Kista (1986; original zine 267 pages) was described by author Jane Land as “an attempt to rescue one of Star Trek‘s female characters from an artificially-imposed case of foolishness.” In it, Chapel still loves Spock, but their developing romance is allowed to be complex, with Chapel being more of a rounded person (as well a doctor!) than she was allowed to be onscreen.
Demeter (1987; original zine 305 pages) is a sequel to Kista. As Henry Jenkins and John Tulloch wrote in Science fiction audiences: watching Doctor Who and Star Trek, “Demeter places [Spock and Chapel’s] relationship within a larger social context, dealing more directly with how women are treated within the Federation.” The plot “concerns the threat a group of intergalactic drug-runners pose to Demeter, a feminist space colony, a world where women have lived without any contact with men for several generations.” Uhura also plays a large role in this novel, commanding the all-female mission to Demeter; Robin Reid argues that this novel is important “within the context of second wave feminism, specifically: the creation of the 1970s feminist utopias (which often featured a lesbian separatist culture, sometimes though not always on a separate planet!)” (Reid, “‘A Room of Our Own:’ Women Writing Women in Fan and Slash Fiction,” ICFA 2009).
Our thanks to Dr. Robin Reid for organizing the preservation of these works.