Ishmael is a novel by Barbara Hambly

Barbara Hambly

Barbara Hambly is an award-winning and prolific American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction...

, set in the Star Trek

Star Trek

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

fictional universe.

Plot

Spock

Spock

Spock is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in the original Star Trek series, Spock also appears in the animated Star Trek series, two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, seven of the Star Trek feature films, and numerous Star Trek...

 travels back to the time and place of Here Come the Brides

Here Come the Brides

Here Come the Brides is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968 to April 3, 1970...

, a television program loosely based upon Asa Mercer's efforts to bring civilization to 1860s Seattle by importing the marriageable Mercer Girls

Mercer Girls

The Mercer Girls or Mercer Maids were an 1860s project of Asa Shinn Mercer, an American who lived in Seattle, who decided to "import" women to the Pacific Northwest to balance the gender ratio...

 from the war-ravaged

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 East Coast of the United States. The show's premise was that eldest brother, Jason Bolt, bet his entire logging operation that he could persuade thirty marriageable ladies to come to Seattle, and that all of them would be married or engaged within one year. Much of the dramatic and comic tension revolved around the efforts of their benefactor Aaron Stemple to thwart the deal and take control of the Bolts' holdings.

Spock discovers a Klingon

Klingon

Klingons are a fictional warrior race in the Star Trek universe.Klingons are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and eight feature films...

 plot to destroy the Federation

United Federation of Planets

The United Federation of Planets, also known as "The Federation" is a fictional interplanetary federal republic depicted in the Star Trek television series and motion pictures...

 by killing Aaron Stemple before Stemple could thwart an attempted 19th-century alien invasion of Earth. During most of the story, Spock has lost his memory

Amnesia

Amnesia is a condition in which one's memory is lost. The causes of amnesia have traditionally been divided into categories. Memory appears to be stored in several parts of the limbic system of the brain, and any condition that interferes with the function of this system can cause amnesia...

 and is cared for by Stemple, who passes him off as his nephew "Ishmael" and helps him hide his alien origins. Spock identifies one of the women in the story as likely to be an ancestress of his.

Spock's family name

The final page of Ishmael proposes that the Vulcan family name of Spock and his father Sarek is S'chn T'gai. The book ends with Kirk accessing the personnel record of his first officer, which reveals that Amanda Grayson's middle name is Stemple and that she was born in Seattle, Washington, thereby suggesting that Spock's mother is a descendent of Aaron Stemple. The same personnel record gives Spock's full name as S'chn T'gai Spock and his father as S'chn T'gai Sarek.

Spock's family name has never been revealed on screen and only referred to as "unpronounceable" to humans (in the episodes "This Side of Paradise

This Side of Paradise

This Side of Paradise is the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive Princeton University...

" and "Journey to Babel"). Although S'chn T'gai has yet to be accepted as the character's family name in canon, the forenames for Sulu

Hikaru Sulu

Hikaru Sulu is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by George Takei in the original Star Trek series, Sulu also appears in the animated Star Trek series, the first six Star Trek movies, one episode of Star Trek: Voyager, and in numerous books, comics, and video games...

 and Uhura

Uhura

Nyota Uhura is a character in Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Animated Series, the first six Star Trek films, and the 2009 film Star Trek...

 first proposed in other Pocket Books Star Trek novels of this period (Hikaru and Nyota respectively) have subsequently been accepted as canon by Paramount, as evidenced by the usage of both names in the 2009 feature film.

Cameos

Several other television characters appear throughout the book. In San Francisco, Spock plays chess with a gunfighter dressed in black who matches the description of Richard Boone

Richard Boone

Richard Allen Boone was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns and for starring in the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel.-Early life:...

's character Paladin in the TV series Have Gun Will Travel (pages 180-182). Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry

Gene Roddenberry

Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist, best known for creating the American science fiction series Star Trek. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, California where his father worked as a police officer...

 is credited for writing 24 episodes of this series.

The British TV series Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

is referenced at least four times: the Fourth Doctor

Fourth Doctor

The Fourth Doctor is the fourth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC British television science-fiction series Doctor Who....

 is described on page 13, Metebelis crystals from the serials The Green Death

The Green Death

The Green Death is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast in six weekly parts from 19 May 1973 to 23 June 1973. It was the last to feature Katy Manning as companion Jo Grant in Doctor Who...

and Planet of the Spiders

Planet of the Spiders

Planet of the Spiders is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from May 4 to June 8, 1974. It was Jon Pertwee's last serial as the Doctor and marks the first, uncredited appearance of Tom Baker in the role. It also marks...

are mentioned on page 57, the Second Doctor

Second Doctor

The Second Doctor is the second incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by character actor Patrick Troughton....

 is described on page 154, and Kirk recalls legends of a planet

Gallifrey

Gallifrey is a fictional planet in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who and is the homeworld of the Doctor and the Time Lords...

 of stagnant time-travellers

Time Lord

The Time Lords are an ancient extraterrestrial race and civilization of humanoids in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' eponymous protagonist, the Doctor, is a member...

 in the Kasteroborous galaxy on page 200.

Numerous other Western

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 and science fiction characters make cameo appearance

Cameo appearance

A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

s throughout the book. Page 13 features Han Solo

Han Solo

Han Solo is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise played by Harrison Ford. Introduced in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca , become involved in the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire...

 ("a scruffy-looking spice smuggler") from Star Wars

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

as well as Apollo

Captain Apollo

Captain Apollo is the name of a fictional character in the Battlestar Galactica franchise. He was first played by Richard Hatch, who would also later appear as the character of Tom Zarek in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series in 2005....

 and Starbuck

Lieutenant Starbuck

Lieutenant Starbuck of the Colonial Service, played by Dirk Benedict, is a fictional character in the 1978 science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck is a Viper starfighter pilot, gambler, womanizer and smoker of "fumerellos," or cigars. He is involved with Lieutenant Athena...

 from Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)

Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...

("a pair of brown-uniformed pilots from some down-at-the-heels migrant fleet"). Pages 153-154 feature Little Joe Cartwright and his brother Hoss Cartwright from Bonanza

Bonanza

Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...

("a good-looking boy in the dusty clothes of a trailhand just in from Virginia City, and his oxlike older brother") and Bret or Bart Maverick from Maverick

Maverick (TV series)

Maverick is a western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother...

. Emperor Norton and his dogs also appear. Matt Dillon (Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....

), Lucas McCain (The Rifleman

The Rifleman

The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...

), The Rawhide Kid (Rawhide

Rawhide (TV series)

Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...

), and the Man With No Name

Man with No Name

The man with no name is a stock character in Western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character played by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy."...

also make appearances.