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Author | Barbara Hambly |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Star Trek: The Original Series |
Genre | Science fiction novel |
Publisher | Pocket Books |
Publication date
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1 May 1985 |
Media type | Print (Paperback) |
Pages | 256 pp |
ISBN | (first edition, paperback) |
OCLC | 12190798 |
Preceded by | Shadow Lord |
Followed by | Killing Time |
Ishmael is a novel by Barbara Hambly, set in the Star Trek fictional universe.
Spock travels back to the time and place of Here Come the Brides, a 1968-70 ABC television series loosely based upon Asa Mercer's efforts to bring civilization to 1860s Seattle by importing the marriageable Mercer Girls from the war-ravaged East Coast of the United States. The show's premise was that eldest brother Jason Bolt bet his entire logging operation that he could persuade one hundred marriageable ladies to come to Seattle, and that all of them would be married or engaged within one year. Much of the dramatic and comic tension revolved around the efforts of their benefactor Aaron Stemple to thwart the deal and take control of the Bolts' holdings.
Spock discovers a Klingon plot to destroy the Federation by killing Aaron Stemple before Stemple could thwart an attempted 19th-century alien invasion of Earth. During most of the story, Spock has lost his memory and is cared for by Stemple, who passes him off as his nephew "Ishmael" and helps him hide his alien origins. Spock identifies one of the women in the story as likely to be one of his ancestors (on his mother's side).
The book ends with Kirk accessing the personnel record of his first officer, which reveals that Amanda Grayson's middle name is Stemple and that she was born in Seattle, Washington, thereby suggesting that Spock's mother is a descendent of Aaron Stemple; as a result of Spock being with Aaron Stemple, Stemple falls in love with Biddy the plainest of the girls. He asks her to marry him just before the Klingons arrive to try and kill Stemple. The same personnel record gives Spock's full name as S'chn T'gai Spock and his father as S'chn T'gai Sarek. Spock's family name has never been revealed on screen and only referred to as "unpronounceable" to humans (in the episodes "This Side of Paradise" and "Journey to Babel"). Although S'chn T'gai has yet to be accepted as the character's family name in canon, the forenames for Sulu and Uhura first proposed in other Pocket Books Star Trek novels of this period (Hikaru and Nyota respectively) have subsequently been accepted as canon by Paramount, as evidenced by the usage of both names in the 2009 feature film.