Star Trek - Mutiny On The Enterprise

"Of course life is precious.  That's why our mission to Ammdon is to prevent a war."  Kirk wasn't the least bit surprised when both Ross and Kesselmann scoffed at that.  This was the single most prevalent opinion  he'd ever encountered among his diverse crew.  "Have you considered that you did not hold this odd belief until after you spoke with the alien Lorelei?"

You would not believe how much I wanted to read Mutiny on the Enterprise by Robert E Vardeman (1983) (#12 Pocket, #45 Titan), and that was before I read The Klingon Gambit.  Unfortunately Mutiny on the Enterprise is the last Star Trek novel by Vardeman published by Pocket Books, which I personally feel is a great shame because he really is an excellent author.

Mutiny on the Enterprise takes place during the original five year mission - ignore older Kirk and Spock in strange uniforms on the front cover.  Seriously, why can't they illustrate the covers with the correct ages / uniforms of the characters?!  Was there some sort of Pocket Books edict that all covers must be wholly inaccurate?  That being said looks like the right bridge is in the background (red railing) and the alien Lorelei pictured on the front fits with her description.   Perhaps making Shatner and Nimoy (especially Nimoy) look 80s hero haggard and old was in vogue?

For once the tagline is accurate (shocking I know):

On a mission of peace, a bewitching woman sets the Enterprise at war - with itself!

I wondered, what would cause the crew of the Enterprise to mutiny?  The crew of the Enterprise doesn't mutiny not with James T Kirk as captain or without some serious alien intervention!  Well, it is the latter, serious alien intervention, the funny thing is, it wasn't until I looked up my review of The Klingon Gambit that I realised that Vardeman definitely has favourite story elements!

• Alien psychic intervention
• Mutiny / Crew disobedience
• James T Kirk & Spock remaining mostly immune
• McCoy definitely not being immune
• Threat of an established villain mixed in with some new aliens

All the above appear in both of his novels, I often notice that some authors revisit a particular story / characters / set of themes in an effort to, I guess, produce the perfect story.  It's like they're hammering away at this idea in their head that means a lot but can't ever be happy with it.  An author who wrote one of my favourite trilogies as her debut does this, and although there are problems with her first iteration, I think it's the best.  Subsequent iterations never quite capture the magic of her first attempt.  It would be interesting to read his other sci-fi works and see if he revisits these again under a different guise!

I kind of get this feeling with Mutiny on the Enterprise however, although Vardeman revisits the same story elements the story itself has a different overall message / theme.  In this way, it is more in keeping with the moralistic bent to the episodes than say the previous novel in the series Yesterday's Son.  

Mutiny on the Enterprise starts in a rather cliched fashion, the Enterprise in on it's way to a Starbase for some much needed repair work and some R&R for the crew, however a situation has arisen and diplomats will need to be transported to a distant system in order to avoid a war between two hostile planets.  Why is this so important?  The Romulans are trying to get a foothold in that part of space and are looking to capitalise on the encroaching war to achieve this.

Unfortunately for the Enterprise, it really is in need of repairs and can only make a weak warp two, sometimes three, for short periods of time.  Before they get to their destination they pick up a distress call, which is when the milk run turns sour.  They pick up a survivor from a very broken ship, she tells Kirk she is a speaker of the 'Hyla' a yet uncontacted race by the Federation, and her name is Lorelei.  Kirk notices that although she is not pretty she is attractive, he feels she has some sort of effect on him.  They continue on their way but Lorelei comes to Kirk, concerned.  The Hyla are total pacifists who (it is revealed) will not stand by and let another species go about its own business.  Basically they would ignore an idea like the prime directive in a lesser species if it would stop fighting, they would not allow a species to self determine because only their doctrine of pacifism should exist.

You can probably see where this is going to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Lorelei soon gets to work on subverting the crew to her way of thinking, using her own indoctrination techniques to control the crew and undermining Kirk's authority.  Of course, she is never violent but her way of thinking even to the most forgiving of readers is destructive.  In a bid to get his crew under control (only Spock seems unaffected) Kirk sets up almost a speaking competition between the Tellarite diplomat and Lorelei.  Unfortunately, as good as the Tellarite is, he does not have the strange powers Lorelei has, and Kirk's plan backfires as the Hyla woman cements her control over the crew.

How they should look...

The Enterprise is damaged, most probably sabotaged, and is left without warp power.  Left without warp they limp towards a planet which appears to have advanced humanoid life and crucially, a source for the shielding required to repair the warp engines. Spock, Mccoy and a security detachment beam down in order to negotiate with the inhabitants, however, this all goes sour as initiating contact caused an extreme reaction and they are imprisoned in a living prison.  The diplomats disobey Kirk and beam down, they also find themselves captured and one of their number is killed by the planet itself.  Finally, Kirk finds himself with a need to use the ship's phasers to fire on the planet in order to break his crew and the diplomats out of their prison, however Lorelei's pacifistic control of the ship is absolute and she exiles Kirk from Enterprise and beams him down onto the hostile planet.

While looking for the landing party, Kirk observes that even the buildings are alive and appear to grow and, it seemed that as long as he didn't disturb anything he could wander unimpeded by the planet.

Kirk manages to save Spock, McCoy, the security detachment -1, and the diplomats -1.  They notice that there is an Enterprise shuttle going back and forth from the planet to orbit, they surmise that Lorelei has coaxed the planet into giving them some of the much needed shielding.  They manage to hijack the shuttle and escape.  McCoy gives everyone waxy earplugs in order to preserve them from Lorelei's effects.  Unfortunately, all the diplomats are now well and truly dead.

The final parts of the novel play out as you might expect.  I won't spoil the end, which frankly was a little bit of genius, but it was as satisfying as it was a bad idea (very).

Mutiny on the Enterprise has some interesting points.  There's some talk on what total pacifism means - what does it look like when taken to extremes?  Well, like any extreme ideology it appears to have no room for reason and it breaks it's own ideological ideals in order to maintain it's status quo.  For example, Lorelei would strand Kirk and McCoy, probably Spock too on the hostile planet in order to avoid 'disruptive influence' despite the fact it would ultimately directly lead to their death by the planet organism.  Her ideology allows her to indirectly kill in order to ensure and propagate her agenda.  She also denounces self defense, even when her thralls are being eaten alive the ideology dictates they can't use violence to defend themselves.  As such, this line of thinking extends to the Federation, she does not believe that they should have weapons for defense, despite knowing they have to defend themselves against foes like the Klingons and Romulans.

Probably my most hated character
of all time....

She's a hypocrite.  In order to stop Kirk she uses force and violence.  In order to keep control she would indirectly kill.  She espouses an ideal of total pacifism where you can't even defend yourself.  Absurd.  She reminds me of another character dedicated to total pacifism which drove me utterly bonkers - Relena Peacecraft from the anime Gundam Wing (1995).  The thing is with this character archetype, they still need other agents to do their dirty work and generally they don't acknowledge that.  People are also expendable as long as it furthers the pacifistic ideal, even if it could mean the preservation of life.

They also tend to be incredibly naive and narrow minded, like most extreme ideologies of this nature, everything is black and white, never grey.  In the case of Lorelei, she is privileged in that she can enforce her ideals by brainwashing and eradicating those proven to be uncontrollable.  In Relena's case she was privileged by birth, she had money and prestige and the sheltered environment needed to nurture her naivete.  The other children who pilot the war machines from the space colonies had no such privilege and had to develop inline with their abilities and experiences.

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent then!  But Gundam Wing is one of my sci-fi favs and my first corrupting fandom influence!

I actually really liked the idea of the planetoid organism.  I didn't expect that, but then perhaps if I'd thought about The Klingon Gambit perhaps I should have since Vardeman uses the idea of interconnected organisms on a planet in that one too!  Moving trees that attack... all the creatures being able to feel each other's pain etc.  Of course in this case it's slightly different as everything on the planet is one organism and even the humanoid creatures that live in the growing houses are as cells are in our bodies.  The unknown creatures such as the Enterprise crew are treated as bacteria or viruses, quarantined or broken down as our cells would to invaders.  The planet was able to be at least partially put to sleep by Dr McCoy using an anaesthetic (local) but it could also be wooed by Lorelei's words.  I have to admit that was a little odd, since it was stated that there was no sound made by the beings on the planet and that nothing had ears... so how did she get what she wanted?  Perhaps I should let that one slide.

Characterisation is at times very strange, but that is easily explained by the brainwashing effect of Lorelei's honeyed words!  I really enjoy Kirk centric novels (as you might have gathered) and I think Vardeman got his characterisation down pat.  Spock's was also strong, although in one of his more aloof states although there was plenty of banter between him and McCoy.  McCoy was also wonderfully... McCoy about the whole drama, plenty of emotion, plenty of snide comments.  Keep 'em rolling!

A Tellarite from 'Journey to Babel'.

I haven't really touched on the diplomats yet, they were actually an interesting bunch and I kind of expected more to be made of them, I was quite sad when they all died!  We were meant to dislike them to a certain extent when compared with the gentle Lorelei but I couldn't help but think that they could have been so much more.  The Tellarite diplomat got some good exposition, but the sentient plant was a really interesting character that didn't get developed and met a grisly end.  The death of the immaculately clean and fashionable human diplomat was a disappointment, we learned he was actually a good man and he got killed by the planet.  So unremarkable was his death I actually read the section twice trying to identify when he died... poor fellow.

The last section of the book has Kirk playing diplomat.  Lorelei's prediction of failure and the Enterprise being a catalyst for war was a self fulfilling prophesy.  I couldn't help getting frustrated!  Well of course they've failed!  They were delayed by Lorelei, their diplomats are dead, their ship is currently held together with duct tape and a prayer, what was going to be the outcome?  I should think that had they been able to fulfill their mission of peace unhindered they would have succeeded.

I guess we'll never know.

Again, this is a really strong entry into the series.  Not quite 5/5 but a respectable 4/5 on my highly subjective scale.  I did have a look at some reviews which bemoaned it as not being a good follow on from Crispin's Yesterday's Son, but I think it's very much it's equal.  Different scope, different style but just as enjoyable.  Mutiny on the Enterprise builds on Vardeman's ideas in The Klingon Gambit and is definitely worth a read.

4/5 - No R&R for you!

Star Trek - Yesterday's Son

Their eyes were on a level as Zar said quietly,  

"Spock... First Officer of the Enterprise... my father."  A flat statement, hanging in the stillness.   

Spock drew a long breath.  "Yes."

Something I can definitely say about Yesterday's Son by A C Crispin  (1983) (#11 Pocket, #8 Titan) is that is is lovingly written.  There's no one particular aspect which makes me feel this way, but it just feels like a lot of care and thought went into the book.  And the content is... incredibly sweet.

And for once, I'm not going to complain about something being so sweet it's given me tooth ache.

It'll give you tooth ache too, I guarantee it, in the last quarter of the book I thought I was going to melt into a sugary pink puddle.

Enough with the metaphors? Ok.  But really though, I feel all warm and fuzzy!  My sweet level is dangerously high!

Yesterday's Son was a real surprise to me actually.  I have to admit, I didn't expect the quality that the book offered me, simple as that.  And take it from me, you do want to read this one, so if you don't want spoilers stop reading here and come back later.  After all, this was the first Star Trek novel to get onto the bestseller lists.

Ok.  Still with me?  You sure? Ok.  

***SPOILERS from here on!***

Ignore Spock's age on the cover, this
book takes play near the end of the
five year mission!  Spock is young!

The premise is that the union between Spock and Zarabeth in the episode All Our Yesterdays resulted in a son whom Zarabeth calls Zar.  Spock learns about this via pictures of cave paintings from the now non-existent Sarpeidon.  One of the images is of a young man with Vulcan characteristics, Spock immediately understands the implications and decides that he cannot allow his child to grow up on the freezing  planet, and formulates a plan to get him back.

Of course, his solitary plan shortly becomes a plan for two and then at the last minute three as Kirk and McCoy refuse to let him go alone.  Using the Guardian of Forever the trio return to Sarpeidon five thousand years in the past but instead of finding a child, they find an adult of 24 years.  Spock is understandably shocked at finding that the child he expected is in fact an adult and reacts reticently and withdraws even further from his own emotions.  His cold attitude is in contrast of what Zarabeth told Zar, which was of someone warm and loving, gentle.  This difference in perception and reaction is the basis of much of the misunderstanding between Spock & Zar throughout Yesterday's Son.  It's also the vehicle for some character development for the trinity too!

Zar is intelligent, and well liked although very much a stranger in a strange land aboard the Enterprise.  His relationship between himself and his father, Spock, is disastrous.  Spock is acting the Vulcan's Vulcan, while Zar who is naturally more emotional, possessing empathic powers and can't make sense of his father's cold, often confusing emotional state.

Zar forms easy relationships with Kirk and McCoy, who between them give their own guidance as almost surrogate fathers.  McCoy gives Zar emotional support, while Kirk gives him a stable and open relationship.

The Enterprise receives a distress call from The Lexington, Kirk orders their return to the planet of the Guardian.  The Romulans are suspicious of the starship patrols and attack the planet.  While the Lexington and the Enterprise battle the Romulans, Romulan vessels slip through to the planet's surface.  Kirk sends down a landing party with drastic consequences.  The Romulans capture and torture the Federation archaeologists studying the Guardian as well as killing the entire landing party.  It transpires that Zar felt their deaths due to his empathic abilities.

Zar and Spock end up sent on a mission to try to set up a shield around the Guardian, using Spock's technical know how and Zar's ability to sense where people are without seeing them.  During their time together they bond and the barriers between them break down as they come to an understanding.  Unfortunately they are unsuccessful, a concerned Kirk beams down with a landing party to try to find them and as he gives up and orders everyone to be beamed out, he notices Spock and Zar coming towards him.  He moves of range and is the only one left on the planet to help Spock and Zar.

Spock and Kirk decide they have to try again to stop the Romulans, but not before Spock incapacitates Zar with a Vulcan nerve pinch.  Kirk and Spock make an attempt to infiltrate the Romulan camp again, but are captured because Kirk is not dressed for stealth being in his command gold.  On their capture they are taunted by the Romulan commander, Tal, and Kirk is beaten up in front of Spock.  Tal promises to come back with a new torture device (what are they, Klingons?!).  The Enterprise crew mount a rescue operation with the now conscious Zar.  As expected, Spock and Kirk are rescued and Zar uses the Guardian to go back to the Sarpeidon of the past, this time in a warmer part, in order to start a period of enlightenment.  Yes, you guessed it, it's a bootstrap paradox.  The end of Yesterday's Son plays out as expected, neatly closing with a little bit of closure and a return to the status quo.

It's been a while since I did a big summary like that huh?  Well, I honestly really enjoyed it.

Spock & Zarabeth - All Our Yesterdays

The overall story just... works.  It pulls together nicely, and I seriously expected it to be cringe worthy as many fanfictions meet the unknown child of X main character usually are.  Of course, it's seriously helped by the fact that the union did happen in the series.  I often think though, how virile these characters must be to copulate once and then have an illegitimate child.  Spock isn't even with Zarabeth very long!  What is it, like a day?  Maybe Sarpeidons are really fertile (lets say nothing about Vulcans not breeding with other species very well because of their copper based blood)?

Anyway, I'm kind of glad that Zarabeth had company in the form of a child (at least in this novel), her fate was a very cruel one.  Mind you, she could have been a mad axe murderer as far as we know.

I was actually really surprised that they found an isolated but surprisingly cultured young man.  I suppose in my head I expected him to be some kind of savage, but that makes no sense because Zarabeth was (seemingly not an axe murderer) normal, literate, intelligent.  Perhaps I'm just anticipating the worst at this point!

Zar was beautifully written, Crispin managed to avoid many 'Mary Sue' pitfalls while maintaining a likeable, intelligent character.  That being said the empathic abilities were a little under utilised or perhaps, strangely utilised.  The portion where he felt the deaths of the landing party, while interesting, served little purpose in even moving the plot along since it didn't even really demonstrate the ability that is used when essentially scouting the Romulan camp.  The more important feature is his ability to project his emotions, the ground work for that particular ability was laid early.

Zar being particularly likeable of course makes it even more frustrating that Spock seems unable to bond with him, or at least, accept him for who he is.  In many ways Zar is not unlike Kirk, a noticeable comparison which isn't accidental, which makes Spock's reticence to treat Zar fairly (from our perspective) even more perplexing.  There's a small plot point slipped in which stems from a misunderstanding of a Vulcan word which could explain it.  It suggests that Spock is feeling intense shame and that Vulcan society would not shame the illegitimate child, but Spock himself.  I wonder if Spock's reaction would have been different when faced with a young child and not a young adult.

Which leads me onto this point, ignore the age of Spock on the front cover.  This book takes place nearing the end of the five year mission.  At several points Spock says that having Zar as a son would be a physical impossibility.  Seeing as his first pon farr happens in the first year of the five year mission (when Spock was 35), having a 24 year old son would be impossible!  This is a point of contention, since Spock refuses to acknowledge Zar as his son to others, perhaps because of his shame, but his given explanation appears to be that it would be impossible to explain when the workings of the Guardian are kept secret.  Zar of course is understandably hurt by Spock's refusal to publicly acknowledge him.

Generally characterisation is excellent.  I particularly enjoyed McCoy and Kirk's sections.  McCoy was just, top notch classic McCoy, I could SEE McCoy with such clarity when Crispin described him, facial expressions, actions, the lot.  His dialogue and descriptions are spot on, like as follows:

"Jim's all right - well, depends on your definition.  Shock, exhaustion, three broken ribs... he should be in sickbay.  But if I know him, he'll want to -" The Vulcan could hear several shots from the hypo hiss, then McCoy's grumble again, "... the worst patient in Star Fleet, won't rest, has to do it himself, you watch-"

By this time Spock could see, watched as the doctor, never ceasing his monologue, deftly bound Kirk's rib cage in an elastic bandage that automatically adjusted for maximum support.  By the time McCoy had finished, Kirk was conscious.  

This picture just seemed fitting!

What I really liked and had sorely missed was McCoy's presence as one of the trinity.  In the ten previous books he was sorely underrepresented, but here he's given I think pretty much the same page time as everyone else.  He interacts with Kirk and Spock, the banter is there, he is recognised as an important character.  This is probably mostly due to this book not having any particular agenda, or definitive 'kink'.

Kirk's characterisation is simply 'Jim Kirk'.  While there isn't a particular memorable quote, there are memorable scenes which stick out and just made me say to myself, yes, that's Kirk.  From pulling rank and blackmail to get himself in on Spock's trip to the past, to his stubborn and self sacrificing actions.  His wisdom, as facet of his personality often forgotten by writers is also used well, particularly when dealing with Zar and later, the Romulan threat.

Possibly the most satisfying part of the book concerning Kirk is one in which his involvement is quite passive.  For those of us who are slash fans, it is squee inducing vindication.  For those of us who are not slash inclined then it simply demonstrates the depth of the platonic love between Kirk and Spock, especially from Spock's side.  Basically, Zar senses that Kirk occupies a huge part of Spock's mind, that essentially his feelings are greater than the feelings for him.  Refreshingly, Zar's reaction to this is quite fair, he doesn't for example lash out at Kirk for this, but he is confused.  However, he does finally realise after been knocked unconscious by Spock, that he was left in safety while Spock went with Kirk into danger.  He realises that, Spock cared for him enough as a son that he wanted to keep him safe from harm, and that this is different from the strong emotion shown towards Kirk.  Later they share a mind meld where all is explained.  This is especially heart wrenching when we realise that in TNG, Sarek will confirm he had never mind melded with Spock, so Spock never knew how proud he was.  In that context, this moment is even more powerful.

Before Zar goes back through the Guardian, he turns to Kirk, concerned at the possibility of him being in trouble for breaking General Order Nine.  Kirk reassures him it's going to be alright and Zar replies -

The laughter in the grey eyes died, as he leaned close and whispered, "Take care of him, please." 

Kirk nodded.

He knows.  He knows and understands, and it's ok.

Oh golly.  It isn't just that bit either.  Remember that Spock and Kirk are captured prior to this? Well...  Even the Romulans tacitly acknowledge the depth of bond between Spock and Kirk, to the point of harming Kirk in order to try and get Spock to crack and give them information about the Federation's activities on the Guardian's planet.

Hohum, we're going in that direction are we?

I read the section when Spock and Kirk were captured and subsequently rescued to my partner.  He came to the same conclusion I did concerning the K/S relationship there.  A quick example -

The Vulcan wished he'd been able to leave Jim behind, too.  He had no personal fear of death - it was simply a lack of biological existence, with either something or nothing following - but the thought of Kirk's death was a pain that mind control could not block.

Do you think that Spock would have revealed the mystery of the Guardian in order to save Kirk's life?  We know from the series the depth of feeling he has for Kirk, his reaction even as early as in Amok Time is quite telling, while in other episodes he becomes quite illogical (much to McCoy's amusement) when he doesn't know if Kirk is safe or not.  I think it would be a pretty tough call.  Luckily for him, Spock and Kirk are rescued before he is put to the test... but not before Kirk almost kills himself.  I was in two minds about this, was he trying to cause a distraction, or did he realise that it was too risky to allow himself to be used as a bargaining chip / threat against Spock?

... Anyway, I think I've probably gone on about this book for too long.  Safe to say I loved it.

TLDR Yesterday's Son is probably definitely one of the best I've read.

5/5 - Read it, like, yesterday.

I didn't even write anything about A C Crispin herself!!  She's a really interesting character too!  Maybe next time!

Pocket Book Star Trek Novels #1 - #10 Review

With finishing #7 Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan I finally complete my goal of reading the first 10 books in the Pocket Book Star Trek novel series (naturally out of sequence).  Every 10 I intend to do a little summary / analysis of the books in that number range, I suspect that there will be some interesting trends!  It's not really an essay yet, just some thoughts.

Warning: This is probably quite dry and boring!

The first 10 books are as follows:

#1 Star Trek The Motion Picture - A novel by Gene Roddenberry - December 1979 - Year : 2273

#2 The Entropy Effect - Vonda N McIntyre - June 1981 - Year - 2270 (after TOS)

#3 The Klingon Gambit - Robert E Vardeman - October 1981 - 2268 (between 'By Any Other Name' and 'Return to Tomorrow')

#4 The Covenant of the Crown - Howard Weinstein - December 1981 - 2276 (between films 1 & 2)

#5 The Prometheus Design - Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath - March 1982 - 2274 (between films 1 & 2)

#6 The Abode of Life - Lee Correy - May 1982 - 2270 (after TOS)

#7 Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan - Vonda N McIntyre - July 1982 - 2285

#8 Black Fire - Sonni Cooper - January 1983 - 2270 (after TOS)

#9 Triangle - Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath - March 1983 - 2274 (between films 1 & 2)

#10 Web of the Romulans - M S Murdock - June 1983 - 2267 (between 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' and 'Space Seed')

There are couple of observations we can make right off the bat:

• The most special aspect of this start to the Pocket Books series is that it starts with a novel attributed to Roddenberry himself.  These by the way are not the first published Star Trek books (I wrote about that here) but it is Roddenberry's first and only Star Trek novel.
• There are two film novelisations.
• Six out of the ten books are written by female authors (3/5)
• Vonda N McIntyre, and writing partners Marshak and Culbreath write two novels each (2/5).
• Only two novels take place within the TOS timeline.

This is the only group of 10 books in which there are two film novelisations.  Vonda N McIntyre will not write another original Star Trek story until Enterprise - The First Adventure.  She will however pen another two film novelisations.

Publishing & Authors Notes

Looking at the publication dates is quite surprising.  There is quite a gap between the publication of the TMP novel - December 1979 - and the publication of The Entropy Effect - June 1981 - a gap of eighteen months.  Personally, I would want to capitalise on the release and popularity of the TMP novel and schedule the next novel within the next three months, but obviously this doesn't happen and they wait a year and a half for their next release.  After the release of The Entropy Effect they then release 3 a year at irregular intervals.  Again, why not keep it regular?  That way you can have your audience expecting the next book - perhaps publishing worked differently in the 70s... Do you think if I wrote a letter to them they would be able to shed light on the subject!?

Although only two of the novels take place within the TOS timeline, only three of the eight non film novels take place between the two films.  Three of the books take place 'after TOS'.

Robert E Vardeman, Howard Weinstein, and Lee Correy were all at this point previously published sci-fi / technical authors.  Weinstein wrote an episode of Star Trek The Animated Series, and remains the youngest writer to pen a Star Trek episode.

Marshak and Culbreath, McIntyre, and Sonni Cooper were well known in Star Trek fanzine circles.  Marshak and Culbreath had already penned two Star Trek novels under a different publisher, Triangle and The Prometheus Design are continuation of that story, which I think is another really strange decision.  Sidetracking a bit, but Marshak & Culbreath reference events in their previous novels under the other publisher along with continually referencing events from the series in foot notes.  The absolutely stinks of feeling they have to justify themselves to a wider fan community.  I think it's a strange decision to allow referencing to part of the series under another publisher.  Marshak was also involved with the production / writing of Star Trek Lives.

Considering the perceived sexism in Star Trek / Sci-fi / Comic fandoms / fan communities, I really did find it refreshing and positive that over half of the novels published in the first ten Pocket Book Star Trek series were published by women.  I am however disappointed by the standard of writing, which in my opinion (which is of course subjective) is well below that of their male counterparts.  Sure, the men who are published here were already establishing themselves as authors, but, Marshak and Culbreath were also published previously, as was, I believe Sonni Cooper (although I may have misunderstood the forward).  I think that M S Murdock is the only author here not to have been previously published.

I know that perhaps I'm a little harsh on some of these novels, and I rip them to shreds if I am feeling inclined, but I feel the excuse of 'but they weren't using professional novelists like they are today' a poor reason for so-so quality in published books.  Perhaps it's more the editors that are to blame for the problems with the novels, but even so it's not like the publishing schedule in the mid 90s where they were publishing every month or two - and that is cited as being a period of poor quality.  Three books a year isn't really a fast turn over.

I also wonder if certain prejudices against women writers within Star Trek could at least have come from impatience or disappointment with books like Triangle and The Prometheus Design.  It's a shame since women were such a massive force behind the fandom.  Currently, Star Trek publications are dominated by male writers.  The last Star Trek TOS book written by a woman was in 2010.  For the last seven years the same male writers have dominated the Star Trek TOS novel scene.  I really don't believe that women are not submitting manuscripts!

Story / Theme Trends

Actually, this was tougher than I thought it was going to be.

Usually I'm pretty good at spotting trends and such and I expected there to be perhaps a dominant theme within fan writing (certainly I have noticed it in later novels) but there doesn't seem to be a particular trend.

Ignoring the two film adaptations:

• 1 Time travel story (TEE)
• 2 Kirk-centric stories (TKG, TAOL)
• 1 McCoy-centric story (TCOTC)
• 2 Spock-centric stories (TEE, BF)
• 2 stories in which Kirk is removed from the narrative by death . injury (TEE, BF)
• 3 stories with obvious slash (TEE, TPD, T)
• 2 stories with mild slash subtext (BF, WOTR)
• 1 story tries to expand on Vulcans (TPD)
• 2 stories featuring Romulans as a main faction (BF, WOTR)
• 3 stories featuring Klingons as a main faction (TKG, TCOTC, BF)
• 7 stories feature new species (TEE, TKG, TCOTC, TPD, TAOL, BF, T, WOTR)
• 4 stories which rely on out of character behaviour by one or more characters (TEE, TPD, BF, T)
• 2/3 stories written by men have Kirk as the 'main character' (TKG, TAOL), 1/3 have McCoy (TCOTC).
• The female writers tend to prefer Spock or pairing him off with Kirk (skewed by Marsh and Culbreath).  McCoy does not seem to be a favourite character amongst this group.

Themes in the eight non film novels seem to be quite inward looking, in contrast to the original TV series which often dealt with social issues.  This set of novels seems to be more concerned with adventure rather than exploring social problems, which is quite strange considering some of the most loved episodes were ones which highlighted current problems.

Themes could be considered as:

• #2 TEE : None. Time travel story, no analogue.
• #3 TKG : Life is diverse.  Always thinking the worst of your enemy causes problems.
• #4 TCOTC : Duty over self.
• #5 TPD : None.  ((Hurt/Comfort fiction))
• #6 TAOL : Church and State / Traditionalists vs. Progression / Conservative vs. Liberal
• #8 BF : Change is possible.  Trust & Loyalty.
• #9 T : None. ((Hurt / Comfort fiction))
• #10 WOTR : Patience is a virtue.  Desperate times, desperate measures.

That's probably the best I can come up with.  Instead of dealing with 'big' issues like racism etc.  the authors have chosen to deal with smaller subjects which deal with internal, personal problems.  The exception being The Abode of Life which deals with the always contentious problems of church and state and conservative vs liberal ideals.

That's all the thoughts I have on this for now!  If this interests you, let me know what you think!  Perhaps there's something I'm not seeing.  :)

Star Trek - The Wrath of Khan - Novelisation

"Jim," he said, "I have been, and will be, your friend.  I am grateful for that.  Live long, and prosper...."

His long fingers clenched into seared claws; the agony of the assault of radiation overcame him.  He fell.

"Spock!" Jim cried.  He pounded the glass with his fists.  "Oh, God no...!"

McCoy tried to make him leave.  Jim snarled and thrust him violently away.  He hunched against the window, his mind crying denial and disbelief.

I find it singularly incredible that an author could be given a gift - a gift - of an adaptation to write, and still manage to faff it up with her own bias and preferences.

It's actually a remarkable skill, to cock up writing one of the most powerful scenes in cinema.

Good ol' Vonda has that skill though.  Not only can she manage to make Spock's iconic death scene a spectacle of mediocrity she also manages to, once again make the mind numbing decision to give more thought and reflection to an 'original character' of sorts, and skip merrily past any in depth consideration of you know, an insignificant character like Admiral James T Kirk.

I swear, Star Trek - The Wrath of Khan by Vonda McIntyre could be renamed Star Trek - Biography of Lt. Saavik because that's what it is.

If you've followed my blog before, you'll know I have a particular antipathy towards a particular author (no prizes for guessing it's Vonda McIntyre), and it's not without good reason!  I swear it!

Here read my other reviews, I'll wait.

#2 Star Trek - The Entropy Effect

 Enterprise - The First Adventure

Put it this way, I knew what to expect and she didn't surprise me one iota.  I mean, if there's information you didn't need or want to know, Vonda will provide.  If there's a female sub character / original character she can give more pages than necessary, she'll do it.  If she can somehow give more page time to Sulu, he'll get it and, frankly, she hates Scotty.  She adores Spock though, so I guess the depressingly badly written death scene might have been a little unexpected... but then again, shorter death scene means more time to lavish on Lt. Saavik.

Well at least after this book I only have, what, three more Vonda-cides to go?

I guess I better start at the beginning?

I don't know what your feelings are on books and film adaptations and where you draw the line between canon and not, but I think they need to be taken on a case by case basis.  For example, the previous film novelisation I would call canon, it was written by Gene Roddenberry after all and I feel he added significant insight with the novelisation, the novelisation actually makes the film make sense, fills in the gaps;  I reviewed it here.

This adaptation... I'd say should be in the category of don't touch it even with a stick, there's so much utter rubbish inserted, so many liberties taken I just can't accept it.  I mean, I know I don't like Vonda's writing style in the first place and have very little patience for her generally, but come on!  If you're going to write a film novelisation at least leave your bias at the door!

Lots of people have positively reviewed this ST:TWOK novelisation and said that it 'explains it all' and that they 'didn't enjoy TWOK because they didn't understand it and this fills in all the gaps'... no, it doesn't it makes up page count with utter trash filler that, if you've read a couple of McIntyre's ST novels you know it is just self indulgence on her part.

What kind of trash filler you ask?

I don't need to know that two of the scientists on Carol and David Marcus' team are jokers with a thing for Lewis Carol.  I don't need a whole poem by Lewis Carol reproduced for me to read.  I don't need to know that these two genius scientists make games in their spare time and leave that as data for Khan and co to pick up instead of the genesis project information.  Why did you have me read pages of utter rubbish about nothing characters that are shortly going to die?

Is Scotty really a prissy, thin skinned uncle?  Do we really need to know that his nephew has a crush on Saavik and has maths lessons with her?  Do we really need that painfully written scene with Spock trying to explain a 'crush' to Saavik?  Or that Saavik really doesn't like omelette because it's bland and has to use chilli on it to make it palatable, or a vegetarian diet makes (half) Romulans sick?

On that note, I know the director pretty much edited out everything to do with Saavik being a Vulcan/Romulan hybrid because she never really acts like a Romulan, so he decided to simplify it with the view of if she always acts like a Vulcan, make her Vulcan, in fact, the actress was a pretty big Spock / Vulcan fan and so she pretty much acted like a Vulcan would - as she had done in make believe as a child (she used to pretend she was Spock's daughter).  So, if we keep in mind that her background in regards to Romulan heritage was edited out, a large section of the book which is dedicated to her and her tragic background is now erroneous.  Why wasn't this caught and edited out?  Couldn't they at least keep it consistent?

Speaking of consistency, wouldn't it be fantastic if dialogue actually in the films was accurate?  Especially for the most important scenes?  It probably didn't escape your notice that the dialogue quoted above does not fit with the dialogue in the film?

Found this wonderful comparison on facebook
 a while back.  Sorry I don't know where
it was originally from!

And really, this dialogue proves to be some of the most important when it comes to Spock / Kirk relationship analysis (doesn't matter if you think that it is a platonic or sexual relationship), as in the graphic above the scene is a reflection of Spock's response as early in the series as Amok Time.

This is how it plays out in the film:

Ergh.  Gets me right in the feels every time.  Every. Single. Time.

I think what really characterises that whole scene is its quietness.  Kirk's quiet agony at watching his friend die, his t'hy'la (soulmate/brother/lover) die and Spock's characteristic calmness... but with that obvious pain and distress.  What really gets me is that the charismatic leader that is James T Kirk is struck virtually dumb, such is his utter despair and pain.  What does he say, ever so quietly?  'Spock'.  'Spock'.  'Yes'.  'No'.  Spock reaches out for contact he can't have, a contact he should have had, which was even expected by Sarek as we see in the next film.  If there was ever a perfect piece of cinema, it is this scene.  What does McIntyre do, well aside from mutilate it with her clumsy writing and stilted sentences?  She makes it loud.  Gone is the quiet despair of Kirk, instead we have outbursts.  Instead of a distressing, intimate moment between two souls saying good bye, we have an interjection by... Saavik.  I read it and wanted to scream, shut up Saavik!  You are not in this scene, of course Kirk will not understand because you are intruding, intruding I say!

You can have a picture 'cause I aint typing it all out.

Even if this was in the original script she saw, if that was how it was done, I don't know, an editor should have caught all this.  Oh wait.  Hold on.  If you edited out Saavik from this section then you would have no reason to return to her for almost three solid pages as she visits Spock's coffin and comes out with zingers like 'Admiral Kirk's opinion was of no significance'.  Well if his opinion is of no significance Saavik, then I don't know whose is!  In comparison, Sulu (another Vonda fav.) gets about a page of shared dialogue with Chapel, while Kirk gets a page of shared dialogue with Carol Marcus.  Then we are straight back to Saavik again for a paragraph before we get to Spock's funeral.  Where Saavik is the first one mentioned.  Again.  I don't care about a character introduced for this film, I really don't.  I want to know about the characters I'm invested in.   And I have a real problem with those three scenes that McIntyre has inserted.  They aren't in the film, that's fine, but they don't add anything either.  They could have been brilliant scenes, revisiting all the old crew, but no, we get too much Saavik, we get Sulu (urgh) and a pretty rushed scene with Kirk and Marcus (double ergh).  Honest to God, she loves her side characters!  That is a Bones and Kirk moment, absolutely, 100%, but no, Carol Marcus it has to be, why use the original cast anyhow?  Additionally, having Saavik as the 'bread' of the sandwich in these scenes makes her too important.  She is used to hold the *two* scenes involving original cast together, she isn't that important, just WHY.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)

And you know, the really unfortunate thing about all this, is that it makes me really dislike Saavik, which really isn't fair on the character.  In the film Saavik is enigmatic, she;s Vulcan with a little bit of extra emotion.  Perhaps it's youth, perhaps it's just in comparison to Spock she's a little bit more dynamic, but she is acted superbly and the tears at Spock's funeral are poignant because as far as we know, she's Vulcan and displays of emotion like that are a faux pas.  She reflects Kirk at this time, who is unable to hold it together, just about getting the words out.

And I do understand she acts as a kind of audience surrogate... oh, no she doesn't.  Saavik does not work as an audience surrogate, she's new blood as Decker was in TMP, but she is not a surrogate because she is an enigma even to us.  She is a very strange choice to base the much of the perspective of the book from, personally I would have gone for third person omniscient, and not focused on Saavik.  Sure, she can have her exposition, but enough is enough!

Right, I think I have gone on enough about this.  There are serious problems with this novelisation of ST:TWOK and frankly, unless you have some morbid curiosity about Saavik's non canon origins I don't really see the point in reading it.  In contrast to the ST:TMP novelisation, McIntyre's first novel adaptation of the film series adds nothing to our understanding of the film as much of it can't be considered canon.  It does highlight however a severe lack of editorial oversight.

In my opinion, a novelisation should at least be accurate to the scenes included in the film and any extra content should be relevant and add to the reader's understanding of it.

The author should also be competent and not struggle with sentence structure and flow.  McIntyre never, improves on this front (at least in her Star Trek novels).  I have no desire to read any of her other series to see if she actually does improve, I fear I'd feel the urge to claw my eyes out.  Just these will be enough.

1/5 - Don't bother.

((McIntyre's work to me is as a red rag to a bull...))