Novel search: The one with the manpain meditation

[laurajv]

I am trying to remember what pro Trek novel had the Spock Manpain Meditation in it, where Spock sits in the dark and listens to terrible news stories about things like orphanages being crushed in earthquakes, and has Manpain over them. This is his actual meditation routine in the novel, I kid you not.

I believe that the Spock in this novel is older -- post-TMP Spock, not TOS-era. Anyone know?

(I am possibly using this Uhura icon because that look on her face is the look I imagine she would have if you told her about the manpain meditation.)

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

I have no idea.

I bet you that if I read that book as a teen (when I was devouring every Star Trek novel I could get my hands on, as opposed to now when I just re-read old favorites) I thought it was profound of him.

(This icon brought to you by the king of manpain)

[laurajv]

I did read it as a teen, and thought that exact thing! It was all noble and gorgeous to me at 16...

[beatrice_otter]

Hey, you might ask over at starry_sea, the comm about Star Trek novels. Someone there might know.

[laurajv]

Oh, good idea! Thanks so much.

[laurajv]

And, indeed, they located it at once.
http://starry-sea.dreamwidth.org/7629.html

The scene in question is in the Google excerpts, if anyone wants to read it. It's either 4 or 5 in the search results a comm member sent the link for. And it is pretty much as I remember it, except I think it might actually be -more- messed up, in a very "Kolinahr might have given Spock PTSD" kind of way.

[beatrice_otter]

"Kolinahr might have given Spock PTSD"

Say more?

[laurajv]

There's this whole bit about how Spock has developed this particular meditation bit, which is Full of Manpain, because he had trouble with a particular part of Kolinahr and this crazy-ass stupid meditation of his is a coping mechanism of some kind. It just reads to me like he got seriously messed up in the head during that whole thing. (Which is how a lot of his character arc in TMP reads to me anyway, so I have a bias.)

[lferion]

Um. The one that comes to mind is Sonni Cooper's "Black Fire" but I can't get to the box it is in at the moment.

[laurajv]

Mostly what I remember about that one....hm. The sexy earring! The starving himself instead of eating meat (look, dude, how is that going to get your report back to Starfleet?). Was that also the one with the spy who had to use depilatory cream on herself because she was furry?

[beatrice_otter]

That one I actually have an e-book of, though I haven't read it since getting an ebook of it (I had some extra credits at Fictionwise; I remembered Pirate!Spock and picked it up, never bothered to read it). Searching the text of that one for the word "meditate" comes up with two uses:

"Spock was permitted to leave his quarters only to fulfill the medical requirements for exercise necessary to his recovery. Yet for the Vulcan, confinement was not punishment; he used the time to meditate, re-evaluate and study his recent experiences. Although the captain chafed to have him cleared, Spock reminded him that his medical condition made it impossible for him to return to duty immediately in any case. That seemed to ease Kirk's mind to an extent."

"He got under the blankets as the lights dimmed, but they did not go out entirely. The ceiling was still partly illuminated. Spock's preference for the dark was an idiosyncrasy well known among the crew members of the Enterprise. His quarters were always dimly lit, providing a haven, a place where he could meditate. That privacy was now a thing of the past."

No mention of what he's meditating about.

[tazlet]

Geh! Thank God I stopped reading Trek novels before they got to that point.

[laurajv]

Looking back on a lot of the ones I loved, I am more and more certain that teenagers should be forbidden from reading, say, Atlas Shrugged until they have some kind of perspective.

[tazlet]

I'm of the opinion that grown men should be forbidden to read Atlas Shrugged - too many of them identify with John Galt.

[ellen_fremedon]

OH GOD. I remember that scene, and I remember not finding it the slightest bit facepalmy.

...but I don't remember which book it's in.

[laurajv]

At the time I thought it was super-deep.