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!

Star Trek - The Entropy Effect

'The bridge was in chaos around them.  Blood splattered deck and bulkheads and glistened on the illuminated data screens.'

The Entropy Effect (1981) (#2 Pocket, #17 Titan) by Vonda N McIntyre is a frankly bizarre first entry to the Pocket Books novel series (discounting Star Trek: The Motion Picture novel release).  I have to be honest, I was trying to avoid reading/reviewing this one because of the travesty of Star Trek - The First Adventure, also by McIntyre.   Unfortunately, my three (perhaps four - don't ask) copies of The Entropy Effect kept catching my attention; moustached Sulu haunting me, incorrectly uniformed Kirk staring balefully at me, baiting me.  

Some people have pronounced this novel one of the best that the Star Trek TOS series has to offer; to those people I pose a question - Are you high?

Having read McIntyre's prequel story Star Trek - The First Adventure I feel I was braced for her little, idiosyncrasies.  For example, the story takes about 73 pages to actually get started (about 25k in a 78k word novel) because of her love of her 'original characters' which she lavishes precious pages on.  I expected her hatred of Scotty, her undying love for Sulu (it was McIntyre who gave him his first name 'Hikaru' which became canon 10 years after the writing of this book), and her penchant for strong females and their groupies.  She did surprise me a little bit with her Kirk/Spock slashy moments which are so overt that Kirk's relationship issues with the woman 'Hunter' are rendered null and void, because he has a boyfriend, and he has pointy ears (even if Kirk doesn't realise it yet).

The story itself is relatively simple, but manages to be convoluted because it involves time travel.  Stripping it back to it's bare bones leaves you with an unimaginative time loop tale, only involving a single person, Spock, and by the end the novel not even he can clearly remember what has happened, neither is there any real effect to the universe in general.  It seems such a waste of time to have an entire story take place and it essentially be relegated to nothingness at the end.

As I mentioned previously, nothing really happens in the first 73 pages in which McIntyre introduces her numerous original characters.  If you've read The First Adventure you'll know of Hunter who is referenced by Sulu as a hero of his, and in The Entropy Effect, an ex-lover of Kirk with an uh, interesting polygamous family life.  Hunter seems a little shoehorned in, I've no doubt McIntyre believes she's important, but she could be replaced with a generic male captain and we could skip some useless character development.  We could also avoid some erosion of Kirk's character, which reduces him to being totally puerile.  Luckily he's dead for a significant part of the novel, which means he gets bypass the McIntyre makeover (such a shame he doesn't manage to be dead in The First Adventure too).

And this is something I find really bizarre, who kills the main character for the majority of a novel which is supposed to be starting off a series of (non film) books?  Kirk is dead for over half the book.   Admittedly, he dies a very satisfying death (if by satisfying you mean, painfully and in Spock's arms), and you know what?  Surprisingly this scene is written rather well!  It gave me chills to read it, because it was rather brutal and McIntyre had come up with a particularly nasty way to kill someone.  In fact, I've read the scene several times, because it is really well written, and I think, this is the scene which sticks in people's minds, which makes them forgive (?) the rest of the book.  The scene is too long to quote here, but rest assured there are plenty of slashy moments... and a reference to an original character (Hunter) who is so important that Kirk thinks about her while he's dying.  I really, really have a problem with this, 'this' being when original characters take on a more important role than the regular cast.  Uhura and Chekov for example are non-entities in this novel, but the three new security officers? Hunter?  A new reader could be forgiven for thinking that they were regular characters.

I must also congratulate McIntyre in not making Spock cry hot Vulcan tears when Kirk dies.  He's close, but manages to keep it under control unlike in the First Adventure, and this is far, far more satisfying.  Spock tries to ease Kirk's pain via a mind meld -

Spock grasped his hand, holding him strongly, deliberately leaving open all the mental and emotional shields he had built during his long association with human beings.
'You will be alright, Jim,' Spock said.  He put his right hand to Jim's temple, completing the telepathic, mystical circuit linking him with his friend.  Pain, fear, and regret welled out into him.  He accepted it willingly, and felt it ease in Jim.  'My strength to yours,' he whispered, too softly for anyone to hear, the words a hypnotic reminder of the techniques he was using. 'My strength to yours, my will to yours.'

However, there is nothing to be done, Kirk realises that he's going to die, and severs the mind meld knowing that 'Spock would follow him down the accelerating spiral until he had fallen too deep to return.  He would willingly choose death to save Kirk's life.'  which results in -

'The physical resonance of emotional force flung Spock backward.  His body thudded against the railing, and he slumped to the floor.  He lay still, gathering his strength. (...) Spock pushed himself to his feet, fighting to hide his reactions.  (...) Spock felt himself trembling.  He clenched his fists. (...) The captain's body was alive; it could be kept alive indefinitely now.
But Spock had felt Jim Kirk die.'

The whole scene is really quite touching, and before the tedium of the time travel narratives takes hold, we have a another heart breaking scene in which Spock urges McCoy to turn off the machines keeping Kirk's body alive.

Unfortunately, from this point onwards, the novel's readability takes a serious nose dive.  With Star Trek novels (or any other tie-in series I guess), you know everything has to be back to the status quo by the end of the book, so, you know Kirk isn't going to stay dead and Sulu will probably be shaving that ridiculous moustache off soon.  However, this makes stories regarding time travel problematic, because, you either write a story revolving around a bootstrap paradox  or you write a time loop tale.  Bootstrap paradoxes are easier to write because you can put lots of original content in, but theoretically, it has already happened in the existent universe, so nothing is expected to change - it's already been changed into the universe we know.  The joy of this type of time travel is that it's not the destination, it's the journey, the question of how the events play out in order to achieve the universe we know.  Time loops are more difficult, you need to show that a time loop is happening, map out where characters are at any one time and not make it tedious for the reader to read the same events over and over again.  It's pretty tough, especially when the main event (Kirk's death) is described so early, it's hard to really follow up with anything interesting.  Additionally, having to bring such events to a close with no effect to the universe makes it even harder to achieve a satisfying resolution.  Needless to say McIntyre doesn't quite manage it.

Much of the drama of the time loop come from the aggressive actions of a prosecutor (original character), and McIntyre's weak minded Scotty.  The prosecutor has no business subverting the command of a Federation vessel, and Scotty is portrayed as a thin skinned maid who would turn against Spock and McCoy because he wasn't put in command by Spock after Kirk's death.  Where is the trust that Scotty has?  The resilience that is built up during the series?  If you have read The First Adventure, Scotty's portrayal shouldn't be a surprise, McIntyre dislikes the character intensely.

Why McIntyre, why?

The villain(?) of the tale is really an unsuspecting scientist who sent his friends into the past, per their wishes.  This unfortunately causes 'the entropy effect' which would destroy the universe within one hundred years if the original time travel takes place.  The meat of the story would be Spock's time travelling escapades, if the story was well written.  Unfortunately, McIntyre would rather write about the trials and tribulations of her original characters instead.  Oh, also Sulu and his moustache.

After the time travelling / time looping has come to an end.  Kirk is restored to life (because those events never happened) and Spock is unconscious in a state of exhaustion.  Naturally, Kirk is by Spocks side when he wakes up, and you get this little scene:

'Jim!' Spock sat up so quickly that every muscle and joint and sinew shrieked: he was aware of the sensation but impervious to it, as he should be, but for all the wrong reasons.  He grabbed Jim Kirk's arm.  It was solid and real.  Relief, and, yes, joy, overwhelmed the Vulcan.  He slid his hand up Jim's arm; he started to reach up to him, to lay his hand along the side of his face to feel the unsettling energy of Jim's undamaged mind.'

I love this scene, but it also freaks me out.  Not because it's a slashy/spirky as you get, but because... well, have you ever had someone run their hand up your arm.  Don't try doing it to yourself (it won't be the same sensation), get a friend or partner do it to you, or both so you can compare.  I'll wait.

...

Tried it?  Ok, how did that make you feel?  If your answer is, FREAKED OUT and I FEEL LIKE SPIDERS  ARE CRAWLING UP MY ARM, then you feel the same way as me.  Having a hand moving like that, up your arm and towards your face is like, so intimate, so unsettling.  My partner and I tried it on each other and we gave each other the shivers (not in a good way), it feels weirdly predatory.  Kirk doesn't react to Spock's behaviour.  Pities sake, Vulcans don't like prolonged touching, or touching generally but this is... I don't know, primitive longing, as I said, predatory, desire?  Obviously there is joy and relief there but it just seems very intimate (then again, so is feeling somebody die whilst your minds are joined, or joining minds and sharing pain - QED).  I'll let you join the dots.

The novel ends with a trite little Captains log which ties up McIntyre's precious 'OC' story arcs and prevents Sulu from any further consideration regarding leaving the ship and joining Hunter's fighter squadrons (are there even fighter squadrons in canon?).  Oh, and Kirk is going to talk to the OC Hunter, and probably hook up, because just when you think you're in the clear (because they haven't met up in this timeline), OCs come back to haunt you, like last night's vindaloo.

I really, really want to give The Entropy Effect a 1/5, but I'm going to settle for 2/5.  Why?  Well, because there is good writing in it at times, and does have some interesting parts.  Also, I think it should be read because of it's position as the first non-film novel in the Pocket books series.  I think, if you're into slashy writing, you should read it for Kirk's death scene and Spock's recovery, even if the rest of the book is dire.  What I find interesting is that Vonda N McIntyre was one of Roddenberry's 'inner circle' (I think I referenced that before) and she wrote the novel adaptations for the following couple of films.  He obviously didn't have a problem with Kirk and Spock's interactions being so very... ahem.  Then again, he didn't have a problem with the quality of the writing in this book, he may even have liked it?! Ah well, no accounting for taste.

2/5 - thankfully, no equiraptors.

Star Trek - Ishmael

'The face of an intellectual Satan, thought Stemple; pinched and sunken with the last extremities of pain.'

Ishmael (1985) (#23 Pocket, #26 Titan) by Barbara Hambly has certainly impressed me, and seems set to be one of my few 'comfort' novels; novels that I return to again and again to scratch a certain literary itch.  I'm actually pretty shocked that I haven't come across her work before, as she's quite prolific and many of her books fall squarely in my usual thematic hunting ground.  Thank you, Star Trek novels for introducing me to more fuel for the imagination engine! 

Hambly's Website.

Hambly is an incredibly strong author, her narrative is engaging, the characters are en pointe, and her turn of phrase is just... so succinct.  I'm sorry, I'm starting to gush aren't I?  Well, I can't help it!  From my perspective, Hambly didn't put a foot wrong and I'm not necessarily the intended audience. 

As I've said before I generally read books blind, I buy in bulk and when selecting my next fix I spread a pile of books on the floor and look at the covers - yes, I'm that superficial (in my defense, when you have about 60 books in your 'to read' pile, sometimes that's the only way)!  The day I chose Ishmael I was obviously in a 'Spock' mood (don't you just love his expression?), I think I was pretty charmed by the cover, and I just LOVE time travel stories and alternate universes and... bootstrap paradoxes.  I had no idea that the characters on the front of the novel could be based on characters from another T V series.  The other thing, is that I'm woefully undereducated about the period of American history much of the novel takes place in (being from the UK), it's pretty alien to me, and actually, this makes it even better, because I go into these stories with virtually no expectation of what might or might not happen.

I also have a very patchy knowledge of American TV from the 60s to 80s, don't be too judgemental, I was born 3 years after this book was published, however if you wanted to know about British TV from that time period, I'd be a lot more knowledgeable!  I really want to make it clear that I read this book, this cameo heavy book and picked up on, one perhaps two inconsequential cameos and it didn't affect my enjoyment of it at all.  If I had known that Hambly uses the characters and setting from the 1968 series Here Come the Brides before reading Ishmael I probably wouldn't have read it, believing that I wouldn't enjoy it because I'd have no understanding of the references.  Emphatically, I have to state, even if you have zero knowledge of any of the cameos, it will not affect your enjoyment of the book;  Hambly is an incredibly competent author, writing to essentially two different levels of readership, and she frankly, pulls it off.

Back to the book itself.  The main narrative is Spock's (or Ishmael's) narrative which takes place over a period of four months located in 1867 Seattle, there's also a secondary narrative which takes place in the Star Trek 'present', which involves Kirk trying to work out cryptic messages left by Spock just before his disappearance; this takes place over a course of a week.

The story opens with Kirk in a state of distress, he doesn't know whether or not Spock is dead, he actually hopes that Spock is dead, as he knows that the Klingons are masterful at torture, and twenty-four hours is a long time to be under their interrogation.  Kirk then reflects on the events which led up to Spock's disappearance.  Before they lost contact with Spock, who had infiltrated a Klingon ship disguised as a starbase technician, he sent two cryptic messages, which Kirk and his team on the Starbase 12 spend much of their time trying to decrypt, in order to prevent whatever the Klingons are trying to affect in the past.  Three new characters are drafted in to help with this work, an aged Vulcan historian named 'Trae', Maria Kellogg the human commander of Starbase 12, and Aurelia Steiner a Drelb astrophysicist.  Trae and Maria are pretty standard.  Trae is an ancient Vulcan historian who eventually helps point the team in the right direction and Maria is refreshingly helpful.  The most interesting (to me) is actually the Drelb, Aurelia.  Remember the Sackers from The Three-Minute Universe?  The Drelb are pleasant versions of the same idea, they change colours and give off nice smells when they are happy.  They also create eyes for the benefit of other species (to allow eye contact) and morph hands for themselves when they need to take things from others, instead of using tentacles.  Ishmael came out in 1985, The Three-Minute Universe came out in 1988 and it's hard not to think that the Drelb influenced the 'Sackers'.

As you can guess, after some altercations on the Starbase, Kirk's team manage to work out the Klingon plan and use a spacial anomaly to travel into Earth's past, keep in mind that until fairly near the end they believe Spock dead.

The longer and more involved narrative is Spock's sojourn in Seattle.  Now, I absolutely love, love love, 'stranger in a strange land' stories, mix that in with a bit of time travel, a splash of colonial fiction, and really, you have a winner for me.  What's really great, if that I know very little of frontier Seattle either, so, I'm a stranger too!

Spock is found half dead by Aaron Stemple, who realises almost immediately that he isn't human, not least because of the masses of green blood exiting Spock's body.  Being a ridiculously reasonable man, he decides that this 'intellectual Satan' is enough human to save, and takes him back to his secluded cabin and nurses Spock back health.  Spock doesn't remember himself, although he is aware he is not human.  He has no memory of his past, or what he is doing here, save glimpses when he gets reminded of something, however trying to remember causes him great pain, just a memory of pain.  Aaron gives Spock a new name Ishmael and presents him to the other residents of the town as his Nephew.  This is fitting because Aaron Stemple is played by Mark Lenard, Mark Lenard plays Spock's father, Sarek.  This is a really important (meta) plot point...

I tried to think why Hambly would use the name Ishmael, I don't think it's a common Jewish name because it's more commonly associated with Islam.  Ishmael means in Hebrew approximately 'God hears', hears what, who is 'god' here?  I can't even work out if Aaron Stemple is supposed to be Jewish or not?  I assumed he was while reading because Mark Lenard and Leonard Nimoy are both Jewish.  I don't seem to be able to find much information on 'Here Come the Brides' either, infuriating.  At this rate I'll be buying the series and blogging about that too so that I can get the answers to my questions!  Perhaps I'm just thinking too much about this... on the other hand, Hambly doesn't seem like a writer just to use any name.  I just don't know.

Anyway back to the task at hand.  Spock lives for four months without his memory, he interacts with many of the recurring characters from 'Here Come the Brides' essentially giving them an end to their stories since the TV show was cancelled after two seasons, and giving Spock almost a 'beginning' of his.  He  'logically' advises people to get together, helps to develop a gambling system and by his mere presence ensures his own future, in fact that his own birth will come to pass.  Ah, the joys of a bootstrap paradox, all this had to happen because it had already happened.  The Klingons, in their desire to prevent the Federation from existing, from humans ever being able to develop themselves, actually cause the humans to reject Khasid influence.  The human who prevents it?  Aaron Stemple.

I don't want to spoil too much of what goes on in Seattle, because it is just so well written and so much fun to read, I'll leave that to you, but Spock edges gradually to embracing his humanity, his human characteristics to the point of showing genuine affection for Biddy Cloom, who as it turns out, is his maternal ancestor.

Hambly strings you along a little bit throughout the novel, especially where relationships are concerned.  Spock is always on the edge of emotion, but not quite.  Kirk is on the edge of a break down, but keeps himself busy, because there is a past to save, his grief can come later.  Which we do see in the series itself, for example when his brother and sister-in-law die.  I was expecting Spock to remember Kirk somehow, I was possibly influenced by 'Killing Time' in this respect!  He doesn't get reminded of a likeness, but he can't think through the fog of pain to grasp the memory.  However, all my desires for Kirk and Spock interaction were sated by the following passage:

At the table a man slumped, his head bowed on his folded arms, his breathing slow with sleep.  From the dark mane of uncut hair and the plaid wool shirt McCoy assumed it to be Stemple, and started to turn towards the door to the other room.  Kirk paused, recognizing something, even in sleep, in the attitude of the sloping shoulders.

He came back, softly, to the sleeper's side.  "Mr Spock," he whispered.  "Spock."

Spock raised his head.  His dark eyes were clouded with a fatigue extreme even for a Vulcan; they regarded Kirk for a moment with a kind of blank incomprehension, then closed again, and for a instant Spock's crushing grip locked around Kirk's hands.

That was my major character / relationship development reward for reading this book, you do get a few more moments after this, but I just felt like this was so well done, I squealed with delight!  I just love reunions!

The 'baddie' Klingons are somewhat... absent throughout most of the novel.  You know they are there, you don't know quite when they are going to turn up and they aren't really developed as characters, the Klingons are essentially just goons.  Which is fine, usually I'd want a bit more development but it does work in this novel, and I don't really feel the need to nitpick at all.

There are SO MANY cameos in this novel, there are at least four Doctor Who cameos (the fourth doctor is in a bar on the Starbase), Star Wars references (Han Solo is also in the bar), and characters from Bonanza and Man with No Name make their appearance in Seattle, as well as others.  This is all reported, I only picked up on like one cameo in total, because I am an abject failure... I'm British and I don't actually like Doctor Who in the slightest...

This novel just works really well!  It was successful from a Star Trek perspective, and it's managed to sell me another TV series I didn't even know existed.  Additionally, it manages to shamelessly borrow a whole cast of characters, and not tip you off if you haven't seen the shows.  I love it, I'm totally in love with this novel, why are you still reading this?  Go read Ishmael.  Go on!

5/5 - Here Comes my Bride.

PS:  I feel slightly less bad about not knowing about 'Here Come the Brides', I asked an American friend and he hadn't heard of it either.  I feel vindicated.

Star Trek - Costume Parts - Postal Jackpot!

Firstly, sorry this isn't another review, but today was a postal jack pot day!

Well, ok ANOTHER postal jackpot day!  Since I had a shipment of sixty books from America last week - I bought a job lot of sixty books just for the chance that I would get one rare book out of them, and I won the gamble!  Oh yes!

Anyway, today's postal jackpot was, firstly a package from xscapesprops which contained a Star Trek Women's Uniform pattern, an Enterprise insignia patch, and lengths of captain's braid!  I only ordered it 9 days ago, so I was super surprised and super pleased that it came so fast!

Honestly, so pleased!  The shipping was really reasonable too!  There were other sellers trying to charge me the cost of the braid again to ship it to the UK, but I got these items for a very humble shipping fee.  Hooray!

What is the good of these items if I don't have any fabric?  Well I do!  Imported from Germany I have some imitation velour fabric in.... Command Gold! 

Well it certainly acts like the velour in the series, it looks completely different in different light, but it doesn't turn into a completely different colour like the command tunics in the original series.  Did you know that Kirk's gold tunic is actually green in real life but the combination of the studio lights and the camera mean that that fabric shows as gold?  Its the same colour as his green tunic!  My mind was actually blown when I found that out!  Later on they actually make it canon that the tunics are gold.  That being said, if you have the first edition technical manual (like I do) you'll notice that the colour they list in there is a completely different colour again.  There is one page in the technical manual which is colour printed and all the pages with coloured designs refer back to that page.  The command yellow or '13 - Tenne' which is indicated for the command tunics is printed as a very strange colour, very dark and orange.  I was going to use the technical manual for colour guidance, but the colours listed are quite 'off' at times.  There's probably been updates since the 1975 manual but... where's the fun in making it easy for myself!

I took a picture of the colour swatch and then tried to match the colour on the screen to the colour in the book, by my eyes and my monitor settings, this is the colour that is listed for the colour of command tunics.  It is quite dark and quite orange.  More the upper left of the swatch than the right.

I also got a pair of boots through the post today 'vintage' they claimed, but I'm not so sure.  Either way they are very nice quality, however, they are too long for the costume... the technical manual lists 34.3cm as the length for both men's and women's boots.  Unfortunately these come up to the knee, I was going to adjust them but they are really far too nice to cut!  So I need to find another pair.  If push comes to shove though, I will use them for the convention this month.

I need only a couple of parts for the costume now really (aside from my own labour).  A pair of tights/leggings and a beautiful blonde wig!

If it wasn't obvious enough, I'm going to be in costume as a female Captain Kirk!  I hope to be meeting up with a female Spock too!  Unfortunately I haven't been able to convince a friend to be female McCoy - it could be quite a combination!

I also thought I'd kinda be in character:

'So... I heard that men are from Mars and women are from Venus... but I think that you, you must be from Orion...'

HA.  Think that's a good enough pick up line?  ((It's terrible I know)).

Star Trek - Merchandise - Communicator

Something a little bit different today!

I recently purchased this little communicator to go with a costume I'm making!  I didn't want to splash out on something I was going to take to a convention and probably drop kick, so I decided to go for a cheaper option for now, and if I REALLY like the costume, I'll buy a more expensive version... maybe even the snazzy blue tooth one... one can dream!

This 'kit' is called 'Star Trek Light-and-Sound Communicator' and described as a 'Deluxe Mega Kit'.  The 'publisher' (?) is Running Press.  It comes in pretty spartan packaging, it's only protection from mishaps a thin plastic bag and a small cardboard box; I'm not going to complain too much though, since it's RRP is £7.99 and mine got to me with no damage whatsoever.

Personally, I think it's good quality for the price.  It's a novelty item, a toy rather than a display item but it will do for cosplay purposes I think!  This communicator is quite small, it's going to work for me because I have tiny hands, but when my partner held it it looked like a child's toy!  It's something like 2/3 the size of the actual communicators, but that's just my reckoning. 

As the name suggests, it does have lights and sounds!  The adjustment knobs (?) have been re-purposed into buttons, the left one makes the distinctive communicator 'blip blip blip', the right hand one... I have no idea what sound effect it is supposed to be.  It's quite long, perhaps it's an interference sfx?  I really don't know, but it is quite loud for such a little thing.  The three little lights light up and flash a little while it is playing the sounds.

The communicator is all plastic, but it is textured so it feels nice to hold, but I do have a complaint!  You can't do the iconic flick motion to get the aerial to go up!  In order to do the motion, you need to use your thumb to move the aerial while you do the wrist flick.

This communicator also comes with a little information book (pictured below), it has some background information about the communicators, some interesting facts about the props themselves, and also some pretty pictures.  The little book potentially makes it a really nice gift item for the Trekkie in your life!  Or just a cheap gift for yourself... 

For the price, I don't think you can go far wrong with this! 

Star Trek - The Three Minute Universe

'"We had better prepare ourselves, Jim.  There's a very real possibility that he may be dead."  Kirk lifted his head.  "From what we know of the Sackers," he said heavily, 'maybe we'd better pray that he is."'

The Three-Minute Universe (1988) (#13 Titan, #41 Pocket) is by Barbara Paul, a mystery and science fiction writer active between 1978 and 1997; this is Paul's only Star Trek novel.

I have to admit, I don't really know where to start with The Three-Minute Universe, and I've been kind of... putting off this review.  I can't say that the writing is bad - it isn't.  I can't say the story is unoriginal - there are clearly worse offenders.  I also can't say it's particularly appealing.  It took me three attempts and a break of 3 weeks to actually finish reading it and, considering I generally read books of this size in one or two sittings, it wasn't a great start.  I think the most annoying thing about this novel is that it had a lot of potential, the idea is good, the writing is good, it just trips at the last hurdle and falls apart.

The premise is that an sensorially abhorrent race known as the Sackers have stolen a device capable of ripping the fabric of space and tapping into the energy of another, forming universe to draw off potentially near infinite energy.  They wipe out the home system of an entire race in the process of activating the device, but chaos doesn't stop there; the new universe is expanding through the tear, causing a wave of blistering heat to surge onwards, engulfing all in its path, threatening to destroy our own.

So we have some really interesting ideas here.  Paul introduces a completely disgusting looking race we haven't met before, I mean, they are so revolting that it causes seemingly every other Federation species to become violently ill, so offensive is the Sacker presence to the senses.  However, until now the Sackers have been passive, peaceful.  They simply trade with the Federation and then leave again; they are even mindful of their appearance and adapt how they dress and present themselves in order to illicit less of a response from other species.  This is how Kirk responds to seeing a sacker on his vidscreen:

'All his training and natural tolerance seemed to have deserted him.  Meeting alien races had been an integral part of his adult life; he would feel as if he'd lost a part of himself if it were to come to an end (...) But this race... just a two dimensional image of its only technically humanoid members was enough to make him feel queasy'.

We then get our first description of a Sacker, in which we are told they are large blobs in a state of 'self-regenerating decay', their mobile, white slug-like organs are visible and small maggot like things seem to move between the organs.  Kirk feels bile in his mouth just looking at them, they are by all counts revolting.  Somewhat understandably, how they look and smell has coloured interactions with species within the federation, making them a 'lepur' race, pariahs.  I think this might actually be one of the problems with how I feel about the book, the aliens are SO alien (as kirk said, only technically humanoid) they are hard to relate to.  This is actually one of the major plot points, but it's quite hard to really blame the Federation races for reacting the way they do against the Sackers; after all when they are so disgusting your eyes water, you vomit AND if there are a few of them you pass out, it's hard to imagine not wanting to avoid them at all costs.  As it turns out, the reason for the Sacker actions is how they are treated by everyone else; the reasoning is essentially that since they can't be accepted, they will either destroy or dominate every other species.

They seem pretty irredeemable right?  Well, the way that Paul gets around the completely alien and 'evil' nature of this race, is that when Kirk, Scotty, Uhura and Chekov end up captured by the Sackers, she makes them... children, adolescents.  The adults on this ship (the one that was stolen at the beginning of the book) have all died and the child Sackers are trying to continue their mission against the rest of the galaxy.  The reason they capture the Enterprise officers?  In order to have the likes of Kirk, Scotty, Uhura and Chekov teach them how to pilot their ship.

The child Sackers end up being rather endearing all told.  They are children pretending to be adults and making bad decisions because that's what the adults told them to do.  The latter half of the book is somewhat painful, or should I say uncomfortable, to read as the Enterprise crew use the innocence of the children against them.  Sure, they are mass murdering monsters, but they are also sincere and look up to their mentors.  Kirk, Scotty, Uhura and Chekov even name them, inadvertently initially; it's really hard to really dislike creatures named things like 'Iris', 'Blue', 'Babe', 'Bonesovna' and... 'Orangejuiceandwodka'.  I suppose I must just... feel uncomfortable with the fact that the Enterprise officers are being giant jerks... to children.

In the end I felt really, very sorry for these kids, I mean, they really did try hard to do what they were told, and the commentary from Spock and Sulu on the Enterprise wondering what exactly they were doing by rolling the ship over and doing all these odd maneuvers made me feel highly embarrassed.

When Kirk and the others finally make their move to take the ship, it does turn out they have become quite fond of the children, and are genuinely saddened when there is a death.  The high point, however, is the mental image of the five crew members all in a very small box playing a form of extreme twister as they take cover from a raging fire on the Sacker ship.  I read this part out to my partner, and just about made it through the section without crying with laughter.  It might be worth reading the book just for this scene.

Paul introduces the Bubble Universe Theory as the 'science' behind the Zirgosian device.  It's a multiverse theory and in this case it posits that our universe is a bubble in a sea of bubbles, pressed up against one another in a state of eternal inflation.  The title The Three-Minute Universe refers to the age of the adjacent bubble universe when it is initially tapped into by the device.  Essentially, if the tear between universes isn't repaired, then the younger universe would expand into the prime universe, destroying everything in an advancing wave of fire.

Fire and fear of fire is a pretty big theme in The Three-Minute Universe. Paul decides to develop Uhura's character by giving her a tragic back story.  Uhura is deathly afraid of fire, due to an event which occurred in her dorm when she was a child.  Her friend and roommate T'iana gets trapped under a fallen beam and dies in the blaze, Uhura is unable to help her before she succumbs to the heat and fire.  Uhura still dreams about the blaze, and the fear comes back most vividly during the events of this book.  She faces the fear both abstractly and physically, and in the end conquers her fear.

Spock also gets some development in The Three-Minute Universe, although this comes belatedly, literally the last few pages of the novel.  Spock feels fear at the impossible odds facing them, and after the Enterprise's victory, retreats from the bridge, closely followed by Kirk.  On being questioned by Kirk, Spock reveals that he has felt fear for the first time.  In response, Kirk gives him a pep talk which concludes on this note:

"Yes! Don't deny your fear.  Use it.  You'll see, it will add  whole new dimension to your life - you'll start seeing things in a way you've never seen them before.  Anyone with human genes in him who's never known fear - well, he's not.. whole.  Oh, Spock, don't you see?  You've found a part of yourself that was missing.  Don't despair, Spock!  Rejoice!  Rejoice."
    For a long moment there was no response.  Then the Vulcan slowly lifted his head, looked his friend straight in the eye... and rejoiced."

Ok, I admit it, this in actually a pretty ADORABLE moment, but I'd kind of expect it in a novel which had been more slashy, or even just one which had actually been more Spock-centric.  This ending scene just seems to have been thrown in out of nowhere, why are we suddenly focusing on Spock's first (really?) experience of fear and not having a final resolution with Uhura?  I don't know if I can really accuse Paul of being trite here, because we're still relatively early (well, below #50 Pocket) but... Spock having a break down to add extra emotional weight, implying this is the fist time he has felt fear, I just don't buy it, you'd have to put this whole episode incredibly early in the initial 5 year mission to make that statement.

I've only really talked about the latter half of the book, but really, the first half if a bit redundant and only sets the scene for the capture of the Enterprise officers.  Put it this way, once I got past the first half, I read the book pretty quickly.

So, what's my opinion?  It's... okay.  It's nothing to really write home about, but it isn't bad per se.  There is quite a lot of humour with the Sackers, and you do get the odd moment which is written really well, but on the whole if you're not worried about reading every Star Trek TOS novel, then you can probably, safely give this one a miss.  If you are a big fan of Uhura however and her character development, this is probably of interest for you, but otherwise it's not really worth it.

2/5 - DO NOT HUG THE SACKERS.