Mindshadow (#27 Pocket, #41 Titan) (1986) is J M Dillard’s first flirtation with novel writing and I guess, how she got ‘outed’ as a Trekker to her husband whom she had been keeping in the dark about her obsession by surreptitiously acquiring and reading published Star Trek novels. She even wrote Mindshadow secretly and sent it off without anyone else reading it (Starlog – Issue 125).
Characterisation is variable and my biggest disappointment was probably due to there being too much going on and too few pages to do it in. I was all geared up for some touching K&S, you know the unbreakable friendship on the cusp of being broken because Spock would possibly never be ‘Spock’ again. It looked like it was going to happen, I would be indulged and my heartstrings pulled in that bittersweet way that makes fangirls swoon… but… time passed, Spock got marginally better and the scene was never written… and Kirk apparently stopped visiting so much. The hinted mental link? Not really used. Kirk knowing that Spock even in his mentally compromised state wouldn’t try to kill himself – well he gave Spock the benefit of the doubt.
But where was that marvellous scene I was waiting for?!
It didn’t happen.
Reunion after Vulcan…
Didn’t really happen there either.
To be fair though, although I didn’t see the emotional scene I was waiting for, I did get Spock related cinnamon roll Kirk angst, where Kirk didn’t sleep for two days and was an irritable sod because Spock was in critical condition. I suppose I can be appeased that way. Plus there is quite a lot of emphasis on the ‘love’ between the trinity, the friendship, which I think thematically ties in well (especially with the movies…).
Characters at time seemed to be hit with ISS (inexplicable stupidity syndrome) quite regularly, including McCoy who apparently couldn’t tell that Emma Saenz was Romulan… I mean come on. Her body temperature was Vulcan high, she didn’t sweat in high temperatures… and she was really strong… I don’t think you can even put it down to building muscle from being on a high gravity planet… McCoy has sexy times with her and still doesn’t realise she isn’t human!
Kirk was quite well characterised I think, although he did seem emotionally neutered at times… I do think we could have done without his attraction to Emma Saenz and the little love triangle that developed between Saenz, McCoy, and Kirk. Or perhaps it was just an indication that Kirk has a preference for lovers with pointy ears (hohoho… I’m kidding, I’m kidding)?!
There was one particular bit concerning Scotty which made me quite annoyed. It was his reaction to Kirk when her thought that Kirk had talked about his feelings over one of his engineers being killed. His disrespect and jumping to conclusions about his captain did not sit right with me. Again, it was a story element that didn’t need to be there.
As for the original characters, there were two of note. Firstly of course Emma Saenz, who at times is well constructed and at others utterly frustrating. She’s an interesting character, but because Dillard drops the reader lots of not-so-subtle hints rather early about her identity she’s a little too transparent. If Dillard had chosen to reveal her a little later it would have worked significantly better. I was confused at one point about her position as a double agent and Admiral Komack’s insistence of keeping Kirk in the dark, I don’t really see what her purpose was in her double agent role when she was on the Enterprise? What benefit could she have been to the Romulans then? It’s a little bit contrived, why couldn’t Spock recover, why did it have to be her? Why couldn’t they have just used another doctor?
The other character is Lieutenant Tomson, who appears in more books by Dillard and I think in one or two by other authors too. Tomson is… infuriating but in a very fallible way… She isn’t overused which is a good thing but unfortunately is involved in the erroneous murder charged levelled at Scotty. This and the murder of one of the diplomats seem to be engineered so that Tomson can do something… But as I’ve mentioned before, those elements could have been left out entirely.
Oh! There’s also Spock’s replacement Varth…who is a nonentity…
The conclusion of the novel is a little weak and more than a little rushed, which could have been avoided if Dillard had kept the story a little more simple and done some serious editing. Personally I would have cut out a lot of the superfluous bits of story in the middle and extended finale, given more details of the complex, more details of the Romulans, made more of the adventure and of Kirk and Spock working together again at the end. As it was it ends up being a little bit flat, not terrible just a little lacklustre.
I did enjoy this book however. Dillard proves that she can write characters well and she’s especially good at dialogue, but her narrative structure is messy and she makes far too much of linking the events in the novel with events in the series and the animated series (of course, it isn’t worse than Marshak and Culbreath actually footnoting all their references).
I’m going to be nice however and give Mindshadow a generous 3/5 – since a two would be overly stingy since it was a frustrating pleasure to read.