Chain of Attack (#32 Pocket, # Titan) (1987) by Gene Deweese is one of those books which is sincerely a pleasure to read. Almost clinical in its execution, Deweese’s clarity and excellent characterisation is only let down by a slight feeling of detachment as the author takes a ‘hands off’ approach to his characters emotionality.
Chain of Attack begins with the Enterprise being hurled into a distant region of space via a spacial anomaly that appears to have been created by an ancient (and presumably extinct) species. Isolated and with no way back home, the Enterprise explores the space around where the anomaly deposited them. To their horror all the planets they come across have been decimated by weapons of mass destruction and over a long period of time. Eventually they come across other space faring craft, however they attack the Enterprise on sight… as well as attacking each other. Fortunately they are not as technologically advanced and the Enterprise has little trouble with dealing with these encounters, bu the crew are horrified by the alien species’ propensity for suicide.
However, there is dissent in the ranks, and Kirk has to fight on two fronts.
As well as the excellent characterisation of Kirk, Spock and McCoy (I’ll restrict my gushing, lest it get a little repetitive), Deweese’s original character Doctor Jason Crandall is actually a really enjoyable character to get to know. I mean, he’s infuriating on one hand, but on the other because Deweese lets us ‘see’ his thoughts and thought processes he’s almost understandable but with that you get a kind of tension… you know he’s going to do something but you’re not sure what the something is going to be. The funny thing is that when he does act it’s a laughable failure, and that is… almost tragic I guess? Crandall is just so deluded and his understanding of the situation so wrong he ends up being a really effective tragic character. Even the fact that Kirk writes his attempts at mutiny off as not being particularly worrisome makes the character effective. I get the feeling that possibly Crandall got some of his character traits at least partially from people who dislike Star Trek, or criticise Kirk as a leader/captain/character. Certainly I have seen similar commentaries to Crandall’s in articles about Star Trek or various Facebook posts; He isn’t realistic, he has too much ego, he only wishes to satisfy his own sense of adventure, he throws his crews lives away – that kind of thing. Crandall echoes this commentary, and if I’m right… that’s a fantastic in joke (with a clever tongue in cheek resolution).
I really liked the two alien species that were encountered, I liked how different they were physically but how similar they were mentally. I liked their individual characterisations, that they didn’t all react in the same way (not all painted with the same brush) even if they were a little bit frustrating for Kirk to deal with.
Near the end of the book an unexpected third species is discovered, and actually an unexpected resolution for Crandall and the Enterprise crew. Naturally, the crew of the Enterprise return to their original part of the galaxy (with some relieved passengers) and leave behind them the beginnings of peace for the two species they encountered there.
All in all a really solid novel, clean and concise with a very ‘Star Trek’ ending. My only complaint is that Deweese is very distant emotionally and that is less enjoyable for me, but that being said I did really enjoy Chain of Attack a great deal, and even if you (like myself) like the more emotional novels, this one is worth a read.
It’s not very fun to write about though…?
4/5 – It’s done, I made it!