Star Trek – Memory Prime

Spock walked back to the interface console.  He inserted his hands.  Kirk winced as he saw Spock give a final push to make sure the leads were embedded directly in his nerves.  Then Spock went rigid.

It has taken me so long to read Memory Prime (#42 Pocket, #16 Titan) (1988) that I can barely remember the beginning, and that really saddens me because I was really looking forward to reading a novel by Gar and Judith Reeves-Stevens.  Why? Well, because they wrote the ‘Shatnerverse‘ novels and I’ve heard good things about them.  I wanted to enjoy Memory Prime because that means I’d be looking forward to all the other novels they have written… unfortunately Memory Prime was…

… boring …

The cover is horrible and while it contains elements of the plot it’s almost completely unrelated to what actually happens.

There, I said it.  It bored me, I simply didn’t want to pick it up.  When I read a few good books in a row nothing can stop me, Memory Prime brought me to a screeching halt.

A while ago a lady commented that the early novels were the best and that she lost interest as the Star Trek novels lost that little bit of special something, perhaps a bit of heart that the more amateur fan authors nurtured, a little bit of joyous play instead of the little too serious veneer of the professional author.

Memory Prime  is well written, but in my opinion paced poorly.  It took three quarters of the book to actually get going, I was reading a couple of pages every couple of days but I really couldn’t find the motivation to keep reading until I hit the turning point and the ‘action’ started.  The final sequence itself was full of good characterisation and then… perhaps a bit of Tron?  I felt Spock’s ability to ‘dive’ into the computer was a little contrary to the ‘canon’ they had set up in the novel, it felt clumsy and lazy.

I’m getting ahead of myself again.

Memory Prime on Memory Alpha

Unsurprisingly neither Memory Alpha or Memory Beta have a detailed summary I can link to… Perhaps other people also feel that nothing much of anything actually happens?  I’m also not going to write a summary because I can’t remember enough of it.  Which having taken a peak at the goodreads page seems to be a recurring theme.  As a side note, who keeps rating the Star Trek novels so highly on goodreads?  Even the bloody awful ones often end up with a stirling 3 stars, do people just randomly go through series of books and rating them without reading them?  Thinking about it, I really wouldn’t be surprised.

The big problem with Memory Prime is the sheer number of dead ends in the narrative, and although I guess the authors were trying to deliberately obfuscate and try to make it like a ‘real life detective story’, but still many of the digressions just feel like a waste of time.  This also goes for the characters that get developed, I don’t feel particularly invested and I certainly don’t feel the story is any richer for their inclusion.  The narrative seems complex for complexities’ sake… not for the bettering of the narrative.  In some ways this is what Diane Duane does, but done badly, and at least the fleeting characters have some use in progressing the narrative and don’t feel like cheap filler.

Speaking of Diane Duane her lore regarding the Romulans is referenced in Memory Prime.

Another issue with Memory Prime is that much there are far too many characters with ISS (inexplicable stupidity syndrome)… the plot wouldn’t function about it.  Just when you think a character couldn’t overlook another key plot point because it’s so blindly obvious, they defy your expectations and fail… badly.  As you know, I hate HATE, ISS, it’s just simply bad and lazy writing.

Screen cap from review on goodreads by ‘Robin’.  Do they ship them? I think they do.

The main plot involving the computer intelligences was actually pretty endearing, at least when you were reading about their thoughts, it was a fun addition to an otherwise dull novel.  I really liked the different characterisations of the intelligences which was related to what they had been originally or how old they were.  However Spock interfacing with the machines despite not having any of the training / equipment / implants was hard to swallow especially since it had been built up that only the people with the implants could do that and they were proud of that.

Which reminds me.  The whole subplot with Spock being arrested with absolutely no evidence and the (female) commander with a chip on her shoulder just deciding she was going to ignore any protocol and threaten everyone because she was in control now?  Literally half the tedium of the book would be cut out if that character wasn’t so contrived.

I guess what is really, truly annoying about this book is that it’s written ‘well’ but the the content is poor.  You can tell, especially once the action starts that Gar and Judith are good writers but have settled on the most mediocre content.  The fact it’s ‘well written’ is the only reason it’s not getting a 1/5.

2/5 – as exciting as scanning for iridium.

Star Trek – Double Double

‘I have had enough of your insubordination,’ he said.  ‘I have decided to terminate it.’
Spock regarded him, but that was all.  He made no effort to escape. 

Have you got a fear or a dislike that makes you uneasy when you read it in a story?  Something that can turn you off even from a well written book?  For some people it might be violence, or for others it might be gratuitous sex.  For me it’s mistaken identity,  specifically the idea of a double fooling those around him and doing things to tarnish the ‘original’s’ reputation.  Perhaps I’m paranoid, perhaps I’m scared that someone might impersonate me someday and nobody notice.  Needless to say, this novel, Double Double (1989) (#45 Pocket, #22 Titan)  by Michael Jan Friedman hits me right in the phobia.

Double Double took me a while to get through, because once I put it down I was afraid to carry on reading.  Afraid because I knew the situation Kirk finds himself in had to get worse before it got better.  Afraid because I had to read about Kirk being powerless and isolated.  I felt so panicked because, nobody of importance did notice the switch.  Nobody made the leap, nobody realised and this frightens me.

I’m jumping ahead I know, but I wanted to make it clear that this isn’t a bad book, I think it’s a good book, but I just can’t divest myself from the unhappy feeling it gives me.  I’m giving it a middling 3/5, I just can’t say I enjoyed it… since it gave me such unpleasant feelings.

Double Double is a continuation of the story of ‘What Are Little Girls Made Of?’.  It suggests that perhaps, not all the androids were destroyed and one ‘Brown’ android survived.  The surviving Brown android uses the machine and creates another android from the template remaining in the machine; another android Kirk is created.  Android Kirk then takes control and with the knowledge and characteristics of the real Kirk, formulates plans to achieve ‘Korby’s’ goal of replacing the inhabitants of the entire galaxy with Androids.

Android Kirk‘s plan is convoluted but clever in a very ‘Kirk’ way.  First he takes control of the Hood/Dunkirk and replaces a section of the crew with androids, then he implements an elaborate plan to have Kirk kidnapped through a case of mistaken identity, in order for android Kirk to swap places with him.  Once on the Enterprise he starts replicating the crew, but in this case, he doesn’t want to kill the ‘templates’ immediately after using them – something inexplicable – which of course means the Enterprise crew manage to survive for their next outing.  Android Kirk in his arrogance does not factor in the Brown android’s disobedience however.  The Brown android seems to have compassionate feelings, and comes to the conclusion that rather than follow Kirk he should lead the other androids to more peaceful ways.

There is also a side story in Double Double which involves Kirk saving the life of a P’othparan who then becomes indebted to Kirk and joins him on the Enterprise.  The catch is that the universal translator has apparently become redundant and unable to adapt to the P’othparan language, despite having an analogue to work from.  Instead, a crew member who has picked up a smattering of the language is the only one who can communicate with the P’othparan boy.  I’m fairly sure that a) Uhura should have been involved in this and b) the universal translator wouldn’t take weeks to work out the language.  Why is this side story important?  The P’othparans are empaths, so he is able to identify the androids… shame the universal translator is on the blink so he can’t tell people about it!  As it is, he essentially gives members of the Enterprise crew a reason to believe that something is amiss, through some garbled translation.  The P’othparan boy is freed from his bond to Kirk by the end of the book because he has obscurely influenced saving Kirk and the Enterprise.

The rumbling background tension which culminates in a battle which almost sees the Enterprise destroyed (while android Kirk is commanding it and real Kirk is commanding the Hood) is the possibility of hostilities with the Romulans in the sector, so close to the neutral zone.  I actually really liked how the fight played out, it highlighted the faults in the androids, they have difficulty reacting to situations they haven’t been in before, despite having all the knowledge their template has.  The fight also had Kirk and Kirk work together to defeat the common enemy, both of them predicting what the other will do.

Android Kirk can’t seem to handle the strength of emotion of his template.  While the real Kirk would be able suppress his emotions in order to make the right choices, android Kirk seems to follow his passions without any ‘barrier’ to his emotions.  Android Kirk has a distinct hatred for Spock as he still retains Kirk’s adhoc programming for alerting Spock of the switch in ‘What Are Little Girls Made of’.  This intolerance for Spock even carries over to Spock’s duplicate, who seems to be reasonable and considerably less emotional than even Spock himself.  Thinking about it, it’s quite funny that the Kirk duplicate is as unreasonable as his evil twin from ‘Mirror Mirror’ and Spock’s android pretty much reflects the moderate character of mirror universe Spock.  It’s seems sad though to think that the right conditions for a good ‘Captain Kirk’ are so marginal and he’s so easily skewed in other circumstances – he’s a terrifying villain.  I’d also like to have seen more from the android Spock’s perspective as I think that would have been really interesting, I mean, he would have had all the memories of Spock including knowing about the programming Kirk did when the android was created AND (dare I say it) feelings of friendship still.

Naturally there is a fight between Kirk and Kirk which is altogether too satisfying and which you will have to read for yourself.  Needless to say RIP Kirk’s shirt.

I think there is an editing error in the novel which could cause some confusion.  The blurb on the back of the novel will refer to the U.S.S Dunkirk (yes, very funny ‘dark Kirk’) but the starship actually involved from the beginning of the novel is the Hook, this ship then changes names to Dunkirk further in and then back to the Hook again.  The blurb at the back also names the ship ‘Dunkirk’, I think there was some editing confusion somewhere…

Double Double illustrates a few points rather well.  Firstly, that Kirk would be a terrifying villain, secondly, that there are far too few people in Starfleet who can think outside the box (including Kirk’s own crew) and lastly that Kirk shouldn’t go on shore leave, ever, especially when there could well be alcohol involved.  I was completely dismayed that none of his crew noticed the swap – including Spock, who notices inconsistencies but then just ignores them on the basis that it was more of a ‘feeling’ than a logical conclusion.  I’m fairly sure that Kirk would have felt dismayed and hurt too that his crew just accepted his crazy orders and not made anything of it.  Urgh, I can feel the anxiety rising up again!  I had to laugh though about Kirk’s shore leave going wrong again, bless him, he takes his crew to a favourite dive and it all goes wrong.  I hope he does actually manage to have a thoroughly uneventful and relaxing shore leave at some point!

All in all, I recommend reading Double Double as long as you don’t get too anxious like I do!  I think it’s a relatively good tie in story, although it does have some nonsensical elements to it, which I think could be avoided with just a little bit of thought and guidance from an editor – on the other hand a starship keeps changing names, so perhaps I am expecting too much?

3/5 – I’d know it wasn’t you, Kirk!