Two nearly simultaneous explosions from the humanoids' handguns shook the glade. There was the solid sound of a projectile hitting one of the trees, followed by the whistling of another projectile ricocheting off some surface to warble off into the distance.
White smoke having the smell of rotten eggs, the characteristic odor of exploded black gunpowder, filled the air.
Oh dear, it has been a while! I'm afraid I was on a bodily enforced hiatus - it was either mild flu or a cold with delusions of grandeur! Either way it wiped me out for weeks (I'm only now feeling awake enough to write again!), and considering I'd pretty much finished The Abode of Life when I came down with it, I'm now having to stretch my Trek addled brain far further back than I'd like in order to review it!
The Abode of Life (Pocket, Titan) by Lee Correy was a welcome break from the overly dramatic silliness of Marshak & Culbreath and also allowed me to legitimately avoid reading another two that I'm not very excited about, to say the least. Ok, what I really want to say is that I needed a man's literary touch and Lee Corey managed to scratch that itch. I've often said that there is a definite difference between male and female writers and it couldn't be more exemplified than in the comparison between the emotional writing of Marshak and Culbreath and the succinct prose of Lee Correy. The Abode of Life is spartan and Correy is generally uninterested in emotional exposition or character development (he in fact seems to have difficulty expressing emotion at all -Vulcan?-, I'll talk about that later), instead his interest lies in writing an expanded episode, showing us a whole new culture and having Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise make first contact with a technologically advanced species so cut off from the rest of the galaxy that they believe they are the only sentient life and whose culture is built around that belief.
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| The cover is... ok? I kind of like Kirk and Spock being full length instead of floating heads though... |
I don't want to give the wrong impression, I really did like The Abode of Life, it was just what I needed and that's all right with me. As much as I like character driven stories full of exposition and relationship / character building, sometimes I just need to be reminded just why I like the series in the first place. Essentially, it's very easy to get bogged down with 'fanon' (which is wonderful) that you forget just why it was love at first sight. I didn't get annoyed, I didn't get emotional, I just got taken on a Trek adventure
The author is worth mentioning before I move on. Lee Corey is a pseudonym of G. Harry Stine who as well as an author is one of the founding figures of modern model rocketry. He has a physics background and worked at the Naval Ordnance Missile Test facility. The Abode of Life is his only Star Trek novel, however he wrote a number of novels including his 'Warbot' series. He has also published non fiction books on model rocketry and a number of space / space travel related books. His non-fiction writing style peeks through in The Abode of Life, economical with language, a general lack of emotional description but a really in depth creation of a world and a culture and the possible science behind it. Lee Correy writes plausibly, everything is believable from the science to the reactions of the characters.
The Enterprise is asked to scout a dangerous area of space full of spacial gravitational distortions. Naturally, in an encounter with one of these distortions the Enterprise gets thrown across space to a sector of the quadrant which has not been yet discovered / explored by any other known race. Badly crippled by the ordeal, the Enterprise limps under impulse engines to a lone planet circling a lone star, the readings of which defy even Spock's understanding of star behaviour. It soon becomes clear that the star and the planet were victims of the same phenomenon that the Enterprise experienced, albeit many years previously, explaining the odd behaviour of the star.
Due to the state of the Enterprise, Kirk makes the decision that he must make contact with the people on the surface of the planet. Scans indicate they are technologically advanced and use a transporter system though they have not developed space travel. Kirk finds himself in a first contact situation with a people who have no concept of any other life in the universe except for their own, and whose unique society could be irrevocably changed by contact with aliens... Of course, the situation becomes more urgent when it is revealed that the unstable sun is due to start a cyclical event which will cause it to throw out lethal amounts of radiation, enough to destroy a crippled starship and her crew. Kirk must decide whether to break the cycle and change a planet's society forever, or save the Enterprise from certain destruction, all the while playing the part of Federation ambassador and tactician.
It's pretty much a no-brainer, isn't it? I mean, even those of us who will defend Kirk to the ends of the Alpha quadrant know that there are certain things he won't allow:
1) Destruction of his woman the Enterprise (unless it involves Spock, see 3))
2) Loss of his best bro, McCoy
3) Loss of his space husband first officer, Spock.
So once the negotiations inevitably break down, Kirk has to take action. In doing so he changes Mercan forever, which of course means that the story doesn't stop there. The Abode of Life is unusual as it continues on well after the main event has occurred, Kirk has to take responsibility for his actions, and that means helping to mend the rifts between the various factions on the planet and try to bring the isolated planet into the Federation for protection and for strategic purposes.
Much of the action The Abode of Life comes from the conflict between three factions which can probably be described simply as conservatives, liberals and military. In this case the conservatives hold the power in the Mercan society being part of a 'church of science' (?) and they hold the knowledge of how to predict their sun's behaviour and have control of the bunkers which the people have to hide in to survive. The liberals represent 'new-science', challenging old views and trying to work out what the conservatives know in order to shift the balance of power. The military are pretty self explanatory, they work for the conservatives but only want to act for the good of Mercan.
Pretty standard fare isn't it? The meat of the story itself is not original, but the setting is. I think the real strength comes from the Correy's world building. His new characters are average, but the well thought out world with it's interesting martial society and mix of new technology (world wide transporter system) and old (black powder pistols) is really interesting. I actually liked the idea of this isolated, advanced society having this duelling system that uses old pistols to settle disputes. The 'mythology' of the planet was really interesting too, after all, there had to be a reason they didn't ever bother developing space travel and such.
One of the points I had to laugh at was the characterisations, they were accurate I think, but because Correy's weakness is description you get funny repetitions like 'Kirk snapped'. 'Kirk snapped' was used so many times that it kind of becomes a joke. Does Kirk do nothing else but 'snap' as his crew? It's like he's suffering a sugar low or something!!
It was nice having Kirk just being a captain and demonstrating how capable he is. You know showing you just why he's is the captain of a starship charged with not only the responsibility of the 400 or so lives on board, but as a soldier and as a negotiator and representative of the Federation - a diplomat able to initiate and preside over first contact situations. Correy really emphasises Kirk's sense of responsibility and his wisdom.
Correy used a wide selection of the main cast, including Rand, who gets to be part of the landing party. I'm actually rather fond of Janice Rand and when she is written into a story it tends to be rather satisfying for me.
The Abode of Life is really worth the read, it's just good, solid, Trek. What more do you want?
4/5 - Kirk snapped.
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