Star Trek - Black Fire

But the doctor's main concern was on the severe condition of the captain; he hadn't yet assessed all of Kirk's injuries and McCoy entered surgery not knowing exactly what he would find.  At least hes alive - barely.

It took all of McCoy's professional detachment to suppress his despair when he full examined his patient and his friend.  There were just so many organs one could transplant, just so much one could patch and mend the human body.  Kirk's wounds pressed that limit.

Black Fire (#8 Pocket, #37 Titan) (1983) by Sonni Cooper starts with a bang, a big one.  I have to be honest, not many authors have the gall to pen an event that nearly kills one of the main characters within the first line of chapter one.  And when I say 'nearly kills' I mean only the fact Kirk is protected by virtue of being Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise, but he was as close to dead and out of the narrative as Cooper could make him.  Kirk is absent then for pretty much half the book and even when he does come back nobody bothers to tell him what is going on and he ends up having to feel his way through the narrative like a blind man without a cane.

Strike one.  Will Black Fire get three strikes? Will it hit a home run?  I don't know, but I do know I've never watched a baseball game in my life!

So, ok, I've jumped ahead a little bit, but as an ardent lover of all things Kirk I just had to get it off my chest.  I suppose I was surprised that the story took the route it did, after all I excitedly read the excellent introduction and the praises lauded onto Sonni Cooper and thought Yes!  This is going to be a gem!  Well, lets say don't expect ruby, expect garnant and you'll be fine.

So, as I said, Black Fire starts with a bang, which incapacitates Kirk for a lengthy time and seriously damages the Enterprise.  Spock (also injured) finds that the evidence points to a deliberate bombing with the intention of robbing Kirk of his life.  On submitting the evidence to the Federation, he finds them unwilling to listen to him or sanction an action into the investigation of the bombing.  Instead they seem to want to brush it all under the carpet, keeping it all hush hush.  Although I guess this is plausible, one of their advanced ships has essentially just been towed to a space dock for extensive repairs, crew members have died, the captain is critically injured... this isn't going to go away.  So... why?

Spock then takes it upon himself to investigate further, enlisting Scotty to aid him in stealing a ship and investigating co-ordinates he has worked out from various clues left by the Enterprise's bomber.  Naturally, this goes horribly wrong and Spock and Scott are captured by a barbaric race of small, suicidal, furry humanoids who want to take over the galaxy.  You'd think that would be the meat of it?  No... That's not the half of it.  Spock and Scott escape, get court martialled and punished.  Spock ends up making friends with a Romulan pirate  who he then escapes with, becomes a pirate himself, joins the Romulan Empire, acts as an intermediary between the Federation and the Empire, helps broker peace between the small furries and the Federation / Empire... 

Kirk in the meantime is busy recovering.  A lot of time passes in this novel, the Enterprise is refitted and absentee crew is replaced.  Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise once more to find... a new first officer, science officer and head of engineering.  Seriously, he knew nothing about that, nobody told him what happened to Spock and Scott, not even his bridge crew.  Seriously, poor Kirk.

Kirk ends up running into Spock again and again, once as the pirate 'Black Fire' and then as sub-commander Spock of the Romulan Empire.  Kirk's heart is just about breaking THE WHOLE TIME.  Insight from Spock?  Not much, there might be a feeling somewhere, but he seems more concerned about his new Romulan friend than Kirk.  Huh.. ok.

So, you'd be forgiven for wondering just HOW short of time travel, will this mess be cleaned up.  I hope you'll forgive me for spoiling but... BECAUSE HE WAS UNDERCOVER.  Well that's all right then!  That explains everything!... not.  What a hot mess!

From what I can understand, the Federation had literally nothing to gain from keeping it all hush hush, painting Spock as a traitor, have him galavant as a pirate and join (albeit temporarily) the Romulan Empire (he steals a ship and returns to the Enterprise near the end of the book, at which point all is revealed).  Spock admits that actually teaming up with his pirate friend wasn't actually part of the plan... then what was the plan?  Why did they not have Spock's back healed and risk paralysis of a valuable officer and undercover agent?  Why didn't they tell Kirk?!  Additionally, we get much of the narrative from essentially Spock's POV, but even so he never reacts / thinks as if he's aware he's undercover.  I feel like Cooper get's to the end of this big mess and then reaches around for the quickest, simplest way of explaining why Spock went solo for this story, became a pirate, and defected to the Romulan Empire etc.

Strike two!

In essence, don't think about this one too hard.  Black Fire is a romp, it's enjoyable, it's generally well written but it's not one that tries very hard to make sense - even in a Trek way.  Obviously this is a Spock centric story, and a part of me wants to say, the characterisation is good, but the other part of me disagrees because the narrative pushes him in a direction I don't think is natural to the character.  It's like Cooper wants something to happen, forces an action (which isn't normal to the character) but then characterises well when it isn't a plot point.  This kind of goes against some narrative theory I hold quite dear, so I can't quite forgive it for that.

I quite liked Scotty going against the grain and teaming up with Spock to steal a ship though, that was completely in character!

The main 'villains' of the story were quite, strange.  For one thing they had a society based on the fact they bred prolifically on a home planet that couldn't support them.  This resulted in a warlike, suicidal race with next to no respect for life.  They somehow got themselves off their planet and started taking over others... secretly it seems, as nobody else seems to have heard of them previously.  They integrate the technology of the species they subdue with their own, but they do not seem to develop scientifically at all otherwise.  They seemed... I don't know, very unlikely villains especially since they ended up being defeated relatively easily.  This made little sense to me because they were essentially besieged but that was only their home planet, they have scores of other planets as I understand it, why would besieging their dying home planet cause their empire to wave the white flag when socially they are suicidal and have little respect for life?

Strike three!  Black Fire is out! (That's what happens right?)

One of the little furry villains ends up falling in love with Spock *groan*, at least this puts Spock in an uncomfortable position a couple of times.  He deserves it after not being truthful with his space husband Kirk!

I honestly think the lack of exposition from Spock is where the book falls down a bit, it's like Cooper is trying so hard to keep the secret that Spock is undercover that it all comes across a bit disingenuous.  So example, if the narrator is constantly telling us what Spock is thinking and his reasoning, why aren't we made aware that it's all a deception anyway.  Concealing the truth stops us from actually learning the Federation's motivations.  It stops us actually learning what Spock actually thinks / feels about the events, instead we are essentially fed half truths.  Perhaps we should be grateful, it's more information than Kirk gets!

Not wanting to be too much of a stick in the mud, I have to confess that I did enjoy the pirate Spock and his adventures with the Romulan, that section alone was almost worth reading the book for.

Finally, should you read it?  Well... I'm going to give it a solid 3/5.  There's nothing particularly bad about it, but there also isn't anything that really makes me go 'wow' either.  It was just enjoyable, quite silly at times, a little bit melodramatic.  I find some of the TOS novels could plausibly fit in the continuity, Black Fire just doesn't.

3/5 - Ka-boom.

URGH - Just corrected some errors where text was out of place.  It's when I post on my tiny laptop with a touch pad - I'm sorry!