She turned sideways in order to face Kirk directly.
"You have requested a replacement, haven't you, Captain?" She looked from the surprise on the captain's face to McCoy, whose eyes were downcast. "Perhaps you haven't been told the true extent of Spock's injuries."
"Are you telling me Spock will not return to duty?" Kirk's jaw tightened so much it ached.
Her eyes were sympathetic but unyielding in their honesty. "That's one possibility. The best we can hope for is that it will be months before Spock is able to return to duty again."
Mindshadow (#27 Pocket, #41 Titan) (1986) is J M Dillard's first flirtation with novel writing and I guess, how she got 'outed' as a Trekker to her husband whom she had been keeping in the dark about her obsession by surreptitiously acquiring and reading published Star Trek novels. She even wrote Mindshadow secretly and sent it off without anyone else reading it (Starlog - Issue 125).
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| I like the cover this time... It's kind of clever... |
I've previously reviewed Bloodthirst, Dillard's third Star Trek novel and I went back and cribbed it before I started this review. In some ways Dillard improved between Mindshadow and Bloodthirst, but the weaknesses that reared their heads here in Mindshadow are still strongly affecting her work in later Star Trek instalments.
I'm happy I get to use a new term I picked up (from Joan Verba) to describe Mindshadow - it is to a certain extent a 'get'em' story and for once it's a 'get Spock' story instead of a 'get cinnamon roll Kirk' story. Spock suffers a devastating injury to the left side of his head after falling down a cliff while investigating strange tricorder readings on a beautiful garden planet with technophobic inhabitants which pirates have been raiding. The Federation has been asked to help these people protect their world and way of life however this all goes awry when the attacks do not come from above, but from below.
Spock's recovery is not certain and McCoy sends for a specialist in Vulcan neurology to ensure his best chances. When she comes (a petite, small, woman... doctor... very talented... excellent at hand to hand combat... everyone loves her - I'm sure I've seen this character before...) it soon becomes clear to the reader (if not the characters...) that she's not what she appears. Unfortunately, the Federation's success depends on Spock regaining his memory and solving the mystery on Aritani, but his recovery is slow and he's dogged by saboteurs, who even go as far as slitting his wrists...
Kirk however can't just sit and wait for Spock to possibly recover, he must continue to act without his first officer, but every move he makes is countered and he soon comes to realise that he has a traitor on board when a captured Romulan pirate is killed in the brig, and unauthorised transmissions are being sent from somewhere on the ship. Members of his crew are killed on Aritani in a devastating attack, and Scotty is framed as a murderer!
IN ADDITION to all this, McCoy has fallen in love with the new doctor - Emma Saenz - and she with him... but she also rather fancies Kirk... and he her... and everything goes terribly sour.
Kirk also has to ferry diplomats to Vulcan, which of course results in murder and general mayhem.
AND Spock ends up going home to Vulcan in order to get well again, meets another hybrid, faces an assassination attempt, gets framed with murder and gets his wrists slit... again.
To conclude the Enterprise returns to Aritani, Kirk gets the Romulan treatment (because who doesn't like Kirk with pointy ears... aside from Spock!) and things end with a bang!
I think you'll probably agree that there's a lot going on there and to be honest there are far too many things going on for a 250 page paperback.
I mean, it's a very sweet book in that there is some serious passion and love for Star Trek there... but it does feel like Dillard is trying to write her favourite episodes into her book, she's trying to do everything at once and the novel suffers for it. For example, she obviously really liked Kirk getting pointy ears and Spock making disparaging comments about it, so that went in. She also liked Journey to Babel, as she somehow manages to fit in the Enterprise collecting diplomats and even a murder! I think for every element there is an analogue in the original series, and there are a lot of elements.
Characterisation is variable and my biggest disappointment was probably due to there being too much going on and too few pages to do it in. I was all geared up for some touching K&S, you know the unbreakable friendship on the cusp of being broken because Spock would possibly never be 'Spock' again. It looked like it was going to happen, I would be indulged and my heartstrings pulled in that bittersweet way that makes fangirls swoon... but... time passed, Spock got marginally better and the scene was never written... and Kirk apparently stopped visiting so much. The hinted mental link? Not really used. Kirk knowing that Spock even in his mentally compromised state wouldn't try to kill himself - well he gave Spock the benefit of the doubt.
But where was that marvellous scene I was waiting for?!
It didn't happen.
Reunion after Vulcan...
Didn't really happen there either.
To be fair though, although I didn't see the emotional scene I was waiting for, I did get Spock relatedcinnamon roll Kirk angst, where Kirk didn't sleep for two days and was an irritable sod because Spock was in critical condition. I suppose I can be appeased that way. Plus there is quite a lot of emphasis on the 'love' between the trinity, the friendship, which I think thematically ties in well (especially with the movies...).
Characters at time seemed to be hit with ISS (inexplicable stupidity syndrome) quite regularly, including McCoy who apparently couldn't tell that Emma Saenz was Romulan... I mean come on. Her body temperature was Vulcan high, she didn't sweat in high temperatures... and she was really strong... I don't think you can even put it down to building muscle from being on a high gravity planet... McCoy has sexy times with her and still doesn't realise she isn't human!
Kirk was quite well characterised I think, although he did seem emotionally neutered at times... I do think we could have done without his attraction to Emma Saenz and the little love triangle that developed between Saenz, McCoy, and Kirk. Or perhaps it was just an indication that Kirk has a preference for lovers with pointy ears (hohoho... I'm kidding, I'm kidding)?!
There was one particular bit concerning Scotty which made me quite annoyed. It was his reaction to Kirk when her thought that Kirk had talked about his feelings over one of his engineers being killed. His disrespect and jumping to conclusions about his captain did not sit right with me. Again, it was a story element that didn't need to be there.
As for the original characters, there were two of note. Firstly of course Emma Saenz, who at times is well constructed and at others utterly frustrating. She's an interesting character, but because Dillard drops the reader lots of not-so-subtle hints rather early about her identity she's a little too transparent. If Dillard had chosen to reveal her a little later it would have worked significantly better. I was confused at one point about her position as a double agent and Admiral Komack's insistence of keeping Kirk in the dark, I don't really see what her purpose was in her double agent role when she was on the Enterprise? What benefit could she have been to the Romulans then? It's a little bit contrived, why couldn't Spock recover, why did it have to be her? Why couldn't they have just used another doctor?
The other character is Lieutenant Tomson, who appears in more books by Dillard and I think in one or two by other authors too. Tomson is... infuriating but in a very fallible way... She isn't overused which is a good thing but unfortunately is involved in the erroneous murder charged levelled at Scotty. This and the murder of one of the diplomats seem to be engineered so that Tomson can do something... But as I've mentioned before, those elements could have been left out entirely.
Oh! There's also Spock's replacement Varth...who is a nonentity...
The conclusion of the novel is a little weak and more than a little rushed, which could have been avoided if Dillard had kept the story a little more simple and done some serious editing. Personally I would have cut out a lot of the superfluous bits of story in the middle and extended finale, given more details of the complex, more details of the Romulans, made more of the adventure and of Kirk and Spock working together again at the end. As it was it ends up being a little bit flat, not terrible just a little lacklustre.
I did enjoy this book however. Dillard proves that she can write characters well and she's especially good at dialogue, but her narrative structure is messy and she makes far too much of linking the events in the novel with events in the series and the animated series (of course, it isn't worse than Marshak and Culbreath actually footnoting all their references).
I'm going to be nice however and give Mindshadow a generous 3/5 - since a two would be overly stingy since it was afrustrating pleasure to read.
Characterisation is variable and my biggest disappointment was probably due to there being too much going on and too few pages to do it in. I was all geared up for some touching K&S, you know the unbreakable friendship on the cusp of being broken because Spock would possibly never be 'Spock' again. It looked like it was going to happen, I would be indulged and my heartstrings pulled in that bittersweet way that makes fangirls swoon... but... time passed, Spock got marginally better and the scene was never written... and Kirk apparently stopped visiting so much. The hinted mental link? Not really used. Kirk knowing that Spock even in his mentally compromised state wouldn't try to kill himself - well he gave Spock the benefit of the doubt.
But where was that marvellous scene I was waiting for?!
It didn't happen.
Reunion after Vulcan...
Didn't really happen there either.
To be fair though, although I didn't see the emotional scene I was waiting for, I did get Spock related
Characters at time seemed to be hit with ISS (inexplicable stupidity syndrome) quite regularly, including McCoy who apparently couldn't tell that Emma Saenz was Romulan... I mean come on. Her body temperature was Vulcan high, she didn't sweat in high temperatures... and she was really strong... I don't think you can even put it down to building muscle from being on a high gravity planet... McCoy has sexy times with her and still doesn't realise she isn't human!
Kirk was quite well characterised I think, although he did seem emotionally neutered at times... I do think we could have done without his attraction to Emma Saenz and the little love triangle that developed between Saenz, McCoy, and Kirk. Or perhaps it was just an indication that Kirk has a preference for lovers with pointy ears (hohoho... I'm kidding, I'm kidding)?!
There was one particular bit concerning Scotty which made me quite annoyed. It was his reaction to Kirk when her thought that Kirk had talked about his feelings over one of his engineers being killed. His disrespect and jumping to conclusions about his captain did not sit right with me. Again, it was a story element that didn't need to be there.
As for the original characters, there were two of note. Firstly of course Emma Saenz, who at times is well constructed and at others utterly frustrating. She's an interesting character, but because Dillard drops the reader lots of not-so-subtle hints rather early about her identity she's a little too transparent. If Dillard had chosen to reveal her a little later it would have worked significantly better. I was confused at one point about her position as a double agent and Admiral Komack's insistence of keeping Kirk in the dark, I don't really see what her purpose was in her double agent role when she was on the Enterprise? What benefit could she have been to the Romulans then? It's a little bit contrived, why couldn't Spock recover, why did it have to be her? Why couldn't they have just used another doctor?
The other character is Lieutenant Tomson, who appears in more books by Dillard and I think in one or two by other authors too. Tomson is... infuriating but in a very fallible way... She isn't overused which is a good thing but unfortunately is involved in the erroneous murder charged levelled at Scotty. This and the murder of one of the diplomats seem to be engineered so that Tomson can do something... But as I've mentioned before, those elements could have been left out entirely.
Oh! There's also Spock's replacement Varth...who is a nonentity...
The conclusion of the novel is a little weak and more than a little rushed, which could have been avoided if Dillard had kept the story a little more simple and done some serious editing. Personally I would have cut out a lot of the superfluous bits of story in the middle and extended finale, given more details of the complex, more details of the Romulans, made more of the adventure and of Kirk and Spock working together again at the end. As it was it ends up being a little bit flat, not terrible just a little lacklustre.
I did enjoy this book however. Dillard proves that she can write characters well and she's especially good at dialogue, but her narrative structure is messy and she makes far too much of linking the events in the novel with events in the series and the animated series (of course, it isn't worse than Marshak and Culbreath actually footnoting all their references).
I'm going to be nice however and give Mindshadow a generous 3/5 - since a two would be overly stingy since it was a
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