Duane / Arnold defamation followup
Diane Duane
Jonathan Tham has been kind enough to post a followup report to
r.a.s.c. with details of a statement, or perhaps "restatement", made
to him by Richard Arnold concerning some things Richard was heard
to say about me, and THE ROMULAN WAY, at a Creation Conventions con
in New York in late November. Here's the pertinent part of
Jonathan's posting:
>For those who have not been following this discussion, during the
>Creation Convention on November 26 and 27, 1993 in New York City,
>Richard Arnold charged (or at least, I believe that he did) that
>Diane Duane retreaded one of her unsold science fiction novel into
>'The Romulan Way'. Not knowing how serious the charges are, I
>publicly reported it as I heard it (or as I understood it). Duane
>saw my report in Usenet rec.arts.startrek.current and responded.
>
>Keep in mind that this original conversation on 'The Romulan Way'
>that I had with Arnold was relatively short (less than a minute).
>It broke down from our larger conversation about Star Trek novel
>authors being more concern about (or simply concentrating on) their
>characters created for the novel and not about Gene Roddenberry's
>Star Trek characters. It was also relatively private conversation
>as it could be at a dealer table among Arnold, me and a couple of
>other fans. This was not on the auditorium stage. He did not expect
>that portion of our conversation at the dealers table to be posted
>on the computer network. As Arnold said, if he did, he would have
>certainly made sure that I clearly understood what he said.
>
>Arnold has been contacted by Duane's lawyer over the matter.
>Arnold's response to me is that he did not defamed Duane. He
>maintains that he did not say or mean to imply that Duane retreaded
>one of her unsold science fiction novel into 'The Romulan Way'.
>
>Arnold explained that the situation with 'The Romulan Way' was that
>Roddenberry's main objection (not Arnold's objection) to the novel
>was that it appeared that Duane had taken a book that had nothing
>to do with Star Trek, added the Dr. McCoy character and called it
>'The Romulan Way'. To make things worse, in the press, it was
>reported that way there is no such thing as Romulan.
>
>So, it is quite clear that Arnold had no intention to defame Duane.
>He clearly respects her. He never intended to say anything negative
>about Duane for the reason that she is one of the few authors that
>came to Roddenberry and said that I will clean up the sandbox -
>Roddenberry's idea of how writers should work in the Star Trek
>universe (the sandbox). Don't kick sand out of the sandbox. Don't
>bring dirt into the sandbox. Don't fight. Play along with others.
>etc. Roddenberry was delighted with Duane's response when the two
>talked during the SeaTrek cruise.
The above strikes me as a prudent tack for Richard to take,
especially considering the ease with which the facts contrary to
his originally reported statement (that I very minimally reworked an
either unsold or unsellable novel into THE ROMULAN WAY) can be
proven in court. And there were numerous witnesses who were eager
to testify to the truth of the matter, not the least of whom was my
husband, Peter Morwood (who co-wrote THE ROMULAN WAY with me).
Michael Reaves (my collaborator on the TNG episode "Where No One
Has Gone Before"), and his wife, Brynne Stephens (my co-story
editor on the animated series DINOSAUCERS) watched us work 20 hours
a day for the better part of three weeks (February - March 1987) on
this novel; they too were eager to tell a judge and jury what they
saw. So were various others who passed through Michael's house in
Los Angeles, saw the extra rental computer (mine was at the office)
and the pair of weary novelists in the living room, and left
shaking their heads. (A couple of months after the novel was turned
in, Michael and I went down to the TNG offices to see Gene, God
rest him, and pitched the story which eventually became "Where No
One...". So that turned out well enough.)
I do, incidentally, find it interesting that all through this little
ruckus concerning the history and provenance of ROMULAN WAY,
Richard has never mentioned Peter, or even seemed to recall that he
wrote half the book. Possibly acknowledging Peter's existence
would force Richard to remember that there *are* male Star Trek
novelists as well as female ones...
In any case, Richard's new statement as reported constitutes
enough of a retraction to satisfy me, so the proper thing to do is
be gracious about this and let the matter drop.
As a penultimate word: Jonathan Tham's follow-up report
has graciously and generously pulled Richard's cookies out of the
fire. Jonathan's a good guy. To those of you who may feel
strongly one way or another about his description of Richard's
response, I would ask you not to be tempted to "shoot the
messenger", who is after all one of our community, in lieu of the
source of the statement, who's not.
Meantime I want to thank again, in general, the very many of you
who have emailed me and offered support -- I lost track of the
number of responses somewhere in the several hundreds. It's nice to
know that so many people give a damn.
Followups to r.a.s.fandom, please, or to me via email: and then
let's all go do something more interesting....
Best! D.
Diane Duane
(a member of The Owl Springs Partnership)
"A little science...a little magic...a little chicken soup."
Also on Compu$erve: 73200,3112
JO...@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Duane) says:
>
>In any case, Richard's new statement as reported constitutes
>enough of a retraction to satisfy me, so the proper thing to do is
>be gracious about this and let the matter drop.
>
>As a penultimate word: Jonathan Tham's follow-up report
>has graciously and generously pulled Richard's cookies out of the
>fire. Jonathan's a good guy. To those of you who may feel
>strongly one way or another about his description of Richard's
>response, I would ask you not to be tempted to "shoot the
>messenger", who is after all one of our community, in lieu of the
>source of the statement, who's not.
As being the center of this matter, I am glad that this matter
is over and done. I thank both Richard Arnold and Diane Duane
for your support.
-------
JONATHAN THAM
BITNET: JO...@CUNYVM.BITNET
INTERNET: JO...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Timothy W. Lynch
>And there were numerous witnesses who were eager
>to testify to the truth of the matter, not the least of whom was my
>husband, Peter Morwood (who co-wrote THE ROMULAN WAY with me).
[...]
>I do, incidentally, find it interesting that all through this little
>ruckus concerning the history and provenance of ROMULAN WAY,
>Richard has never mentioned Peter, or even seemed to recall that he
>wrote half the book. Possibly acknowledging Peter's existence
>would force Richard to remember that there *are* male Star Trek
>novelists as well as female ones...
If there were any unconscious bias against acknowledging his involvement,
actually, I wouldn't lay odds on it being because of Peter's gender, but
rather his *name*. Something tells me Richard prefers not to think about
Trek novelists named Peter these days...
>As a penultimate word: Jonathan Tham's follow-up report
>has graciously and generously pulled Richard's cookies out of the
>fire. Jonathan's a good guy. To those of you who may feel
>strongly one way or another about his description of Richard's
>response, I would ask you not to be tempted to "shoot the
>messenger", who is after all one of our community, in lieu of the
>source of the statement, who's not.
Agreed on all counts.
Tim Lynch
Chris Wayne
the big deal if "The Romulan Way" was an unsold script with McCoy added? It's
part of the Star Trek Universe now and probably one of the best novels written.
--
Chris Wayne @ UNM | "THE CAST AND CREW OF STAR TREK WISH TO DEDICATE
cwa...@hydra.unm.edu | THIS FILM TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE SPACESHIP
--------aka--------------+ CHALLENGER. THEIR COURAGEOUS SPIRIT SHALL LIVE
Don Quixote of RAS \ ON TO THE 23RD CENTURY AND BEYOND."
Dwight Williams
In a previous article, cwa...@unm.edu (Chris Wayne) says:
> I don't wish to offend and I know I'm missing some subtlty here, but what's
>the big deal if "The Romulan Way" was an unsold script with McCoy added? It's
>part of the Star Trek Universe now and probably one of the best novels written.
>
While the quality of the book is not under question, Chris, I find myself
rather annoyed by the inadvertant reminder that _all_ ST novels fall under
the same category as DC Comics' "Elseworlds" projects or Marvel's "What
If" series -- waitaminit here. Now that I think of it...
Actually...with the episode "Parallels", the "What If" comparison is far more
accurate than the "Elseworlds" one. The novels probably all _have_ happened
in one alternate timeline or another...and let's not get into the
implications for "Yesterday's Enterprise"...:>
A pleasant note to sign off on...
--
Dwight Williams(ad...@freenet.carleton.ca)
1706 Caminiti Cres., Orleans, ON, Canada K4A 1M1
Timothy W. Lynch
>I don't wish to offend and I know I'm missing some subtlty here, but what's
>the big deal if "The Romulan Way" was an unsold script with McCoy added? It's
>part of the Star Trek Universe now and probably one of the best novels
>written.
The big deal is that the claim suggests Diane Duane to be nothing more than a
marketing hack. It says she couldn't be bothered to come up with a new idea
for a Trek novel, and instead plagiarized herself and just did a global search
and replace to "make it Trek". It suggests a rather strong lack of respect
for Trek on Diane Duane's part.
It's also an outright lie.
Tim Lynch