Courts of Honor

You may be looking for the Star Trek: VOY novel Code of Honor.
Courts of Honor is a Kirk/Spock zine by Syn Ferguson, first published in 1985, but became more widely available in 1988 when facilitated by a group of fans called The Gang of Six. 
In 1986, Syn Ferguson won the Fan Q Award as best Star Trek writer for Courts of Honor. 
It took the author roughly four years to write and publish it.
A huge zine of more than 600 pages, Courts of Honor has a K/S storyline but features a number of secondary characters and romances as well as an intricate political plot. Many fans regard it as a fannish masterpiece.
Its road to availability was a very complicated one, with pre-orders being lost and misplaced, extensive delays in receiving copies of the zine, and fan controversy over the author selling the zine for profit. Although it was published to generally positive acclaim, many fans were angry with the zine or felt it had garnered undue special attention in the fandom. (See Controversy).
Courts of Honor was originally to have had art by Suzan Lovett and Gayle F. The author thanks them both in the zine's acknowledgments, writing "... both [Gayle F] and Suzan Lovett, whose illustrations, though they could not be printed with the book, proved to me that I had conveyed some of my love for the STAR TREK characters in its pages."
The cover art is by Sat Nam Kaur Keahey.
==Part of a Series==
* Mission to Mrinn (gen, while not a direct prequel, it is written in the same fictional universe and includes some of the same original characters)
* The Price (slash)
* The Prize (slash)
* Courts of Honor (slash)
==Contents==
===Summary===
===Early Ads===
An advertisement for Courts of Honor first appeared in March–April 1982: 
From an ad in August/October 1982: 
From an ad in late fall 1983: 
===Image Gallery===
 Image:CourtsofHonor.jpg| front cover by Sat Nam Kaur Keahey 
 Image:courtsofhonorback.jpg| back cover with the large comb binding visible. The zine was printed in digest form which was unusual for the time. Art by Sat Nam Kaur Keahey 
 
 Image:nome9lovett.jpg| One of the thirty-two full-page illos by Suzan Lovett for "Courts of Honor". These illustrations WERE NOT included in the print "Courts of Honor," but appear in Nome #9, as well as in the online version. Also see Inspiration: Poetry and Art.
 Image:courtsofhonorposter.jpg| poster of cover, released in 1982, three years before the zine was published. See article for more information. 
 File:Courtspostcardfrontspock.jpg| the back cover of the zine used postcards that had been created to raise funds for the sale of the novel. There were 4 postcards, each depicting a different character from the poster. This one shows Spock 
 File:Courtspostcardbackspock.jpg| the back of the postcard. You can see the holes cut out to turn it into the fanzine back cover. 
Image:courtsofhonorad.jpg| an ad from Datazine #37, click to read
Image:cohinside.jpg|inside page sample
===The Poster===
According to one fan, there were 4000 posters printed.from a letter by Eric A. S in Interstat #93
The poster was offered for sale in mid-1982. From one ad: 
In the October 1982 issue of Interstat, Syn Ferguson wrote of a letter regarding this poster, and of larger implications: 
In March 1983, Eric A. Stillwell, a fan club president, made this clarification: 
The poster was still being sold in 1987. From one ad: 
===The Postcards===
The poster artwork was also sold in the form of a set of 4 postcards, each showing a different close up portrait of the main characters: Spock, Kirk, McCoy and the Romulan Commander. Some of the postcards were later used at the the backing of the digest sized zine when it was finally published.
==The First Printing ==
From Boldly Writing: 
From a September 1985 statement from one of the Gang of Six: 
A November 1985 statement, also from the same fan: 
== Controversy ==
As was not uncommon at the time, pre-orders were taken for the zine before it was finished, but this time they were lost/misplaced/spent. According to Boldly Writing, Syn Ferguson was selling cover art for Courts of Honor as a fund-raiser and reported in October 1982 that Gulf and Western (Paramount’s parent company at the time) got upset about this but it turned out that Paramount had simply mistaken a fan effort for that of a professional retailer and no action resulted from the case.Joan Marie Verba. Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan & Zine History, 1967-1987, page 61. Enterprising Women gives this account of the troubles behind the scenes:
There were many, many letters written to letterzines and ad zines by fans complaining that they had waited too many years for their copies. One typical letter:
Another fan had this to say, blaming Syn for what she considered all of fandom's sins: 
One well-known zine editor, Alexis Fegan Black, addressed fandom in 1987 and explained, among other things, why she wished the zine the best, but felt it had garnered undue special attention: 
Even after the zine was published, and to generally very positive acclaim, some fans were still angry. This one doesn't care about the content of the zine so much as he complains about any positive attention: 
==Some Personal Statements (1985) ==
==Some Personal Statements (1986)==
In TREKisM #49 (July/August 1986) and Interstat #108 (October 1986) , an excerpt from a personal statement issued by The Gang of Six: 
In 1986, Syn Ferguson herself has this personal statement in July/September 1986: 
 
From a personal statement in Universal Translator #31 in July/September 1986 by The Gang of Six: 
==Publication and Reparation==
A consortium of fans headed by Victoria Clark, editor of Nome took it upon themselves to put out an edition and give copies to those who had paid years earlier (selling Heatwave, one of Syn's S/H stories, to raise money for the project). The five fans (Barbara Storey, Bev Sutherland, Alta Brewer, Edi Bjorklund and Victoria Clark) pooled their resources to do a fairly small print run (probably for lack of money), so the zine was hard to come by. Any excess funds raised by the sales went to repay those who had pre-ordered the zines from Syn Ferguson.
From a statement by one of the Gang of Six that encapsulated a presentation at IDICon a few months before: 
Much went into tracking down the original pre-payers. From a notice/letter by the Gang of Six in the May/Summer 1988 issue of On the Double (who also included the names and addresses of roughly 215 fans "the California editors have on file"):
The group estimated that they were able to repay 2/3 to 3/4 of the funds.From "An Interview with Victoria Clark, published in Legacy (Star Trek: TOS slash anthology). 
In the 2000s a second print run was considered, but the plan fell through. As a result, copies of the novel remained scarce and have sold at some of the highest prices for fanzines. At Nattercon's auction in 1993, a copy of the zine went for for 53 pounds. More recently copies have been selling for $100 and higher in private sales,Morgan Dawn notes, July 15, 2010. however after the zine's release for free online some copies sold for under $50.Morgan Dawn's notes about a December 7, 2012 eBay auction.
==Thanks by The Gang of Six==
After a long, long journey, the second print edition was listed for sale in Datazine #47 in the spring of 1987. In a personal statement for the same issue of Datazine, The Gang of Six wrote this letter:
 
The Gang of Six go on to thank many people, including:
* those who sent pre-orders
* letters of support to The Gang of Six
* statements of support to information zines
* con committees for program time, including Idicon, Four-Play and Beyond
* Shore Leave for letting them sell donated art to raise funds
* to information zines for printing statements, including Interstat, Datazine, Universal Translator, TREKisM, Communications Console, and Not Tonight, Spock!
* Judith Gran for legal help
* Suzan Lovett for creating much art for COH and for donating art to raise funds
* Joanna Russ for selling many zines to raise funds and and to Patricia Frazer Lamb for encouraging Joanna to get in tough with The Gang of Six
* to many fans who sent in cash donations
* to the printing company, GRT Book Printing out of Oakland, California, for doing a rapid job at a good price
They also wrote: 
In TREKisM #54 (fall of 1987), this open letter was printed: 
In 2017, one of the gang (Barbara Storey) said: 
==Winner of a Fan Q Award==
From A 2007 Interview with Victoria Clark: 
==Inspiration: Poetry and Art==
A few years after the zine was published, other fans were inspired to contribute to the universe that Syn had created. Suzan Lovett had been working on illustrations that were intended to appear into the zine's first print run. At the time Suzan and her family were living overseas and after Syn's publication collapsed, the art never made it into the novel.For possible additional information, see A 2007 Interview with Victoria Clark.
Flora Poste heard about the art and contacted Suzan and said that if Suzan would send her the artwork, she would write a series of poems for each of the illoes and give them to “Nome”. The poems and thirty-two pieces of artwork were published in Nome #9. See Nome #9 for the titles of the poems by Flora Poste and a sample of this art as they appeared in print form. The art is also archived 
Suzan would go on later to design a cover for an additional print run that never took place in the early 2000s.From Vicki's 2007 interview which was published in Legacy.
From the introduction to the portfolio in Nome #9: 
In the 1980s, an unknown filk group featured the fanzine in their series of Zine Melodies:
: COURTS OF HONOR
: (sung to the tune of "Money Song from CABARET")
: Money money money money money money money money
: Money makes this zine come around
: this zine come around
: this zine come around
: Money makes this zine come around,
: A year or more too late,
: A year or more too late.
A fan in 2004 comments on these sonnets and the art: 
==Artist Comments: 1984==
From Suzan Lovett in a letter that was printed in the December 1984 issue of Interstat—the editor of that letterzine comments that this "letter is several months old and its delay in being published is completely my fault. My apologies to all those involved.": 
==Author Comments: 2007==
Some excerpts from A 2007 Interview with Syn Ferguson:
==Published Online==
In September 2010, a couple of fans, Killa and Amanda Warrington, joined forces in their desire to see Courts of Honor (and its prequel, The Price) finally made available and freely distributed to online fandom. Killa approached Syn Ferguson about making a serious effort to complete the project. Syn was enthusiastic and extremely supportive of the effort, and as Killa began making inquiries among fellow fans for assistance, it soon became apparent that support for the project would be widespread. Gayle F and Suzan Lovett immediately agreed to allow their original artwork from The Price and the Prize and Nome #9 respectively, along with Suzan's unpublished cover to be included, and they along with others mustered and shared the resources to make that possible. Amanda Warrington OCRed "The Price" and donated a rough OCR file of Courts that she had received from a fan named Linda H. in England. Killa began the long process of optimizing the art and making a line-by-line edit of both manuscripts, a project for which she recruited many editing assistants. Syn herself spent many long hours going over the text and checking the work of the editors. Formatting, typesetting, and coding was the last phase.
In the end, the project enlisted the help and support of a total of 25 fans: Syn Ferguson, Suzan Lovett, Gayle F, Killa, Amanda Warrington, Linda H., Caren Parnes, Dot Laoang, Carolyn Spencer, J.S. Cavalcante, Amalthia, way2busymom, Virginia Sky, kassidy, Mary Monroe, Sandy Herrold, Elaine, vvatima, Isabol, Kathy Resch, Lyrastar, Gwyneth Rhys, Natasha Solten, feochadn, and Morgan Dawn.
Courts of Honor, including Suzan Lovett's original illustrations, is now available online in PDF, epub and MOBI format at the author's website (see links below the cover illustration) and a text-only version is archived at the K/S Archive. As Killa says:
==Reactions and Reviews of the Zine's Content==
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Category:Star Trek TOS Slash Zines
Category:1985 ZinesCategory:1988 ZinesCategory:2018 Featured Articles