stage with Crusher, and then wound up with Pulaski.
KD: How did the collaborative Doomsday World take shape?
MJF: I forget whose idea it was, probably Bob Greenberger’s. We were at a picnic on Long Island, and there were at least half a dozen Star Trek writers at the picnic. It was a great time. We talked about doing a collaborative novel. We weren’t really sure what the structure would be, but we wound up with four commitments. Bob hadn’t written a Star Trek novel, but he was involved in the conception of a lot of different Trek projects, so he was a valid contributor. The way we ended up doing it was that Bob did a detailed outline and we each wrote a section simultaneously, and when it was all over I polished everything. It was fun, and Bob, Peter, and I went on to do two other collaborations: Disinherited (ST: TOS No. 59) and (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine No. 20) Wrath of the Prophets.
KD: So we come to Reunion, which I understand was the first hardcover novel for The Next Generation crew. Who began discussion of that story?
MJF: I had heard or been told that Next Generation hardcovers were a possibility. Up to that time, there