I don't know how topical this is, but it sure is interesting... the "fiction based on characters" of Star Trek was discussed in an underground paper here in Richmond. Specific in the article was mention of a series of gay "romance" novellas involving Spock and Kirk. I'm not making this up. The article noted that most were written by lesbian fans of the show, and are not intended as parodies at all, but rather new twists on what some fans think was latent in the orginial (ie, Spock and Kirk had something unsaid going on). My favorite part is that there are two kinds of these books, referred to by authors and fans as "with plumbing" or "without plumbing" depending on the explicitness. I wonder how the industry feels about that, eh? Gotta love it... M o R