For one thing, McIntyre knew enough about writing for a franchise to keep from telling us too much. There's this scene in her novelization of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, right after they've settled on their time travel venture to find humpbacked whales, where Doctor McCoy is asking Kirk "What would the Guardian say?" And Kirk throws him up against the wall of the ship and yells, "Don't talk to me about the old days on the Enterprise! I went back in time to save your life... I had to go back in time and watch someone I loved die!"
Holy crap, I thought, what's that about? It wouldn't be until years later that I'd see the episode in question referenced, and I would marvel at the contrast between the episode's cheap shots at the 1967 Vietnam protests and McIntyre's decidedly more humanistic (and sane) environmental messaging.
Then there's the character of Saavik. In the films, she's just there as a foil, a younger version of Spock; in the novels, her past is delved into much more deeply. She's half Romulan, a product of rape, with a violent side she is desperately trying to suppress in favor of the Vulcan way of logic. She falls in love with David, Kirk's son. In Star Trek III: The Voyage Home, she helps an adolescent Spock get through the pon farr ordeal (it's basically the Vulcan version of blue balls); in the novel, it's hinted at that she has had to bear Spock's child in order for him to survive. Little wonder that didn't survive revisions to the final script.
McIntyre's characters are a blend of the familiar and the unique; they're icebergs that she knows just how much of to reveal. Only a writer such as she could get me engrossed enough in the science of humpbacked whales (megaptera novaeangliae--I still know the Latin name to this day) to do a science project on them the following year.
(My mother was bewildered at the time. "I can't get you to go to the Shedd Aquarium for a million dollars," she fumed, gobsmacked, as I traced the anatomy of the whale on a big piece of cardboard on the kitchen table, "and suddenly you want to learn about whales?")
I can't claim her work turned me to a career in anything scientific, but it definitely gave me appreciation for two things: the scientific method of thinking, and the art and effects of good old fashioned storytelling. McIntyre shines a light into Spock's character that appealed to my desire to find order in what I suspected (rightly) was the chaotic and often fruitless existence of our modern age. I could not have put it in such terms at the time, of course, but I was learning that life throws rubbish at you quite often, even in the comfy existence of a suburban white kid, and the only thing you can do is learn how to deal with it. Spock personified that effectively. I'm sure it was conscious on Gene Rodenberry's part to contrast Kirk's pathos with Spock's logos, but McIntyre added depth to each character so it wasn't such a stark dichotomy. Her good guys are flawed, and her bad guys have a touch of goodness in them as well. Her work led me to other pioneers and sages of the science fiction field, notably Harlan Ellison, Leigh Brackett and Frank Herbert, via a convoluted and often regressive path of reading that I sometimes think I would give anything to go through again.
Plus, it turns out I'm not done with her work yet anyway. This morning I read in McIntyre's obituary that, in addition to the novelizations of the three movies and a prequel of sorts, Enterprise, there's one other novel she wrote for the Trek universe which I haven't read. Sort of a consolation prize, I'd say, except I've read little of her other work. Stories and novels that explore feminism, sexual mores, environmentalism and ethics may not have been my cup of tea as a twelve-year-old, but I'm itching to get a look at them now.
And how cool is it she finished her last novel, Curve of the World, eleven days before her death? Very cool. And very sad.
I don't believe in an afterlife, but if I did, I would hope like hell McIntyre is writing in it still. I tip my hat to her.
