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.