He awoke strapped down, metal biting into his wrists, ankles. Dispassionate alien probed him at him. He was face down. For a long moment he could see nothing. Then he managed to turn his head and saw Spock, strapped on another table beside him, conscious of everything being done to or prepared for either of them.
Kinky. I've totally read this in a gay erotic novel. That was lacking in story too.
In my time honoured tradition of reading books out of sequence, I turned to The Prometheus Design (#5 Pocket, #35 Titan) (1982) by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath to avoid reading the second part of the 50th Anniversary Trilogy (I'm struggling to be interested after the first volume...).
Last month I read and reviewed Triangle by Marshak and Culbreath, it failed to impress from a literary perspective, although it is interesting from the perspective of being incredibly slashy and written by those women who are arguably considered the mothers of all slash. It was incredibly dramatic, it often crossed the line in regards to homosexual subtext, and definitely crossed my line as far as hurt/comfort and Kirk abuse goes. I did expect much of the same from The Prometheus Design but I was pleasantly surprised, which makes me wonder what on earth they were the playing at with Triangle?
Before I go into The Prometheus Design proper, I have a few musings I hope you'll humour me with. Firstly, from most of the accounts I can readily find on Sondra Marshak she was a clever woman, and very driven in her... I don't know, obsession with certain aspects of Star Trek. Most noticeably her interest in developing Vulcan lore (I'm going to assume the Vulcan supremacy obsession is primarily Marshak's contribution) and of course the Kirk/Spock relationship. I can certainly see her cleverness in her work, there are good ideas certainly but they are not fully formed and often quite confused. Something I have found in both Triangle and The Prometheus Design is an inability to really focus and refine ideas or, in fact explain them fully. Of course, I'm not going to discount Culbreath's involvement, I don't know how they worked, and she is also demonstrably an intelligent woman but I can't shake the feeling that it's Marshak's touch that makes their combined work recognisable. I would like to read something solely from Culbreath just to test my feelings here.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, although I've found much in the way of reports of Marshak's brilliance, I don't really see it - at least not in the two novels I have read. The Prometheus Design is significantly better than Triangle but it is still very flawed. The ideas and themes are muddled, as if half understood sometimes simple aspects of the story deliberately obfuscated to project a false intellectualism. Certainly, I believe Marshak and Culbreath to have embraced a pseudo intellectualism, and in Marshak's case it appears to have been what impressed people within the early fandom. I would be different if I believed that what was written they themselves understood the implications of what they were asserting, but I really don't believe it to be the case.
Another aspect to Marshak and Culbreath's work is that they heavily reference their novels. For example they cite many episodes in The Prometheus Design that back up their assertions, however they also cite a number of previously written books / fictions including their own two previous novels published under a different publisher. This does strike me as a little odd, especially as what they are building on somewhat stretches characterisation of Kirk and especially Spock to extremes. This might be well and good for a one off novel, but to extend that into an extended continuity? I have problems with that. In later novels, there are often references to earlier authors, but only references to good ideas or events that were possible NOT the development of super sadist Spock and masochist Kirk.
So onto the review proper, yes?
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| The book might be rubbish, but don't they look dashing! |
Initially, The Prometheus Design is fairly incomprehensible. It has a prologue which introduces us to an alien perspective, but the scenes that they are commenting on come later in the book, so the prologue means very little to the first time reader (and why you'd want to read it again unless you were reviewing it is a mystery to me) and there are still sections which remain obscure even then! The aliens are scientists, obviously conducting some kind of test and Kirk, McCoy, Spock and an unknown Vulcan are the test subjects. There is talk of a double blind test which will make sense, eventually... although in my opinion it adds nothing to the story at all.
The Prometheus Design removes Kirk as the captain of the Enterprise and places Spock as captain. Kirk is allowed to stay on as first officer, all this under the order of a Vulcan who was a pioneer of space exploration, but has been missing for some ten years. Why is Kirk removed? Well, this Vulcan believes that he and his bridge crew may be compromised after they were all captured and experimented on by terrifying creatures, but, surprise surprise, Vulcans may be immune to the experiments/suggestions so Spock needs to be in charge.
A portion of the novel is the dedicated to Spock being, quite frankly, a monster. A MONSTER. A pointy eared cruel terror who appears to team up with the other Vulcan to undermine and degrade Kirk, not just from the perspective of his removal from command, but also in terms of his personality and species. We know Spock isn't a commander, he's a genius, yes, but he is not fit for prolonged periods of command especially not when it comes to working with a human crew. Marshak and Culbreath emphasise that this Spock is not the Spock from the series, he has been changed by gol (this book is set between the first and second films) and Kirk and Spock did not reignite their rapport in quite the same way yet. They have psychic connection however, which is stressed has weakened Kirk's own mental defenses- this point they use in their next book 'Triangle'. I mean, despite him being as evil as he looks (...apparently, Marshak and Culbreath just love to remind everyone that somehow Vulcans look like the devil himself - he even has horns this time!) he still comes running when Kirk is in trouble (Kirk of course does the same for him).
One thing I couldn't quite decide is whether he was actually in on the other Vulcan's plan or affected by the experiments of the aliens? I don't really know what would be worse. The other Vulcan 'Savaj' (which I read as 'Savage') is pretty much a self confessed xenophobe, why Spock would consider Savaj logical from this skewed view I simply don't know. Savaj's distrust of humanity negatively impacts the crew... oh right. I almost forgot.
VULCAN COMMAND MODE.
VULCAN COMMAND MODE.
One more time!
VULCAN COMMAND MODE.
It doesn't get any better with repetition, does it (or different fonts). It is where a Vulcan goes into a... state of mind which requires absolute obedience (there is a Japanese yaoi sex/dating game by that name by the way - translated into English, it's really terrible, just an FYI). I really can't believe that Vulcans would have such a doctrine, how would it be logical to not question a commander in anyway? To stop thinking and just obey? This is used to explain Spock's strange behaviour... I found it made him like a puppet on Savaj's strings.
Okok... so I know I'm bitching here, and picking at bits and pieces, but honestly my confused review only reflects the convoluted mess that is The Prometheus Design. In short it's about breaking patterns of behaviour. The super icky aliens you're initially introduced to as the 'experimenters' are redundant, as far as I can tell they and the double blind test serve no purpose what so ever aside from confuse matters. They have no part in 'breaking the pattern' they're just... cruel and being directed to do these horrible things by greater powers. The greater powers can see into the future and realise that their civilisation is heading to destruction, so they are experimenting on civilisations in our galaxy by a) speeding up cultural progression b) causing trauma and pain to certain individuals because... Marshak and Culbreath wanted to cause trauma to Spock and Kirk? I don't know, I've got nothing. It's nonsensical. Anyway, it becomes clear as mud that they want proof that people can break patterns and make a new future.
Naturally our intrepid trio Spock, Kirk and Savaj... oh wait. McCoy is there too for some reason, but isn't really used... Our intrepid foursome find the awesome fortress of the... oh wait I totally read this in Triangle... Um... OK! They get caught and the fire woman 'Flame' (I kid you not) screws Kirk... even though he's just a lab animal to her.
Right so... it's in this section we get exposition of this advanced species. We get some anti-vivisection rhetoric, and Kirk volunteers to be their eternal lab animal if they could just leave the galaxy alone thank you very much. Spock is annoyed and COMMANDS HIM not to sacrifice himself. What follows is two different occasions of Kirk 'breaking his pattern of command' and thus showing the super beings that doom can be averted and the future they see isn't the only possible future. Hooray, thank God that is over.
As a side note, the xenophobic Vulcan 'Savaj' decides that actually, Kirk is a bro and he's totally cool with humans now.
Right am I done yet? It's taken me a week to summon the desire to write this terrible review (this isn't even a review to be honest) of a terrible book.
Frankly, it's a convoluted mess. There are some good ideas there, buried in the mire of total horse poo. I think I said earlier it was better than Triangle.
I lied.
I've changed my mind.
It's getting a 1/5.
I mean, I won't say don't under any circumstances read it, it is interesting to me from a perspective of seeing a fandom develop and the prevalence actually of the slash fandom / authors, but keep your expectations low and don't try to understand it - it isn't worth the headache.
I am going to say there are some good... paragraphs. As well as some hilarious imagery like naked Kirk running over the top of the shoulders of confused aliens, freely swinging in the...
1/5 - VULCAN COMMAND MODE.
I'm sorry, past a point I couldn't take writing this review seriously anymore.
Forgive me?!
