Ann Crispin wrote one of my favourite ever Star Trek novels - in fact, two that come as a pair - Yesterday's Son and Time For Yesterday. It starts with the premise that, while Spock was trapped in the past of the doomed planet Sarpedion, he got Zarabeth (the woman who saved him and Dr McCoy from certain death in a snowstorm) pregnant. At the beginning of the book, he discovers that he is a father, and insists on going back to Sarpedion's past to rescue the child. Kirk and McCoy, being who they are, insist on going with him - and they find Zar, who is a young man, not a child, and who causes Spock quite a bit of soul searching.
I loved Zar - I loved the way McCoy cut his hair into Spock's fringe style, and the way he stalked off and got himself a ham sandwich when he violently disagreed with Spock but didn't want to show it emotionally, and how he experimented with sliding doors, and looked with wonder on his first alien sky full of stars. I was there, in the story with them, and that is the sign of a very good storyteller as far as I'm concerned. It's all the more remarkable in that this was Ann Crispin's very first professional submission.
She was also, it is obvious from the comments over on tor.com, a very nice person, who will be greatly missed from the SF family.
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