Sha Ka Ree

by ThereBeWhalesHere

Fandoms: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Relationship: James T. Kirk/Spock
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The year is 2258. Jim Kirk is a Lieutenant on the U.S.S. Farragut, Spock the science officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. When the ships come together for a priority landing party, these two strangers find themselves fighting against the odds for a chance at life in an alien world, and the only way they'll make it through is by relying on each other.

320 pages, ebook

Published June 6, 2017

Reviews

[Seregil]

Spock and Kirk are stranded on an idyllic but dangerous planet. This takes place in an AU in which the two of them didn't know each other previously (as they each served on a different ship).
The most part of this pretty long story is with them trying to survive and escape. It allows for plenty of slow build and some UST.
Felt a bit too long at times, so I admit I skipped some passages.

[Diane]

I haven't read all that much ST:TOS fic, tbh, but I can easily understand why this is considered a must-read "new classic" of the fandom: the richly developed characters and the arc of their attitudes and relationship, the splendidly vivid and original world-building (there are some beautiful fanarts out there, such as of the bioluminescent caldera-cave biome; I recommend you do a [Tumblr] search, since some of the in-fic links seem defunct), the gripping survival plot, … it's got it all.

I much prefer a story like this, that takes its time with necessary steps both emotional and task-related, making you care and believe, to something hasty and superficial. Neither the angst along the way nor the victories are gratuitous or internally inconsistent, though luck (both good and bad) does play a part — after all, what would Trek be without defying no-win odds?

I debated adding a content warning for secondary-character death, as well as OC deaths, but as the author says, you can see it coming from miles light years away, and it happens relatively early, anyway.

The SPaG technicalities are good; I couldn't swear it was ~perfectly~ proofread, but the only issue I recall was having to get used to the regional "positive anymore", i.e., meaning "nowadays" or similar.

180.5K, archiveofourown.org/works/9488996

I haven't yet read the two extra side stories that bring the series archiveofourown.org/series/744924 up to 201.4K, but I will very shortly.

Oops: my reading dates are once again approximate. My Sha Ka Ree Tumblr search results (as mentioned above) included other fic recs, and since I have nothing that resembles a schedule, well… the shorter ones that interested me didn't all just get marked for later. I've still got that results tab open, in fact, but I decided I'd better do my review before I forgot what I wanted to say. 🤷‍♀️ (I'm not being too specific, because spoilers, though.)

[Jayne]

I re-read this fic twice a year on the minimum. Ive been known to finish it and immediately read it a second time. I have not consumed a single piece of startrek media outside of this but i think about this fic on the regular. it has changed my brain chemistry permanently

[Sophia]

Just finished my reread, this is absolutely one of my favorites <3

[DeNirosBride]

absolute literature