Star Trek – Chain of Attack

Dr. Jason Crandall lay fully dressed on his bed, futilely trying to decide which was worse – the terrifying nightmare from which he had just awakened or the bleak reality that had replaced it.

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.

As I was reading Chain of Attack, it felt very familiar and, looking back at my blog I notice that I have indeed read another book by Gene Deweese – Renegade which is #55 in the Pocket Book series.  Reading that review (from just over a year ago!) confirmed some of the impressions I got from Deweese’s writing; clinical, masculine, and lacking emotional depth paired with strong characterisation, story concept, and effective use of supporting cast.  I do think that Chain of Attack is a stronger story than Renegade however.

Memory Beta Chain of Attack story summary.

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.

Both species the Enterprise encounters refuse to communicate to either the Enterprise or each other… lost and along in this strange region of space, Kirk finds himself trying to understand these strange and destructive peoples and eventually, attempting to broker peace.

However, there is dissent in the ranks, and Kirk has to fight on two fronts.

It’s funny how different reviewers see different books.  Often when I feel strongly about something I ask my partner (as regular readers of this blog will know) to see if he agrees with me.  Often we do see things the same way, other times he gives me a different perspective.  I also double check myself on goodreads, sometimes a reviewer there will give me a better perspective… and very often I wonder if we’ve read the same book!  Some reviewers have said that they don’t think Chain of Attack has very good characterisation and that Kirk especially is out of character – I think completely the opposite!  To confirm how I felt, I gave my partner a few pages to read and he agreed, the representation of the characters is right on the money.  We both felt that when reading character interactions especially (but not limited to) between the trinity that they were jumping off the page, that it’s like what could have been acted out in, I think, season two of TOS.  I feel like possibly some commenters haven’t seen the series itself recently and so have a different impression/memory of Kirk et al.  The other criticism is one I have made of other Star Trek novels, but I don’t think applies here and that is that it’s not really a Star Trek story and that the characters are bolted onto a general sci-fi story.  I disagree, I think absolutely that Chain of Attack was conceived as a Star Trek story, it even has a character type seen in the original series and an slightly too convenient resolution for that character!

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!

Star Trek – The Romulan Way

“But if Intelligence learned of what you have just told me, hru’hfirh?”  It struck Arrhae even as she said it that the question was unnecessary, one with an obvious answer.  She was even more right than she guessed.

“Then they could have learned from only one source, and would also learn – from a similarly anonymous source – that my so-trusted hru’hfe is a spy for the Federation, suborned by her late master tr’Lhoell,” said H’daen silkily.  “Tell me, whom would they believe?”  Then he swore and scrambled to his feet with his hands reaching for her shoulders, for Arrhae’s face had drained of colour so fast and so completely that he thought she was about to faint.  “Powers and Elements, Arrhae, it was a brutal answer to the question, but I didn’t mean it!”

The Romulan Way (1987) by husband and wife team Diane Duane and Peter Morwood, is a novel of two distinct parts which is equally fascinating and frustrating.  Fascinating because I love Duane’s Romulans and the thought that went into describing their leaving Vulcan and the subsequent birth of the Rihannsu culture; frustrating because the alternating ‘story’ and ‘history’ chapters cause a ‘stop/start’ narrative which makes it difficult to settle into the story.

I feel those small figures at the bottom feature on many movie posters and book covers from the 1980s.

I honestly do love to read novels by Diane Duane (no experience of Peter Morwood at time of writing), but sometimes I do have to be in the right mood for them.  Subsequently, I didn’t pick this book back up for nearly three weeks after my surgery.  The reason?  The structure really bothered me, I really didn’t get on with the alternating chapters even though I could see the reason to them.  I think they needed to be there to set the ground work for Duane’s Romulans – her Rihannsu.  In order for her story to make sense and I think at this point to set herself up for sequels with her rogue Romulan Commander ‘Ael’, she needed to explain her Rihannsu history.  Since I doubt the powers that be would allow her to produce an independent non-canon Romulan/Rihannsu history book, the necessary history needed to be slipped into a novel, hence The Romulan Way.  The novel in its entirety is really just ground work for further novels, not only is it setting up the Rihannsu past, it is also giving exposition of their culture, their symbolism, language and their ‘current’ political situation ending with Ael taking away an ancient symbol of her people because she didn’t believe they deserved it any longer – they had become too dishonourable.

Memory Alpha in depth summaries

The ‘story’ is quite small scale for Duane, which is necessary since she and Morwood, were putting so much history in.  The blurb at the back of the book describes The Romulan Way as a ‘startlingly different adventure’, although it seems to be more referring to the history aspect, the story narrative itself is also quite different.  For much of the book the characters are all very small.  They aren’t larger than life heroes like Kirk or heinous villains – even McCoy is subdued.  Instead, the characters are fighting their own mostly inconsequential battles, making small overtures, small actions which in the scheme of things for the most part don’t have repercussions.  The main character Arrhae or Terise is one such character.  She is an extraordinary woman – no doubt – but she is just an intelligence officer who hadn’t made a report in two years while undercover as a Romulan.  She works as a housekeeper in a minor house, having worked up from the status of a slave.  She’s been changed so that she looks Romulan, and genetically changed so that she now bleeds green but she is just a Terran human.  Arrhae/Terise has been undercover for ten years living a quiet but hard life, but because of her long silence, Intelligence wants to pull her out, fearing that she’d ‘gone native’ and instigates a plan involving McCoy’s capture in order to make contact with her and bring her back to Earth.

For her part, she doesn’t want anything to do with it.  Her conditioning is so strong she is more Romulan than Human now, but McCoy’s peril at the hands of Romulan justice rouses her to continue her work for the Federation.  Of course, nothing much actually happens of much import in her sections of the story.  Backed up by the history sections, her master’s (and her) actions are explained, but Terise (or more commonly Arrhae) herself is mostly concerned with trying to live her everyday life.  At times it may as well have been ‘day in the life of a house keeper’ (although it is much more interesting than The Remains of the Day).   As such…. it’s somewhat difficult to give a summary of the story without basically telling you what happened blow for blow.

Again what I really liked was Duane/Morwood’s transient characters, the ones that fleetingly visit the narrative, and exit on their own business never to be heard of again.  This I find a real mark of an accomplished writer since there are rounded characters that the author doesn’t feel the need to ‘make a main character’ just because they’ve spent time creating them.  These fleeting characters are a bit of a theme in The Romulan Way however, punctuated with the final actions of an ensign who was only introduced a few pages previously.

I very much enjoyed the dynamic between Arrhae/Terise and her master H’daen.  Much of what you learn about H’daen is through Arrhae’s eyes, she is sympathetic to him and despite their differing status’ he is fond of her.  The end for them is very sweet I feel, and I am very much glad it ended the way it did, although I must admit I expected Arrhae to leave with McCoy since, from my perspective she was up against insurmountable odds.

Something that does bother me is that Arrhae/Terise will be significantly weaker than a Romulan woman (if they retain the strength of their shared Vulcan roots) and she will also be aging faster than the Romulans around her.  Romulans don’t have the lifespan of Vulcans, but they are still able to live some 80 years longer than humans.  Arrhae/Terise notes this a couple of times, so she is aware, but it doesn’t seem like a problem she (or anyone else) dwells on.

The Romulan Way is a good story and a great Romulan/Rihannsu history book.  It’s enjoyable once you get your head around the alternating chapters although perhaps it’s possible to read the history characters first and then read the story?  Perhaps that would be a more enjoyable way to read it?  Either way, if you’ve liked Diane Duane previously, you’ll like this novel too.  I’m not sure how much influence Peter Morwood had on this novel, since it reads like Diane’s hand throughout.  Although I’ll need to read the rest of Diane’s series of Rihannsu books to be sure, I do think that you need to read  this one to make sense of the rest, especially since Ael’s actions at the end are sure to have ramifications for future books.

5/5 – You should read this, mnhei’sahe.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention, a glossary is included at the back to help explain those pesky Rihannsu terms which are untranslatable into English!

Star Trek – Uhura’s Song

And Kirk said, “Do you mean, a song to help you remember – not only the symptoms – but the cure for the disease?  You know the cure to ADF?”

It was as if he had struck her, but she only said, “There is no cure on Eeiauo, Captain.  The last verse is missing.  Sunfall ended the song there, and her ears drooped and tail… I can’t describe it, sir.  She looked at me in despair, and she told me it was a song for another world, not hers.”

Well… I can certainly see why this was considered a ‘giant novel’ when released in the UK!

Uhura’s Song by Janet Kagan (#21 Pocket, Giant Novel – Titan) (1985) is… a long book.  I mean, in the scheme of things and compared to other science fiction novels (like those written by Peter F Hamilton) it isn’t that long but… it’s certainly long for a Star Trek novel of this era.

… Yep.  Definitely long.

It isn’t quite pulling teeth to read long, but it is overly… long.

Did I mention it’s long?

It isn’t ‘bad’ per se, but it misses out on being ‘actually good’ by a fair margin.  This is actually a real shame, as it started with a lot of potential, certainly with a lot of passion but just lost the plot, if you’ll allow me to quip.

Let me get this big niggle out the way real quick before I launch into this properly, but you’d think, you’d think, that a book called Uhura’s Song would have Uhura playing the lead role (instead of an epitome of a Mary Sue).  I mean, it’s not like Tears of the Singers, her name is in the title for pity’s sake.  I also completely disagree with the review in Star Trek: Adventures in Time and Space (1999) the Uhura’s Song as one of two defining novels for Uhura (together with Tears of the Singers) which “gave Uhura the chance to expand her range beyond hailing frequencies”.  Uhura is defined with much more clarity and direction in books not toted as Uhura centric, and frankly if these are the best representations of Uhura, they can keep them!  I don’t really think she’s portrayed particularly well in either of them, however Uhura’s Song gives her a better characterisation, but she’s pretty quickly overshadowed by the shameless Mary Sue Evan Wilson.

So what is Uhura’s Song about anyway?

Put simply: Space Ebola, the Odyssey, Folklore, Memory, coming of age.

A plague has broken out in the Federation amongst a feline species (it’s pretty much like mange), previous outbreaks had been handled by the people themselves, however as the latest outbreak pushes them to breaking point they ask for Federation help.  Unfortunately, the disease affects humans as well, but it progresses faster through a human victim.  Leonard McCoy and Christine Chapel are already infected and reports are coming in from across the Federation of outbreaks… Kirk and his crew are tasked with finding a cure for this deadly disease with only a song Uhura was taught by a member of the feline species as a clue to find their lost planet of origin… and a cure. 

As you might imagine, Uhura has a prominent part to play… initially.  She works with Spock to decipher the astrological clues the song leaves to finding the home planet of the Eeouians.  Her attributes as a driven and talented linguist are emphasised.  However, once the initial detective work is finished she starts to move into the background and although she is part of the action (theoretically) it’s very easy to forget she’s there, even when she’s in an away team on a perilous mission.  That being said her characterisation is very strong when she’s the focus.  I actually really enjoyed the way she was presented working with Spock, she was competent but also slightly unsure; someone who is excellent at what she does suddenly being told to get results in a field she has never really explored.  There is a subtleness here which is quite charming, I wish Kagan could have continued this development to the end of the novel, instead of relying on an OC ‘Mary-Sue’ to smooth over any narrative difficulties she would face.

After Spock and Uhura locate the planet, they beam down to meet the local inhabitants… this is where Uhura’s Song turns into sci-fi anthropology novel and actually, this section stands rather well on its own.  Kagan really manages to build a believable society which doesn’t buckle under close scrutiny and despite the sheer length of it managed to hold my attention.  It helps that I like cats I suppose and the characterisation of the species is ultimately endearing.  I kept checking how many pages of this section I had read, and was often pleasantly surprised at how much I had read and yet it didn’t feel like it was dragging.  However, after the world and society building had being completed and the narrative started to step up a gear again I started to get restless.  Uhura was pushed into the background, and the previously background Kirk stepped forward – not a problem for me – as did Spock.  Chekov was also pretty busy, which was nice to see, I think his characterisation was fitting, if not a bit too competent.  However, three OCs took the foreground, two of which I am happy with (they were of the cousin species of the Eeiauons), and one which essentially ruins the novel utterly.

Evan Wilson… A female character who is incredibly important to this novel… and who could be edited out with a little bit of thought and the story would be significantly better for it.  There is virtually no reason why every incredible action she takes couldn’t have been done by another of the landing party.  There is no reason to have her there to make the required leaps of logic, between Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Chekov there is no need for her – even her leap of medical knowledge could have been made by someone not ‘in the know’.  In fact, Uhura would have and should have been the one to solve the mystery.

As it happens, the answer to the problem was in the songs all along, and the terrible disease was only a ‘child’s disease’ with a simple cure.  It apparently needed Evan Wilson to see this… despite that Uhura was well versed and more than qualified to make these inferences.

Of course… all is revealed later when we learn that Evan Wilson is not in fact Evan Wilson… we don’t learn her real name… we do learn that she’s a secret space operative / pirate who wears foppish shirts, who is a mechanical genius, who is also apparently a medical genius, who everyone liked, and Kirk probably wanted to ‘romance’ (he was very disappointed when it turned out he couldn’t have R&R time with her…)…

Honest to goodness, this character broke the whole book for me.  What a mess.

Despite the above mentioned character, it’s still a book I’d recommend for the sake of Uhura and the careful thought that went into the creation of the different felinoid societies.   The other characters are well written, and the writing itself isn’t without merit.  Just… the whole story is terribly let down by one very poor character choice, one which some editorial guidance should have caught and reversed.

2/5 – Space Ebola.

As a side note, I’ve lost my Pocket Books edition of Uhura’s Song, so I had to switch to my Titan Books edition.  I swear these books grow legs.

Also, I’m sorry for this sorry excuse of a review… the Mary-Sue pulled my tail!  I’m like… fixated on her!

Perhaps when I feel more energetic I’ll add to this review… but the book miffed me off so much that I don’t really want to talk about it And I don’t want to rip it apart (which I’d usually do) because aside from the Mary-Sue it wasn’t bad… urgh…

Star Trek – The Wounded Sky

Breathe, damn you!  Breathe!  Breathe!
It was his worst nightmare come true.  He damned for the thousandth time the idiot courage that let this man throw himself among wild beasts and into blaster crossfire for his crew’s sake.

There must be some sort of irony in the fact that, whilst reading a book which at its core espouses the beauty and necessity of entropy, that I spent quite some time trying to save the book itself  from entropy.

I find, with used books it’s often a good sign when the book is so well worn that the glue holding the pages together has failed.  Annoying as it is to have to keep picking up and carefully reinserting the pages, it means, often, that the book has been well read and loved – such as it is for my copy of The Wounded Sky (1983) by Diane Duane (#13 Pocket, #19 Titan).

My copy of The Wounded Sky is currently held together with a lot of tape; fifteen pages have been stuck in with care by my hand, and they will probably now hold together long after the two hundred and forty other pages have given in to the fate of badly produced mass market paperbacks.  The wear on the book was not a result of my eager thumbing of the pages, but of its previous owner, whoever he was.

I assume it was a he.

I also assume he is dead.

You see, this and about eighty other Star Trek TOS novels I imported from the states some months ago.  They are mostly Pocket Book first editions, with gold or silver embossed titles, they were collected over a number of years and they all have the same little label on them with the price and the code the shop has given them – the same shop.  Most of them are in good condition, they have been stored on a shelf and at some point a book worm (or whatever a book worm really is) had eaten holes into some of them.  I found a shed ‘shell’ from one of them, and I was a little worried that I had imported infected books and I would be solely responsible for introducing some terrible book eating insect to the UK ecosystem (I haven’t by the way…).  The books were slightly damp, musty and dusty like they’d been in storage for a good while.

In my head canon, the daughters of the dead man were getting rid of his possessions.

I bought over eighty books, eighty of this man’s collection that he had dutifully maintained, buying every book as they came out for years and years, for about $24.  It cost me less to buy them in the states and import them with all the charges and shipping fees than it would be to get them from my own country.  It’s a little sad isn’t it, for someone’s collection to be sold by someone else for virtually nothing.  Even sadder that the people selling it had no idea that just one of the books was worth me paying all that.

Out of all those dutifully bought, kept and loved, ‘The Wounded Sky’ is the most read.

On the first page of The Wounded Sky there are two recommendations from other authors. “AN EXCELLENT STAR TREK NOVEL (…) ALWAYS ENTERTAINING” espouses one enthusiastically.  Another writes “IS A REMARKABLE NOVEL IN ANY CATEGORY AND BEYOND A DOUBT THE BEST STAR TREK NOVEL EVER WRITTEN” not insignificant praise for a ‘media tie in’, but accurate.

Hum… looks like TOS style uniforms… The Wounded Sky is set in 2275… Between  TMP and TWOK.

Lots of people review Star Trek books with a proviso, ‘Yes, I give this book 5/5, it’s good for a Star Trek book‘ and I also review on that kind of scale.  This book however could easily stand on its own, it’s not simply good for a Star Trek book, it’s a good book and I think able to comfortably  be compared with other non tie-in  novels of the time.  Essentially what I’m saying is that The Wounded Sky doesn’t rely on being a Star Trek book to succeed, it doesn’t need Kirk, Spock or McCoy or The Enterprise, but for a fan of Star Trek it just makes it sweeter and Duane’s effortless characterisation of our favourite characters is the cherry on the proverbial cake.

The Wounded Sky is Duane’s first published Star Trek novel, she also had another published in 1983 –  the first in her ‘Young Wizards‘ series.  I have read and reviewed another one of Duane’s Star Trek novels Doctor’s Orders, you can definitely see Duane reworking ideas from The Wounded Sky in her later novel (certain aliens reappear with different names, aliens with a different concept of time etc.)!

I have to confess I thought on looking at the cover (so deceptive, as usual) that the jellyfish thing was going to be the ‘enemy’.  I remember thinking well jellyfish are disgusting so obviously they make the best villains, well I’ll put this right first of all – the jellyfish on the front isn’t a jelly fish at all, but a glass spider with twelve legs!  She also isn’t the villain but simply the cutest glass spider you ever did lay your mind’s eye on!  More on K’t’l’k later (she’s so stinking cute).

I think it would do this novel a disservice to write a ‘summary’ as I do for others.  In fact I’m not sure that with only one reading of the novel behind me I can do an adequate one.  The Wounded Sky is complex and Duane draws in many narrative threads which she weaves in at various points in the novel.  Despite having so many different threads Duane has managed to create a very cohesive story, and it merits another read from myself to try and get my head around why it’s so bloody brilliant.  Me reading it out loud even made my partner want to read it!  He liked Duane’s easy turn of phrase and strong characterisation, but he particularly liked Duane’s scientific knowledge as he reads quite hard sci-fi and he commented that she must have been keeping up with contemporary scientific papers.

It is easier to talk about themes rather than story, so I’m going to talk a little about them.

God, Religious Experience and the Soul

I was probably most surprised at this theme turning up.  K’t’lk introduces talk of the soul when talking about the beliefs and rituals of her people but the entire last section of the book questions the idea of what God is, what heaven would be like and the shape and the transformation of the self / soul into it’s best form.

The crew are exposed to beings of such power that they are essentially described as proto-gods, and in fact, they will be gods in their own universe creating and experiencing as they will it or until they stop playing the game. The playing the game theme crops up throughout the novel especially through an original character the ‘recreation officer’.  I’m not sure whether it has more significance generally, but within the novel itself it is pretty important and well built upon.

It is implied that the crew all experience a religious experience on approaching the proto-gods.  It’s heavily implied that a place without entropy is tantamount to heaven (and the transformation of the Enterprise crew supports that).  However, the crew perhaps recognise that their experience isn’t ‘heaven’ and they don’t belong there, they have a sense of purpose and they give that purpose to the proto-gods.  These supremely powerful beings did not create this universe, but have the power to create and play in theirs – however, this still requires the input and interruption of the crew to bring about.  Perhaps God of this universe (or at least the Star Trek one) is still working on creating, and through His vessels having a hand in creating another?

The Best Self


This theme is woven throughout The Wounded Sky and for those of us who enjoy character exposition and development the last section of the book will reap the biggest rewards.  Even if you’re put off by the the harder science sections, stay with the book to the end, it will be worth it!

‘The Best Self‘ idea is tightly linked to the ‘God / Religious Experience‘ theme.  For someone with a Christian background the imagery is very familiar and the transformation the crew go through with their selves being transformed into a reflection of the greatest good, devoid of ‘entropy’.  This section is from Kirk’s perspective (though the idea of perspective is skewed here anyway), and through his eyes he sees his friends and crew utterly changed into their best selves.  Naturally, Kirk never truly perceives or realises the change in himself and in fact, we only get one comment from McCoy that indicates Kirk’s own physical transformation.  Duane pin’s down McCoy’s compassion and healing, searing in its strength and passion.  She nails Spock’s dual nature, the power of his mind and potential to be great.  Kirk feels awed that someone such as Spock, with so much ability and brilliance should choose to serve under him –

This great mind has been standing behind me and quietly obeying my orders all these years?  Why??  He could be so much more – But in this place, the answer was plain to read.  Loyalty was frequently unreasonable and illogical – and Spock had long since decided that this one aspect of his life could do without logic.

“Spock,”  Jim said – and ran out of words.  He was deeply moved, and didn’t know how to express it – until he abruptly felt Spock feeling the emotion with him, and knew there was nothing more that needed saying on the subject.  “I’m fine, Spock,” he said then, and glanced over at McCoy.  Bones was gazing at Spock in a curious, almost grudging calm.

Seriously, how powerful is that?

Much of our exposition of Kirk is done through the other character’s reaction to him and his reaction to their transformed selves.  Kirk describes his role for much of the telepathic experience as ‘passive’, he is moved by the fact these 400 souls follow him while feeling unworthy himself.  In his own estimate, he sees himself as a conduit that can focus the abilities of his crew, this is demonstrated through his ‘weaponising’ of Chekov and Scotty’s emotions and beliefs.  While the crew is being transformed or being followed by strange manifestations of themselves and their desires, Kirk comments –

 Hidden natures are getting loose, Jim thought.  What we conceal doesn’t stay that way, here.

So, what is McCoy’s observation –

 “- That armour getting heavy?”  Bones said, sounding a bit tentative now.  Jim shook his head, thinking What armour, what’s he seeing? … 

That is literally all we get as to Kirk’s transformation – how frustrating!  Kirk’s character is left open to debate, but it certainly isn’t just a conduit as he believes it to be.  Certainly, we know from other characters and our own knowledge that he inspires fierce loyalty and trust, and that he himself is self sacrificing (as demonstrated earlier in the novel during an event which renders him without a pulse for some time).

Of course, we don’t just learn about the transformation of the ‘main’ cast.  Several other crew members have extreme transformations… one which sticks out is the crew member who transforms into a six legged Andorian alicorn…

The best self theme isn’t just limited to this one section however.  During various experiences using the inversion drive we see the crew acting in ways which hints at their best selves.  Uhura, Chekov, Sulu and some new characters introduced in this book (original characters done right!) all get their chance to shine and have their own exposition.   The way Duane uses this theme to bind the book together keeps you turning pages, thirsty for more character exposition!

Sex and Relationships

Initially I thought that this theme was surprising to find slotted in to a section in this book, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense in context especially taking into account the Christian imagery and tone in some sections of the book.

There’s a very special scene slotted in around the middle of the book which is all kinds of awkward,
sweet and serious. The glass spider K’t’lk and Kirk sit together in Kirk’s cabin talking, K’t’lk makes reference to Kirk’s ah, let’s say sexual encounters in this cabin.  This being commented by anyone, let alone by a twelve legged glass spider would make anyone choke on their drink, Kirk is not an exception to the rule.  K’t’lk then tells Kirk about how her species reproduces, how their courtships are long and the pairs build up each other and their lives together (her last courtship was one hundred years) until it meets it’s crescendo and they copulate.  The downside to this is that the female eats the male in true spider fashion, adding his DNA and ‘soul’ to hers.  When she creates the egg, that is the new vessel for both his and her spirits, a mixture of both.

This is of course in contrast to Kirk’s passions that K’t’lk refers to, but more akin to the relationship that Spock and Kirk have.  You don’t need sex to be lovers is essentially the message, and K’t’l’k’s regret of consummating the relationship is palatable, after all it ended hers irrevocably.  The same could be said for Kirk’s conquests, sex or some sort of physical interaction is the  goal after which the relationship ends.  Of course in Kirk’s case, the breaking of the relationship is not necessarily as a result of sex or physical interaction of some description, circumstances dictate Kirk’s commitments.  However in K’t’lk’s case the although reproduction is the end goal, they also have the goal of building each other up, very little of that happens in Kirk’s relationships.

Weight of responsibility

Kirk and K’t’lk are both burdened with great responsibility.  Kirk for his ship and crew’s lives and K’t’l’k responsibility for her part in the creation of the universe / reality breaking inversion drive.  I think that although she has more affinity for Scotty and his engineering prowess she is most like Kirk.  Kirk must make decisions for his crew, he feels the weight of command and often feels overwhelmed.  K’t’lk also feels the weight of responsibility, however she is sure of herself and of what her course of action must be.  Admittedly, she has 800+ years of life and 3 rebirths (at least) to enable her to act with the self assurance she does.

This is a theme that is visited frequently in the original series and in the novels, in fact it is fundamental to the development of Kirk’s character and is core to the original films too.

The Importance of Command

This is a bit of a funny one (funny strange not funny haha), and seems a little bit specific for a ‘theme’ but a large section of the book is dedicated to command, and not just Kirk’s but other characters too.  During the last section of the book, the entire crew of the Enterprise is involved but in order to keep them together and moving onward, the section heads mingle among their charges, which gives the rest of the crew the strength to continue.

Of course, this ties in with the theme of the best self, especially when talking about Kirk whose raison d’etre is to command.  Kirk doesn’t just hold together a section, but the whole ship.  However, as explained previously, Kirk doesn’t see his talent and ability for what it is, modestly only as a conduit or a gun to shoot the bullet.

Best Scene?

Picking out a best scene is actually pretty hard since there are just so many excellent bits to The Wounded Sky.  I’ll settle for two.

Would you look at that – I can use this picture again.

Probably the most memorable scene (for me at least) was where you rejoin the action from McCoy’s point of view after Kirk has selflessly thrown himself in front of Spock to save him.  Excellent characterisation of McCoy just makes the scene, it’s also essential.  I’ve discussed how we get very little in the way of revelation from Kirk himself, about himself, so we have to rely on other narrators to give us a little insight.  McCoy of course gives us insight into Kirk’s character here.  There’s obviously a good amount of insight into McCoy too.  The extension of the scene involves Uhura’s memories (which involves her being totally badass) and Kirk coming to in his command chair injured, and realising that the unreal shared visions that the crew had been sharing are in fact as real as their every day reality.  I have to admit, I love that the drama is mixed in with plenty of humour.

The second scene I can’t go too much into, but it’s near the end of the book when all the crew is being transformed into their ‘best selves’, the imagery is pretty intense and I loved Duane’s creativity mixed in with more traditional imagery.  The character exposition was really varied and just… excellent.  You might have noticed I’m a character-centric person…. You’ll know the scene when you get to it.

If you’ve stayed with me this long – congratulations!  This novel certainly warrants more than I’ve written about here… Perhaps I’ll come back to it later…

You’re probably wondering why I told you that story at the beginning, well… Entropy is central to this novel, without entropy our universe would have ceased to exist, ceased to be and ourselves, the crew of the Enterprise and the universe as they knew it would be driven mad and suffer without it, we perceive time after all, that’s how we organise our world, how we define our lives.  How can we possibly comprehend all time happening simultaneously – we can’t, after all, the book itself progresses the story as if time is passing.  Things happen sequentially, in page after page while the universe around Kirk and his crew begins to slow down and speed up all at once.  Happily, Duane gives the crew a kind of protection from this although it  obviously isn’t total protection from all effects of the anti-entropic space.

Thing is, somebody died thousands of miles away in a country I’ve never been to.  Entropy took it’s course, old age or illness, time passed and his books were sold and in a sequence of events, his books got to me.  Those books with their worm holes and falling out pages tell a story far different from the story between their pages.  McCoy asks if they could spare the new gods knowledge of illness and death, and K’t’lk responds:

“One thing.  When you write your equations – do you have to give Them death?”

The brilliance was dimmed.  So was that in K’t’lk’s eyes – their blue belonged, for the moment, more to twilight than to noon.  “L’nrd,” she said in somber notes, “you said it yourself.  Time is what They need.  They can’t have that without entropy too.  And death will inevitably come along with that – rundowns, breakdowns -“

Entropy is part of time and through time we experience the world, because a man died in America, a girl in the UK can read the books he collected and read, time and entropy made an impossible connection happen.

And that’s one hell of a story.

5/5 – Always be yourself, unless you can be Kirk… Then be Kirk.

p.s. I am super late with this post!  I had various things crop up, I went away, was ill, became a greater number, lots of things. I was hoping to get this in at the end of May but obviously that didn’t happen!  Back to regular programming now!

Star Trek – Mutiny On The Enterprise

“Of course life is precious.  That’s why our mission to Ammdon is to prevent a war.”  Kirk wasn’t the least bit surprised when both Ross and Kesselmann scoffed at that.  This was the single most prevalent opinion  he’d ever encountered among his diverse crew.  “Have you considered that you did not hold this odd belief until after you spoke with the alien Lorelei?”

You would not believe how much I wanted to read Mutiny on the Enterprise by Robert E Vardeman (1983) (#12 Pocket, #45 Titan), and that was before I read The Klingon Gambit.  Unfortunately Mutiny on the Enterprise is the last Star Trek novel by Vardeman published by Pocket Books, which I personally feel is a great shame because he really is an excellent author.

Mutiny on the Enterprise takes place during the original five year mission – ignore older Kirk and Spock in strange uniforms on the front cover.  Seriously, why can’t they illustrate the covers with the correct ages / uniforms of the characters?!  Was there some sort of Pocket Books edict that all covers must be wholly inaccurate?  That being said looks like the right bridge is in the background (red railing) and the alien Lorelei pictured on the front fits with her description.   Perhaps making Shatner and Nimoy (especially Nimoy) look 80s hero haggard and old was in vogue?

For once the tagline is accurate (shocking I know):

On a mission of peace, a bewitching woman sets the Enterprise at war – with itself!

I wondered, what would cause the crew of the Enterprise to mutiny?  The crew of the Enterprise doesn’t mutiny not with James T Kirk as captain or without some serious alien intervention!  Well, it is the latter, serious alien intervention, the funny thing is, it wasn’t until I looked up my review of The Klingon Gambit that I realised that Vardeman definitely has favourite story elements!

• Alien psychic intervention
• Mutiny / Crew disobedience
• James T Kirk & Spock remaining mostly immune
• McCoy definitely not being immune
• Threat of an established villain mixed in with some new aliens

All the above appear in both of his novels, I often notice that some authors revisit a particular story / characters / set of themes in an effort to, I guess, produce the perfect story.  It’s like they’re hammering away at this idea in their head that means a lot but can’t ever be happy with it.  An author who wrote one of my favourite trilogies as her debut does this, and although there are problems with her first iteration, I think it’s the best.  Subsequent iterations never quite capture the magic of her first attempt.  It would be interesting to read his other sci-fi works and see if he revisits these again under a different guise!

I kind of get this feeling with Mutiny on the Enterprise however, although Vardeman revisits the same story elements the story itself has a different overall message / theme.  In this way, it is more in keeping with the moralistic bent to the episodes than say the previous novel in the series Yesterday’s Son.  

Mutiny on the Enterprise starts in a rather cliched fashion, the Enterprise in on it’s way to a Starbase for some much needed repair work and some R&R for the crew, however a situation has arisen and diplomats will need to be transported to a distant system in order to avoid a war between two hostile planets.  Why is this so important?  The Romulans are trying to get a foothold in that part of space and are looking to capitalise on the encroaching war to achieve this.

Unfortunately for the Enterprise, it really is in need of repairs and can only make a weak warp two, sometimes three, for short periods of time.  Before they get to their destination they pick up a distress call, which is when the milk run turns sour.  They pick up a survivor from a very broken ship, she tells Kirk she is a speaker of the ‘Hyla’ a yet uncontacted race by the Federation, and her name is Lorelei.  Kirk notices that although she is not pretty she is attractive, he feels she has some sort of effect on him.  They continue on their way but Lorelei comes to Kirk, concerned.  The Hyla are total pacifists who (it is revealed) will not stand by and let another species go about its own business.  Basically they would ignore an idea like the prime directive in a lesser species if it would stop fighting, they would not allow a species to self determine because only their doctrine of pacifism should exist.

You can probably see where this is going to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Lorelei soon gets to work on subverting the crew to her way of thinking, using her own indoctrination techniques to control the crew and undermining Kirk’s authority.  Of course, she is never violent but her way of thinking even to the most forgiving of readers is destructive.  In a bid to get his crew under control (only Spock seems unaffected) Kirk sets up almost a speaking competition between the Tellarite diplomat and Lorelei.  Unfortunately, as good as the Tellarite is, he does not have the strange powers Lorelei has, and Kirk’s plan backfires as the Hyla woman cements her control over the crew.

How they should look…

The Enterprise is damaged, most probably sabotaged, and is left without warp power.  Left without warp they limp towards a planet which appears to have advanced humanoid life and crucially, a source for the shielding required to repair the warp engines. Spock, Mccoy and a security detachment beam down in order to negotiate with the inhabitants, however, this all goes sour as initiating contact caused an extreme reaction and they are imprisoned in a living prison.  The diplomats disobey Kirk and beam down, they also find themselves captured and one of their number is killed by the planet itself.  Finally, Kirk finds himself with a need to use the ship’s phasers to fire on the planet in order to break his crew and the diplomats out of their prison, however Lorelei’s pacifistic control of the ship is absolute and she exiles Kirk from Enterprise and beams him down onto the hostile planet.

While looking for the landing party, Kirk observes that even the buildings are alive and appear to grow and, it seemed that as long as he didn’t disturb anything he could wander unimpeded by the planet.

Kirk manages to save Spock, McCoy, the security detachment -1, and the diplomats -1.  They notice that there is an Enterprise shuttle going back and forth from the planet to orbit, they surmise that Lorelei has coaxed the planet into giving them some of the much needed shielding.  They manage to hijack the shuttle and escape.  McCoy gives everyone waxy earplugs in order to preserve them from Lorelei’s effects.  Unfortunately, all the diplomats are now well and truly dead.

The final parts of the novel play out as you might expect.  I won’t spoil the end, which frankly was a little bit of genius, but it was as satisfying as it was a bad idea (very).

Mutiny on the Enterprise has some interesting points.  There’s some talk on what total pacifism means – what does it look like when taken to extremes?  Well, like any extreme ideology it appears to have no room for reason and it breaks it’s own ideological ideals in order to maintain it’s status quo.  For example, Lorelei would strand Kirk and McCoy, probably Spock too on the hostile planet in order to avoid ‘disruptive influence’ despite the fact it would ultimately directly lead to their death by the planet organism.  Her ideology allows her to indirectly kill in order to ensure and propagate her agenda.  She also denounces self defense, even when her thralls are being eaten alive the ideology dictates they can’t use violence to defend themselves.  As such, this line of thinking extends to the Federation, she does not believe that they should have weapons for defense, despite knowing they have to defend themselves against foes like the Klingons and Romulans.

Probably my most hated character of all time….

She’s a hypocrite.  In order to stop Kirk she uses force and violence.  In order to keep control she would indirectly kill.  She espouses an ideal of total pacifism where you can’t even defend yourself.  Absurd.  She reminds me of another character dedicated to total pacifism which drove me utterly bonkers – Relena Peacecraft from the anime Gundam Wing (1995).  The thing is with this character archetype, they still need other agents to do their dirty work and generally they don’t acknowledge that.  People are also expendable as long as it furthers the pacifistic ideal, even if it could mean the preservation of life.

They also tend to be incredibly naive and narrow minded, like most extreme ideologies of this nature, everything is black and white, never grey.  In the case of Lorelei, she is privileged in that she can enforce her ideals by brainwashing and eradicating those proven to be uncontrollable.  In Relena’s case she was privileged by birth, she had money and prestige and the sheltered environment needed to nurture her naivete.  The other children who pilot the war machines from the space colonies had no such privilege and had to develop inline with their abilities and experiences.

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent then!  But Gundam Wing is one of my sci-fi favs and my first corrupting fandom influence!

I actually really liked the idea of the planetoid organism.  I didn’t expect that, but then perhaps if I’d thought about The Klingon Gambit perhaps I should have since Vardeman uses the idea of interconnected organisms on a planet in that one too!  Moving trees that attack… all the creatures being able to feel each other’s pain etc.  Of course in this case it’s slightly different as everything on the planet is one organism and even the humanoid creatures that live in the growing houses are as cells are in our bodies.  The unknown creatures such as the Enterprise crew are treated as bacteria or viruses, quarantined or broken down as our cells would to invaders.  The planet was able to be at least partially put to sleep by Dr McCoy using an anaesthetic (local) but it could also be wooed by Lorelei’s words.  I have to admit that was a little odd, since it was stated that there was no sound made by the beings on the planet and that nothing had ears… so how did she get what she wanted?  Perhaps I should let that one slide.

Characterisation is at times very strange, but that is easily explained by the brainwashing effect of Lorelei’s honeyed words!  I really enjoy Kirk centric novels (as you might have gathered) and I think Vardeman got his characterisation down pat.  Spock’s was also strong, although in one of his more aloof states although there was plenty of banter between him and McCoy.  McCoy was also wonderfully… McCoy about the whole drama, plenty of emotion, plenty of snide comments.  Keep ’em rolling!

A Tellarite from ‘Journey to Babel’.

I haven’t really touched on the diplomats yet, they were actually an interesting bunch and I kind of expected more to be made of them, I was quite sad when they all died!  We were meant to dislike them to a certain extent when compared with the gentle Lorelei but I couldn’t help but think that they could have been so much more.  The Tellarite diplomat got some good exposition, but the sentient plant was a really interesting character that didn’t get developed and met a grisly end.  The death of the immaculately clean and fashionable human diplomat was a disappointment, we learned he was actually a good man and he got killed by the planet.  So unremarkable was his death I actually read the section twice trying to identify when he died… poor fellow.

The last section of the book has Kirk playing diplomat.  Lorelei’s prediction of failure and the Enterprise being a catalyst for war was a self fulfilling prophesy.  I couldn’t help getting frustrated!  Well of course they’ve failed!  They were delayed by Lorelei, their diplomats are dead, their ship is currently held together with duct tape and a prayer, what was going to be the outcome?  I should think that had they been able to fulfill their mission of peace unhindered they would have succeeded.

I guess we’ll never know.

Again, this is a really strong entry into the series.  Not quite 5/5 but a respectable 4/5 on my highly subjective scale.  I did have a look at some reviews which bemoaned it as not being a good follow on from Crispin’s Yesterday’s Son, but I think it’s very much it’s equal.  Different scope, different style but just as enjoyable.  Mutiny on the Enterprise builds on Vardeman’s ideas in The Klingon Gambit and is definitely worth a read.

4/5 – No R&R for you!

Star Trek – Black Fire

But the doctor’s main concern was on the severe condition of the captain; he hadn’t yet assessed all of Kirk’s injuries and McCoy entered surgery not knowing exactly what he would find.  At least hes alive – barely.

It took all of McCoy’s professional detachment to suppress his despair when he full examined his patient and his friend.  There were just so many organs one could transplant, just so much one could patch and mend the human body.  Kirk’s wounds pressed that limit.

Black Fire (#8 Pocket, #37 Titan) (1983) by Sonni Cooper starts with a bang, a big one.  I have to be honest, not many authors have the gall to pen an event that nearly kills one of the main characters within the first line of chapter one.  And when I say ‘nearly kills’ I mean only the fact Kirk is protected by virtue of being Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise, but he was as close to dead and out of the narrative as Cooper could make him.  Kirk is absent then for pretty much half the book and even when he does come back nobody bothers to tell him what is going on and he ends up having to feel his way through the narrative like a blind man without a cane.

Strike one.  Will Black Fire get three strikes? Will it hit a home run?  I don’t know, but I do know I’ve never watched a baseball game in my life!

So, ok, I’ve jumped ahead a little bit, but as an ardent lover of all things Kirk I just had to get it off my chest.  I suppose I was surprised that the story took the route it did, after all I excitedly read the excellent introduction and the praises lauded onto Sonni Cooper and thought Yes!  This is going to be a gem!  Well, lets say don’t expect ruby, expect garnant and you’ll be fine.

So, as I said, Black Fire starts with a bang, which incapacitates Kirk for a lengthy time and seriously damages the Enterprise.  Spock (also injured) finds that the evidence points to a deliberate bombing with the intention of robbing Kirk of his life.  On submitting the evidence to the Federation, he finds them unwilling to listen to him or sanction an action into the investigation of the bombing.  Instead they seem to want to brush it all under the carpet, keeping it all hush hush.  Although I guess this is plausible, one of their advanced ships has essentially just been towed to a space dock for extensive repairs, crew members have died, the captain is critically injured… this isn’t going to go away.  So… why?

Spock then takes it upon himself to investigate further, enlisting Scotty to aid him in stealing a ship and investigating co-ordinates he has worked out from various clues left by the Enterprise’s bomber.  Naturally, this goes horribly wrong and Spock and Scott are captured by a barbaric race of small, suicidal, furry humanoids who want to take over the galaxy.  You’d think that would be the meat of it?  No… That’s not the half of it.  Spock and Scott escape, get court martialled and punished.  Spock ends up making friends with a Romulan pirate  who he then escapes with, becomes a pirate himself, joins the Romulan Empire, acts as an intermediary between the Federation and the Empire, helps broker peace between the small furries and the Federation / Empire… 

Kirk in the meantime is busy recovering.  A lot of time passes in this novel, the Enterprise is refitted and absentee crew is replaced.  Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise once more to find… a new first officer, science officer and head of engineering.  Seriously, he knew nothing about that, nobody told him what happened to Spock and Scott, not even his bridge crew.  Seriously, poor Kirk.

Kirk ends up running into Spock again and again, once as the pirate ‘Black Fire’ and then as sub-commander Spock of the Romulan Empire.  Kirk’s heart is just about breaking THE WHOLE TIME.  Insight from Spock?  Not much, there might be a feeling somewhere, but he seems more concerned about his new Romulan friend than Kirk.  Huh.. ok.

So, you’d be forgiven for wondering just HOW short of time travel, will this mess be cleaned up.  I hope you’ll forgive me for spoiling but… BECAUSE HE WAS UNDERCOVER.  Well that’s all right then!  That explains everything!… not.  What a hot mess!

From what I can understand, the Federation had literally nothing to gain from keeping it all hush hush, painting Spock as a traitor, have him galavant as a pirate and join (albeit temporarily) the Romulan Empire (he steals a ship and returns to the Enterprise near the end of the book, at which point all is revealed).  Spock admits that actually teaming up with his pirate friend wasn’t actually part of the plan… then what was the plan?  Why did they not have Spock’s back healed and risk paralysis of a valuable officer and undercover agent?  Why didn’t they tell Kirk?!  Additionally, we get much of the narrative from essentially Spock’s POV, but even so he never reacts / thinks as if he’s aware he’s undercover.  I feel like Cooper get’s to the end of this big mess and then reaches around for the quickest, simplest way of explaining why Spock went solo for this story, became a pirate, and defected to the Romulan Empire etc.

Strike two!

In essence, don’t think about this one too hard.  Black Fire is a romp, it’s enjoyable, it’s generally well written but it’s not one that tries very hard to make sense – even in a Trek way.  Obviously this is a Spock centric story, and a part of me wants to say, the characterisation is good, but the other part of me disagrees because the narrative pushes him in a direction I don’t think is natural to the character.  It’s like Cooper wants something to happen, forces an action (which isn’t normal to the character) but then characterises well when it isn’t a plot point.  This kind of goes against some narrative theory I hold quite dear, so I can’t quite forgive it for that.

I quite liked Scotty going against the grain and teaming up with Spock to steal a ship though, that was completely in character!

The main ‘villains’ of the story were quite, strange.  For one thing they had a society based on the fact they bred prolifically on a home planet that couldn’t support them.  This resulted in a warlike, suicidal race with next to no respect for life.  They somehow got themselves off their planet and started taking over others… secretly it seems, as nobody else seems to have heard of them previously.  They integrate the technology of the species they subdue with their own, but they do not seem to develop scientifically at all otherwise.  They seemed… I don’t know, very unlikely villains especially since they ended up being defeated relatively easily.  This made little sense to me because they were essentially besieged but that was only their home planet, they have scores of other planets as I understand it, why would besieging their dying home planet cause their empire to wave the white flag when socially they are suicidal and have little respect for life?

Strike three!  Black Fire is out! (That’s what happens right?)

One of the little furry villains ends up falling in love with Spock *groan*, at least this puts Spock in an uncomfortable position a couple of times.  He deserves it after not being truthful with his space husband Kirk!

I honestly think the lack of exposition from Spock is where the book falls down a bit, it’s like Cooper is trying so hard to keep the secret that Spock is undercover that it all comes across a bit disingenuous.  So example, if the narrator is constantly telling us what Spock is thinking and his reasoning, why aren’t we made aware that it’s all a deception anyway.  Concealing the truth stops us from actually learning the Federation’s motivations.  It stops us actually learning what Spock actually thinks / feels about the events, instead we are essentially fed half truths.  Perhaps we should be grateful, it’s more information than Kirk gets!

Not wanting to be too much of a stick in the mud, I have to confess that I did enjoy the pirate Spock and his adventures with the Romulan, that section alone was almost worth reading the book for.

Finally, should you read it?  Well… I’m going to give it a solid 3/5.  There’s nothing particularly bad about it, but there also isn’t anything that really makes me go ‘wow’ either.  It was just enjoyable, quite silly at times, a little bit melodramatic.  I find some of the TOS novels could plausibly fit in the continuity, Black Fire just doesn’t.

3/5 – Ka-boom.

URGH – Just corrected some errors where text was out of place.  It’s when I post on my tiny laptop with a touch pad – I’m sorry!

Star Trek – The Abode of Life

Two nearly simultaneous explosions from the humanoids’ handguns shook the glade.  There was the solid sound of a projectile hitting one of the trees, followed by the whistling of another projectile ricocheting off some surface to warble off into the distance.

White smoke having the smell of rotten eggs, the characteristic odor of exploded black gunpowder, filled the air.

Oh dear, it has been a while!  I’m afraid I was on a bodily enforced hiatus – it was either mild flu or a cold with delusions of grandeur!  Either way it wiped me out for weeks (I’m only now feeling awake enough to write again!), and considering I’d pretty much finished The Abode of Life when I came down with it, I’m now having to stretch my Trek addled brain far further back than I’d like in order to review it!

The Abode of Life (Pocket, Titan) by Lee Correy was a welcome break from the overly dramatic silliness of Marshak & Culbreath and also allowed me to legitimately avoid reading another two that I’m not very excited about, to say the least.  Ok, what I really want to say is that I needed a man’s literary touch and Lee Corey managed to scratch that itch.  I’ve often said that there is a definite difference between male and female writers and it couldn’t be more exemplified than in the comparison between the emotional writing of Marshak and Culbreath and the succinct prose of Lee Correy.  The Abode of Life is spartan and Correy is generally uninterested in emotional exposition or character development (he in fact seems to have difficulty expressing emotion at all -Vulcan?-, I’ll talk about that later), instead his interest lies in writing an expanded episode, showing us a whole new culture and having Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise make first contact with a technologically advanced species so cut off from the rest of the galaxy that they believe they are the only sentient life and whose culture is built around that belief.

The cover is… ok? I kind of like Kirk and Spock being full length instead of floating heads though…

I don’t want to give the wrong impression, I really did like The Abode of Life, it was just what I needed and that’s all right with me.  As much as I like character driven stories full of exposition and relationship / character building, sometimes I just need to be reminded just why I like the series in the first place.  Essentially, it’s very easy to get bogged down with ‘fanon‘ (which is wonderful) that you forget just why it was love at first sight.  I didn’t get annoyed, I didn’t get emotional, I just got taken on a Trek adventure

The author is worth mentioning before I move on.  Lee Corey is a pseudonym of G. Harry Stine who as well as an author is one of the founding figures of modern model rocketry.  He has a physics background and worked at the Naval Ordnance Missile Test facility.  The Abode of Life is his only Star Trek novel, however he wrote a number of novels including his ‘Warbot’ series.  He has also published non fiction books on model rocketry and a number of space / space travel related books.  His non-fiction writing style peeks through in The Abode of Life, economical with language, a general lack of emotional description but a really in depth creation of a world and a culture and the possible science behind it.  Lee Correy writes plausibly, everything is believable from the science to the reactions of the characters.

The Enterprise is asked to scout a dangerous area of space full of spacial gravitational distortions.  Naturally, in an encounter with one of these distortions the Enterprise gets thrown across space to a sector of the quadrant which has not been yet discovered / explored by any other known race.  Badly crippled by the ordeal, the Enterprise limps under impulse engines to a lone planet circling a lone star, the readings of which defy even Spock’s understanding of star behaviour.  It soon becomes clear that the star and the planet were victims of the same phenomenon that the Enterprise experienced, albeit many years previously, explaining the odd behaviour of the star.

Due to the state of the Enterprise, Kirk makes the decision that he must make contact with the people on the surface of the planet.  Scans indicate they are technologically advanced and use a transporter system though they have not developed space travel.  Kirk finds himself in a first contact situation with a people who have no concept of any other life in the universe except for their own, and whose unique society could be irrevocably changed by contact with aliens…  Of course, the situation becomes more urgent when it is revealed that the unstable sun is due to start a cyclical event which will cause it to throw out lethal amounts of radiation, enough to destroy a crippled starship and her crew.  Kirk must decide whether to break the cycle and change a planet’s society forever, or save the Enterprise from certain destruction, all the while playing the part of Federation ambassador and tactician.

It’s pretty much a no-brainer, isn’t it?  I mean, even those of us who will defend Kirk to the ends of the Alpha quadrant know that there are certain things he won’t allow:

1) Destruction of his woman the Enterprise (unless it involves Spock, see 3))

2) Loss of his best bro, McCoy

3) Loss of his space husband first officer, Spock.

So once the negotiations inevitably break down, Kirk has to take action.  In doing so he changes Mercan forever, which of course means that the story doesn’t stop there.  The Abode of Life is unusual as it continues on well after the main event has occurred, Kirk has to take responsibility for his actions, and that means helping to mend the rifts between the various factions on the planet and try to bring the isolated planet into the Federation for protection and for strategic purposes.

Much of the action The Abode of Life comes from the conflict between three factions which can probably be described simply as conservatives, liberals and military.  In this case the conservatives hold the power in the Mercan society being part of a ‘church of science’ (?) and they hold the knowledge of how to predict their sun’s behaviour and have control of the bunkers which the people have to hide in to survive.  The liberals represent ‘new-science’, challenging old views and trying to work out what the conservatives know in order to shift the balance of power.  The military are pretty self explanatory, they work for the conservatives but only want to act for the good of Mercan.

Pretty standard fare isn’t it?  The meat of the story itself is not original, but the setting is.  I think the real strength comes from the Correy’s world building.  His new characters are average, but the well thought out world with it’s interesting martial society and mix of new technology (world wide transporter system) and old (black powder pistols) is really interesting.  I actually liked the idea of this isolated, advanced society having this duelling system that uses old pistols to settle disputes.  The ‘mythology’ of the planet was really interesting too, after all, there had to be a reason they didn’t ever bother developing space travel and such. 

One of the points I had to laugh at was the characterisations, they were accurate I think, but because Correy’s weakness is description you get funny repetitions like ‘Kirk snapped’.  ‘Kirk snapped’ was used so many times that it kind of becomes a joke.  Does Kirk do nothing else but ‘snap’ as his crew?  It’s like he’s suffering a sugar low or something!!

It was nice having Kirk just being a captain and demonstrating how capable he is.  You know showing you just why he’s is the captain of a starship charged with not only the responsibility of the 400 or so lives on board, but as a soldier and as a negotiator and representative of the Federation – a diplomat able to initiate and preside over first contact situations.  Correy really emphasises Kirk’s sense of responsibility and his wisdom. 

Correy used a wide selection of the main cast, including Rand, who gets to be part of the landing party.  I’m actually rather fond of Janice Rand and when she is written into a story it tends to be rather satisfying for me.

The Abode of Life is really worth the read, it’s just good, solid, Trek.  What more do you want?

4/5 – Kirk snapped.