Star Trek - Pawns and Symbols

Jean felt herself lowered suddenly, plunged into the dark.  She was totally disorientated.  The krelk released her into someone's arms.  "Jean!"  The whisper was Aernath's.  She clung to him convulsingly.

... Convulsingly?

It was about half way through Pawns and Symbols that I turned to my long suffering partner and said 'By God, I've found one, I've found a Mary Sue!'.  He laughed then, and we got into a discussion about the origin of the Mary Sue (he didn't realise that the term has its origin in Star Trek fanfiction) and whether this actually was a Mary Sue representation or not.  This soon spiralled into a mini -ongoing - research project, which then sidestepped into why 2009 Uhura is a poor representation of Uhura and a step backwards for female representation in Star Trek - ongoing project no. 2 - and then lept to the defense of slash ST fans everywhere.

And that was only half way through the book.

Pawns and Symbols (#26 Pocket, Giant #4 Titan) (1985)  by Majliss Larson really has to be read to be believed.  There were many times when I realised my mouth was agape, stunned by what I had just read, others where I had to screw up my face to try to release my muscles from a near constant smirk.  I gave a running commentary to my partner, complete with predictions of what I thought would happen next (it wasn't hard), and proclaimed loudly that I had found 'Twilight in Space'.  How about 'Wrath of Mary Sue'?  No? OK.

Firstly, I'm going to get this out the way.  It's definitely a woman writing, and I think the name 'Majliss Larson' is a pseudonym.  I've looked in my usual places and she doesn't appear to have an online presence or any other reference to her aside from Pawns and Symbols.  To be fair, if I was wrote Pawns and Symbols under my own name, I probably would have legally changed it by now, or invoked something like 'right to be forgotten'!

I have to be fair though, it isn't the worst Star Trek novel I've read (and that pool is increasing), but it is the most blatant Mary Sue / Author Proxy / Self Indulging one so far.  About 90% of the book is taken up by misadventures of Jean Czerny - young, botanist, amnesiac, genius, Klingon whisperer, super attractive to Klingons, can beat a Klingon in a knife fight... need I go on?  Her ridiculous romances with out of character Klingons are set within the theme of 'stranger in a strange land'.  Jean has to adapt to life as a captive in hostile territories and in the process exposes the political machinations and mentalities of Klingon society...

...While banging Kang.  Whilst falling in love with the most gentle Klingon ever with blue eyes (later they are described as amethyst as Larson forgets what she wrote earlier in the novel).  You know what?  I'm not even really spoiling it if I tell you that by the end of the novel after smexing Kang one final time, she gets with the pretty Klingon.  Why am I not spoiling it?  Because Jean is a Mary Sue, loud, proud and (probably) unashamed, and if you rouse your inner teenage fangirl she will inform you what the next 'plot twist' will be.

The tag line for the novel is deceptive:

THE KLINGONS ARE HUNGRY FOR WAR - 

AND KIRK IS CAUGHT IN A BRUTAL BATTLE OF WITS!

I actually believed that I was going to get a clever story this time!  A battle of wits!  Perhaps I was going to be treated to Kang and Kirk butting heads, out maneuvering each other with a grudging respect.   The title Pawns and Symbols sounds exciting and the cover, Kirk, Kang and a chess board, complete with 'chess piece' Jean, wheat, and the Enterprise was intriguing.  There is no battle of wits between Kirk & Kang, because Kirk gets barely any story time, the original crew get barely any story time!  There is one section where the Enterprise rescues a Romulan woman, but this feels like filler, almost as if Larson was told 'look here, this in a Star Trek story, you need to actually put the Enterprise Crew in it!'...  And she does but... it's not so much shoehorned in as crowbarred in.  Spock does have a slightly larger role in a strange episode while posing as a Romulan on a Klingon planet...

Essentially, Pawns and Symbols paints a sympathetic picture of the Klingons, and that they are are essentially a good, kind people who war with an aggressive nature.  Also they are seemingly muslims who treat women as chattel and in some areas are forced to wear clothing very similar to the burka.  Women are also written as second class citizens, forced into a subservient attitude - I'm kind of glad that TNG didn't go down this route with female Klingons!

In this story, the Klingons are in a position of desperate need.  They have caused famine on their planets with alteration of their grain strains but do not wish to seek help because they do not want to bargain from a position of weakness.  This is why they keep Jean Czerny as a hostage, as both a bargaining chip and a resource.  Afterall, she is a genius botanist and will be able to help them use a new resistant type of grain succeed on the various affected planets.  Jean is held captive out of necessity for about 6 months, and in that time, makes enemies, becomes Krang's consort, falls in love with Aernath, adopts a Klingon orphan...

Memorable(?) moments:

- Kang cutting her clothes off her the first time they met.
- The 'I'm too scared to write fallacio so this will have to do scene'.
- The it's not rape, it's coerced sex scene.
- 'I'm screwing Kang, but I sure do hope Aernath is jealous' moments.
- Jean seriously scolding herself in the shower and Kang coming to the rescue.
- All the times we didn't have to know Jean needed to go / went to the toilet.
- Mara (Kangs estranged / now not estranged) wife being totally cool and sisterly about Kang screwing Jean.  Surprised she didn't suggest a menage a trois, all the other Klingons love her.
- Jean being made to strip for Kang after being seriously injured.
- All the teeth grindingly terrible variations of 'speaking another language' through sex.
- Injury is this author's kink.
- A bizarrely long episode about Klingon colour blindness that has no actual bearing on the plot, except perhaps making Aernath look more fragile and adorkable.
- Tribbles.

Luckily, this whole debacle is easily written off, as much of its musings about possible Klingon culture and such is smashed a couple of years later with Next Generation in 1987.  As such, Pawns and Symbols has not aged well.  I feel that this book got published 'under the radar' as it were, since we know that Roddenberry (or at least his team) cracked down on the novels after being triggered by Killing Time's homosexual tendencies.  Killing Time was number 24, Pawns and Symbols is number 26, there would have been only a couple of months between them, I doubt whether the editorial mess would have been cleared up in time for this book to have been filtered out or had any editing.  Actually, I'd be surprised if this book had any proofreading or editing at all.  There are so many typing errors and sentences that make absolutely no sense littered throughout, at times I found myself wondering what had just happened.

Frankly I found myself wondering how this book ever saw print.

I've got to give credit where it's due though.  Whoever Majliss Larson is, I think she really cared for this story; I think it meant a lot to her, I think she tried hard.  That doesn't change the fact it's bloody awful, but you do get a sense that it wasn't a throw away novel for her.  In fairness, she tried to show more of the universe by putting a new character in a difficult situation and was able to increase the time passing in the novel as part of that - I haven't had another ST novel in which the event spanned 6 months... yet.  She did try to add a quite a complex society to the Klingons, which could have worked, but her vessel - Jean 'Mary Sue' Czerny - was not the best choice.  Frustratingly, I could see ways in which the narrative could have been improved, she had good ideas that if told more from the perspective of the Enterprise crew could really have worked.

Consequently, I really don't think this is a recommended read unless you're interested in strange OOC Klingon centric stories, and even then you've got to have a high Mary Sue tolerance to reach the end (I was struggling!).

1/5 - Kang bang...?

Star Trek - Bloodthirst

'Maybe it was an illusion created by the shadows, but the man's skin was gray, the expression pinched - like a corpse, McCoy thought, like a med school cadaver that'd been taken out of stasis and left lying around the classroom too long.'

Bloodthirst (#37 Pocket, #6 Titan) (1987) by J M Dillard is a vampire themed addition to the Star Trek novel series (as if you couldn't tell from the title) which I tried to hate, wanted to love and ended up with mightily confused feelings on the whole experience.

Back up.  Back up.

Bloodthirst is a book of contrasts, not just thematically but also in how successful Dillard is in writing.  The first half of the book is an uninteresting slog that takes far too long to get moving, but the second half is strong and keeps you turning the pages.  Misdirection of the reader promises a complex plot,  but in the end the simplest explanation was the correct assumption (Dillard appears to lose herself along the way).  Annoying 'OC' crewmembers take up far too many pages with their seemingly endless soap opera, but somehow I end up caring about two of them by the end.  And so on and so forth.  I'm pretty conflicted.  I feel like everytime I come up with a criticism, something else mitigates it, and when I find something I like I can recall something to the contrary immediately.   

It's not like Dillard was the new kid on the block at this point either.  J M Dillard is a pseudonym of Jeanne Kalogridis and Bloodthirst was actually her third Star Trek novel published.  Her previous titles were Mindshadow (1986) and Demons (1986) in which she develops two of her OCs Nguyen and Tomson.  I haven't read those two novels yet, so I can't really comment on them, but I am kind of looking forward to seeing how her writing developed (if it did).  Kalogridis (as Dillard - referred to here on only as Dillard) went on to write two more ST:TOS novels of her own devising and several ST movie novelisations, and many more stories set in the Star Trek universe.  She also has written her own original stories, including a few vampire ones.

It's funny, because as I was reading it (especially the first half) I was thinking that Dillard writes a lot like Vonda McIntyre, because of her overbearing original characters, and she ends up doing the novelisations for the films, just like old Vonda did.  She also, unless I am very much mistaken, also references one of Vonda's OCs Snnanagfashtalli (also seen/mentioned in 'Uhura's Song') two or three times in passing, but I'll be damned if I can find those references again, I should have put a sticky when I noticed them.  I have to admit that her likeness to Vonda McIntyre soured me a little towards her, but she managed to somehow mollify me later.  I should explain, I spent much of the first half of the novel wondering whether I should give Bloodthirst a 1 or 2 / 5.  I thought 1/5 would be a little too harsh, and that it was a solid 2... but somehow Dillard turns it around in the second half and Bloodthirst claws its way to 3/5.

Now I have to admit, I really do like Vampire stories, but, do they do well in Star Trek? Well, it's not like we haven't seen them in the TV series itself - what about the salt vampire?  The concept is the same, a parasitic creature who can pass as human and then attacks, usually killing the victim, sometimes creating more of themselves.  Bloodthirst takes the concept of vampire and tries to 'sci-fi' it with varying levels of success.  What I do like is the whole 'vampirism' as a disease and medically explicable, it's still scary without the mysticism - it might actually be more scary when talking about a potential plague - but I think it was a mistake to try and shoehorn the vampire mythos in.  Dillard feels the need to explain the mystical vampire by having Spock explain it, and then later Chekov reveals his crucifix (given to him by his Russian grandmother, naturally) which means he'll be safe.  Urgh... if the crew aren't bothered with the mystical aspect, either because they are ignorant of folklore / literature (which always bothers me when it comes up, why do they always have no idea of these things?) or they simply have no time for it when it can all be solved with an inquisitive mind and science.

It's not a secret that the 'vampirism' is a man made virus, that is clear from the beginning, what's more pretty early on Kirk, Spock & McCoy realise that they have stumbled onto a bio-weapon hot lab associated with Starfleet.  They are also right on the money when they name an initial suspect, although Kirk uncharacteristically flip flops between trust and distrust.  Dillard tries to throw red herrings out, but they are easily identified as such, and consequently much of the time I spent cursing the characters for their epic shortsightedness.

Speaking of characters, Kirk, Spock and McCoy were at times weakly written, which I think is a symptom of authors wanting to write their original characters how they wish and then bending to established characters to support their creations.  This weakness is confirmed as the story progresses, and the OCs take a step back and Kirk, Spock and McCoy wrestle control of the plot.  That being said, I did get attached to one of the characters - Stanger - who I thought was particularly well constructed.  However, as nice as he is he doesn't quite merit the amount of time lavished  on him and his companions  at the expense of good characterisation of existing characters.  I feel that they could easily have been substituted for other members of the bridge crew (who get very little time), which would be preferable to the security personnel soap opera, which kind of feels like 'upstairs, downstairs' in space.

The villains are a little wishy-washy, their motivations a little weak.  The 'vampire' is a pretty sinister character, satisfying to hate, but the other main villain (and his allies in Starfleet) is unconvincing.  The motivations of these people to do what they were doing was only understandable to a point, the scale in which they wanted to revenge themselves was far fetched and unreasonable to the extreme.

Additionally, there are many loose ends, for example the Vulcan spy, Sepek, or the fact that Starfleet knew about the research (because of Sepek) but did not step in to avoid pointless deaths or take any action.  Kirk was essentially left to his own devices and Starfleet stayed silent.  This just seemed very clumsy - Waverleigh didn't have to die, it was painfully obvious what was going on, why didn't Starfleet intelligence intervene?  How did the admiral and assistant get to Tanis?  Where was the ship which got them there?  How were they going to get away with it... we'll never know!

Anyway... Bloodthirst is ok.  Decidedly middling, nothing to really write home about, but not particularly offensive either.  I mean, you could always do worse I suppose?  If you like vampire stories you might want to give this one a go or, perhaps if you like 'strong' original characters then this might suit you.

3/5 - No Dracula

Star Trek - Dreams of the Raven

'When the deck tremors began, the first officer was already braced for the movement but McCoy immediately lost his balance.  Above the whine of the ship's engines came the shatter of glass hitting a far wall and the crack of bone against metal.'

Dreams of the Raven (#34 Pocket, #3 Titan) (1987) by Carmen Carter is a strong character driven tale which also has a well crafted plot, if at times arguably cliched. Although the book's focus is McCoy there is also a great deal of character development for Kirk, Spock, and even Nurse Chapel.

Carmen Carter is better known for get Star Trek TNG novels, having penned three.  She has also written a few short stories and a good many Star Trek themed essays!  I think some will be easier to get hold of than others (Vulcan as a Meritocracy (1986)) but I want to at least read a couple!

Carmen Carter on isfdb

I didn't really know what to think when I (belatedly) picked up Dreams of the Raven for the first time, but the blurb intrigued me and the cover is unusual... though not 'pretty' by my definition!  However, I do like the expression on McCoy's face... but I am a little confused with what Kirk is doing here, since it has zero bearing on anything in the story.  The ships in the background kind of  illustrate a scene in the novel... kind of.  I did think that Dreams of the Raven was going to be another 'supernatural' type story like Ghost Walker... I was fooled!  Well, it seems if you're like me and choose Star Trek novels by their covers, you'll always be surprised by the content!

I've often wondered what kind of briefs were given to the artists for these covers (as you know) because sometimes they are somewhat offbeat, but also who comes up with the tag lines?  The editor?  The author?  Someone paid outrageous sums of money to read books and come up with exciting but usually inaccurate statements?  And do they also write the mostly inaccurate blurbs?  I'll ask an author friend of mine and get back to you!

I feel obliged to inform you first that I didn't like this novel, I LOVED IT.  From the first page of the prologue to the very last page of the final chapter and when I finished it, even though I knew the story had reached it's conclusion and tied up all its ends neatly, I wanted more.  It ended too soon.  Dammit Carter, why did you only write one TOS book?!  I could have read a series of books by her, she has a real gift for writing characters, she can write suspense, she handles combat scenes with consummate ease and she manages to make it look easy.

The story on it's own was rather good.  The Enterprise is docked at a civilian station when they receive a distress call from a Frenni merchant ship.  The Enterprise goes to the aid of the civilian ship but instead is ambushed.  The civilian ship rams the Enterprise - which is only saved by the virtue of its shields - crippling a nacelle and effectively disabling the ship's warp capabilities.  Low on power and hobbled the crew of the Enterprise must fend off alien attacks whilst trying to work out what these new and terrifying aliens are and what they want!

Meanwhile, McCoy suffers a head injury which seemingly causes him to suffer from amnesia, making him forget the last twenty five years of his life!  However, the true cause of his reversion to his twenty four year old self is not as simple as a bump on the head, and relates more to the terrifying new aliens than anyone (even he) realises.

That's it.  That's all I'm going to tell you story wise, because it'll be truly spoilt otherwise.  It's worth reading - do it.

Carter manages to tap into the rhythm of the characters - she doesn't miss a beat for example when Spock and McCoy are having a tiff you just know what is going to come next and she isn't afraid to show the effect of McCoy's absence on Kirk, or even Spock whose emotional response is keenly observed by his friend.  Dreams of the Raven presents a broken trinity in a way that simple death or belief of death doesn't manage, because McCoy is alive an well in front of them but is unreachable.  The palpable sense of loss from Kirk is heart breaking, especially as the McCoy in front of him hasn't matured enough to respect him as a Captain, let alone ever consider him close friend material.  I think Kirk suffers more here, isolated as he is from his confidante, friend and sounding board.  Carter implies something touching, that Kirk's strength is drawn from his two friends, when one is missing he is plagued with doubt.  Kirk of course isn't so dependant that he can't function under the circumstances, we know his will is greater than that, but we can see that his victories come with more of a struggle, and his confidence in his own decisions wavers, even with the acceptance of his first officer.

Spock's loss is tacit, not characterised by emotions like Kirk's roiling sea, but instead calm and still... too calm and still.  Kirk sees it, his understanding translating the slight hesitation and the unspoken question.  I was tempted to say that Spock is lonely without McCoy there, but that's not quite right since Kirk really is his anchor and I don't think he could ever be lonely with his t'hyla beside him, it's more... ripples in his calm sea.  A motionless sea reflects like glass but ripples reflect and distort and make things interesting.  That's the imagery that came into my head anyway.  I love extended metaphors.

McCoy hasn't lost a thing by his estimation, only gained a second chance to live his life without regret.  I've got to commend him for his quick acceptance that he has lost the memories of 25 years of his life, but then, adaptability is the power of youth, eh?  Some people have bad things to say about this novel because they don't like the characterisation of McCoy, that he's too different or unlikable, but that's the point isn't it?  It took 25 years from that point for McCoy to become the man he did, wouldn't it cheapen him to be the same man at 24 as he is at 49?  The other thing people complained about was that Carter used the 'amnesia' plot device and that it made the whole situation too 'cliched... have they watched TOS?!  Anyway, it transpires that the whole 'amnesia' thing wasn't really caused by the fall at all but his own subconscious trying to remind him of a patient he had seen as a young doctor who had encountered these aliens but had been considered insane.

Some reviewers have also said that Dreams of the Raven is mainly concerned with adding more backstory to McCoy, I'm not really sure that is true.  Carter dips her feet into his history just enough to show character growth which ultimately makes him essential to the Enterprise.  I guess I feel this story is more an analysis of how and why Kirk and the Enterprise succeeds where others have failed and gives credit where credit is due.

ANYWAY - although I love this book, I really don't want to write anymore about it because I'd end up spoiling it, and the suspense will be ruined if I say anymore.  So read it dammit and enjoy it!

5/5 - I'm a doctor not a xenobiologist!  

Star Trek Legacies - Captain to Captain

"Right on schedule," Kirk observed.  "I always heard that she was known for her punctuality."
"You heard correctly, Captain," Spock said.  "In my experience, she is admirably precise in all matters."

Ok so, there's kind of a funny story to go with reading this one.  Well, I go away to visit the family for Christmas and then manage to not take a single book with me to their place because my bag with my life in got left at our place.  I was not amused to say the least.   Anyway, after Christmas we went shopping, there happened to be a Waterstone's book store, I went straight to the Scifi section (you know the drill)... and would you look at that, somehow I ended up buying the 50th Anniversary 'Legacies' trilogy.  Considering I have 127 books on their way to me by mail, my partner was not amused... but The Special 50th Anniversary Trilogy hunny!

Before I launch into the review proper, I'm going to clue you up on The Special 50th Anniversary Trilogy (I just like putting it in bold, I get kicks out of strange things) is.  As you can probably guess (unless you are a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan) there are three books in this trilogy (not four)  and they are as follows:

Star Trek Legacies

Book 1 - Captain to Captain by Greg Cox

Book 2 - Best Defence by David Mack

Book 3 - Purgatory's Key by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

So, we've got a trilogy written by four different authors, not particularly unusual.  If Greg Cox sounds familiar, you may have read one of some of his many Star Trek novels, or you might have read my Child of Two Worlds review.  I've come across the names of the two other authors once or twice before but I don't think I've read anything by them.  I've got to admit, I'm a little disappointed that there are no female authors involved in this project, considering the number of female authors who have written Star Trek novels and how influential female fans have been to Star Trek generally.  Are there no active female authors in the Star Trek novel world at this point in time.  Sorry rambling again.  Anyway, Greg Cox writing the first novel can only be a good thing right?

The Legacies trilogy was initially released from June to August 2016 with the paperback releases running from July to September 2016, all ready for Star Trek's 50th anniversary in September.

For the cover art on all three books they have employed Alan Dingman and used the more 'photographic' or should I say 'photoshop' style for the covers.  I'd say the strongest cover of the three is 'Best Defence' while the weakest unfortunately is 'Captain to Captain'.  The three books are colour coded Captain to Captain is predominantly green, Best Defence is most definitely blue and, Purgatory's Key is... red.  Have you twigged yet?  The original colour for the command uniform was green, science is blue and red is operations / security; they have reflected the uniform colours in the colours of the books.

I have to admit, the cover didn't win me over immediately, although I was intrigued by Number One or 'Una' being on the front next to Kirk and Spock.  I was torn between getting the trilogy and a book with a prettier cover, but as you probably gathered, the trilogy won out in the end.  Probably because book two has a very pretty cover.  You'll notice on this one though, that Number One has got captain's braid on her sleeve, unsurprisingly Miss 'Number One in everything' got busy climbing the ranks in Starfleet.

Being the first book in a trilogy, Cox has a lot more play in how complex a story he can create.  Being a planned trilogy he doesn't have to worry about wrapping the story up in one episode, and certainly doesn't have to worry about tying up any lose ends or returning the universe back to the status quo by the time he types his last word.  This kind of freedom cuts both ways for Cox who has the opportunity to play with a character he really seems to love and get on with but consequently seems to spend a little too much time on her.

Captain to Captain (2016) revolves around a secret, a secret that only the captains of the Enterprise and their trusted first officers have knowledge of.  The secret is a key which has been concealed even from Starfleet and kept on the Starship Enterprise since the time of Captain Robert April (the 'first' Captain of the Enterprise) through to Captain James T Kirk (the 'third' Captain of the Enterprise).  The 'key' is a device that can open a door to another dimension from which a race of technologically advanced but hideously paranoid and genocidal 'slugs' hail.

The officer who first led the mission which ended with sending the 'slugs' back to their dimension and acquisition of this mysterious key?  None other than 'Number One' or 'Una', who is of course Majel Roddenberry's (nee Barrett) character in the original pilot.  In Captain to Captain, Number One is back now as 'Captain Una', on track to being promoted to Commodore Una, she has to act fast to undo mistakes of the past before she is stuck behind a desk and new territorial lines are drawn which may put the Libros system deep in Klingon territory.  Captain Una takes a well considered risk and steals the key from a secret compartment in Kirk's quarters and escapes from the Enterprise and into the Libros system, slingshotting herself around a sun to give herself the edge over a pursuing Enterprise.  At this point I expected some cooky timetravel escapade, but instead I was forced into a walk down memory lane which felt like it was never going to end.   Una's 'adventure' is actually her recollection of the first away mission she lead, which of course went hideously wrong.  For all intents and purposes it really shouldn't have gone wrong, Una is apparently an incredibly able and intelligent Illyrian, but... she's also remarkably dull.  I rather liked Cox's rendition of her in Child of Two Worlds where she is competent and no nonsense, but here she seems stricken with ISS and a strange psychosis where she keeps reminding herself (and us) that she's number one in everything, aside from critical thinking.  Perhaps I'm just suffering from 'Number One' over exposure, since about 80% of the book over concerns itself with her.  Kirk and Spock are on the cover just to reassure us that they will have a part to play eventually.  I have to admit, I don't find young Una a very compelling protagonist.  ANYWAY long story short, her away mission crew get transported into an alternate dimension by the horrible slug people, the secret item is the key for unlocking the stargate device that could bring them home.  Unfortunately, at the time she was unable to manipulate the machinery to bring them back (and she was explicitly told not to by the good slug person), but now, in a nice link to the episode 'Mirror Mirror' and her excellent memory she is confident that she can bring them back, if they are even alive.  After an incredibly protracted sojourn in the past, we return to the present to follow Una again and watch her cock up again until she finally meets up with a waiting Kirk & Spock who finally get some action.   

Predictably, although she can manipulate the machinery, the arrival of the Klingons gives her little time to locate her crew members to bring them back, so she goes into the desolate alternate universe to find them, hoping to bring them back to the right location in 30 days and have Kirk and Spock operate the machinery and bring them home.  Of course, the Klingons are now swarming the place and coming back to the planet seems almost impossible.

Kirk and Spock are then left to their own devices to escape the Klingons, which they do, but not before their ship is irreparably damaged and only get saved by the Enterprise in the nick of time.

Kirk and Spock seal the Key back into the new safe in the Enterprise, and finally let McCoy in on the secret, since not trusting your crew mates /  friends is what got everyone in this mess in the first place.

There's a plot twist right at the end, clearly marked with flashing neon signs.  It's incredibly contrived and irritating.

End of Book 1.

Number One is kind of a problematic character, in that she's this super confident, super able officer and she has apparently always been this way but suffers from the author's attempt to make her young and inexperienced - think what Vonda N McIntyre did to the crew in her abomination 'The First Adventure'.  It was quite surprising actually because Cox's treatment of Number One in Child of Two Worlds was really strong and a really nice expansion of the character.  Cox obviously has a love for the character of Number One and I can see his enthusiasm, but... I can't feel it.  It's unusual but, I didn't dislike the character but I felt a little confused over what she actually was.  Oh sure, I know she's an Illyrian, I know she's outrageously competent, I know she prefers trousers to skirts but I don't know why she has to keep confirming her competence.  I don't think she's arrogant, she just knows she's the best and it's true, but then why does she have to confirm her actions or her intentions or her abilities over and over again with internal dialogue like 'because I'm Number One'?  Is she actually nervous? Neurotic?

I agree that if you are going to use Number One for any length of time then you've got to do something to the character to bring her down to earth, but even with her slight neurosis and hideously stupid mistakes she remains unrelateable - which is a problem when 3/4 of the book concerns itself with her.  Although her idiosyncrasies and illogical actions were at times frustrating, she doesn't spoil the book, I just got the feeling that there was a better was to express her or perhaps a better way for the events to unfold.  Perhaps, for example, it isn't her leading the landing party and she has to fix other people's mistakes but it's too far down the pan for even her outstanding abilities.

I don't want to give too much of the idea that she's a bad character, you might have less of a problem with her than I do, and certainly it's not a bad story by any means. It's just a little weak at times, which I can only really attribute to the prolonged section in the middle with Una (formerly Number One)... and then the prolonged section in Enterprise's 'present' with Una.  I'm Una'd out! 

Pretty much the only interaction with the TOS crew is between Kirk and Spock, McCoy is pretty much written out Captain to Captain pretty early on and other characters are just bit parts.  Even so, characterisation is both good and bad in equal measure.  In the first part of the book, before the story jumps backwards to Number One's first away mission, nothing really jumps out at you as being inconsistent.  Again the focus is on Captain Una and not on the Enterprise crew, interaction is limited to Kirk and Spock exchanging furtive glances and shutting down McCoy's enquiries.  The final section of the book (post Una's departure) details Kirk and Spock's escape was fast paced but also had the most lapses in the characters of Kirk and Spock:

"I think I've had enough of you piloting, no offence"
Spock gave him a bemused look.  "If I had feelings they would be hurt."
"Somehow I doubt that."

Yeah, that face you're pulling?  That's my face too.  I'll make sure we're on the same page with an emoji - 😒 .  The less said about that stirling dialogue the better, yes?

Some reviews I've read for this novel have been glowing, others less so.  For me personally, it was OK, middling, worth reading but nothing special.  I'm still looking forward to the rest of the trilogy though because the story is interesting and I'm also looking forward to seeing what the other three writers are going to bring to the table.  First books in a trilogy are always pretty difficult for writers, especially when they are only writing the first volume, and while I don't agree with other reviewers that the instalment can stand alone, it's merits aren't completely dependant on a follow on story.

3/5 - Time to change pilots.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year!  FYI, I'm in a good, rested mood, I'm not just being mean!  EDIT: Also, I can't seem to spell... ahh well, all fixed!