Grang said excitedly, "This way! Quickly! The warriors will soon be upon us."
Kirk looked at him. "I assume you mean the real tribal warriors. Very well, Grang, we're in your hands. We have nowhere else to go. Lead the way!"
Needing a change of pace (and because I had misplaced Memory Prime) I pulled out Mission to Horatius (1968) by Mack Reynolds and illustrated by Sparky Moore. For those that don't know Mission to Horatius (published by Whitman) was the first original novel based on the series and is targeted at a child audience. The first published book written for an adult audience would be Spock Must Die! authored by James Blish and published by Bantam books in 1970. Mission to Horatius would be the only original fiction published by Whitman based on the series. The book was republished in 1999 by Pocket Books (Whitman had gone out of business) in celebration of their holding the Star Trek license for 20 years.
Mission to Horatius was a very quick read. In the preface to the 1999 edition, the editor - John Ordover - recounts his finding the book in a used book store in 1970, when he was eight years old. Having recently just discovered Star Trek he was delighted to find a book devoted to his new found heroes; the book was bought and devoured in short order. Ordover obviously enjoyed the book as an eight year old as the memory of it stayed with him and I think that now we must keep in mind that Mission to Horatius was written at a very different time, and aimed at a particular audience. This, however, shouldn't be used to excuse the failings the book does have but we should certainly think of it a little more charitably.
The author, Mack Reynolds (1917 - 1983), had been active since the 1950s and was quite a prolific writer, arguably the 1960s was when he wrote his best works. I'm unsure if previous to Mission to Horatius he had experience writing for a younger audience but certainly it feels to me like the prose you'd find in many contemporary children's stories, although possibly a little dated and perhaps stylistically leaning more towards the 1950s.
Perhaps Mission to Horatius' dated feeling was part of Roddenberry's dissatisfaction with the novel. Producers of the television series felt that the novel was dull and badly written, it was also felt that there were lots of inaccuracies with terminology and characterisation. There was also concerns about offensive descriptions of Sulu and Uhura; Sulu was described as a 'bland faced, short oriental' and Uhura as a 'negress' who sings a 'spiritual'. Ultimately changes were made; however, Roddenberry remained unhappy with Mission to Horatius and wrote an analysis about what was wrong with the novel. I don't have a copy myself so I can't give any examples to you, however I can certainly guess!
Mack Reynolds used his favourite themes in Mission to Horatius, which generally revolve around the ideas of 'Utopia', alternative socio-economic systems, and revolution of the systems / Utopias. Although interesting subjects (certainly some of my favourite sci-fi deals with this!) I think as a subject for a children's book in which there is no intention to really delve into or demonstrate the various situations because of either page constraints or the misguided over-simplification which children's literature often suffers, it is indeed dull. That being said, Reynolds does create an interesting situation which probably would have benefited from being written as an adult book. The scope of Mission to Horatius is a little too large, Reynolds would have been better condensing his ideas and cutting out some of the more superfluous elements (Mickey the Space Rat being one of them). On the other hand, I have to remind myself that it's a children's book and so I need to accept that Mickey the space rat is probably a good move for the younger audience.
The structure of the narrative is relatively simple, the Enterprise receives a mission to answer a distress call from a distant system. On arriving at the system the Kirk and the Enterprise must investigate where the distress call came from. The first planet they investigate is Neolithia which is populated by humans who wish to live a primitive (stone age) existence, obviously the distress call did not originate here. In their investigation of the planet they meet a young teenage boy named Grang, who acts as the reader's surrogate.
The second planet, Mythra, is a theocracy, the inhabitants of which are living in a strange mixture of time periods from the medieval (from observation) to the 1900s (on the basis that they have radio). Kirk and his crew find out that the Mythran elites have been drugging the population in order to keep them happy and compliant. Naturally Kirk makes sure this can't continue by releasing an antidote to the drug into the water supply. These people too are too under-developed to have sent a subspace transmission however and so the Enterprise moves to the next planet.
The third planet, Bavarya, is basically populated by Nazi's who clone themselves and want to take over the other planets in the system, eventually trying to dominate the entire Federation. It turns out that the distress call was sent by Nummer Ein's daughter, who wanted to try and stop the corrupt government. Kirk, Spock, and Grang are forced to fight a gladiator style battle against clones before breaking out and destroying the cloning facility which causes the death of all the cloned soldiers. Mission accomplished Enterprise turns for home (after dropping off Grang), however, McCoy fears a break out of Space Cafard, which is basically cabin fever, and engineers a game of hunt the rat in order to give the crew something to do and to prevent madness. The game is a success (although not for the rat) and the crew stay sane until they can have some much needed R&R.
The idea itself of the contrasting societies isn't a particularly creative one; however, I was most interested in what Reynolds had to say about the cloning, the idea of 'ghost dubbing' (a term I'm borrowing from Shirow Masamune for convenience) and the question of whether clones have souls... well at least clones made in a particular way (the answer here is no by the way!).
The author, Mack Reynolds (1917 - 1983), had been active since the 1950s and was quite a prolific writer, arguably the 1960s was when he wrote his best works. I'm unsure if previous to Mission to Horatius he had experience writing for a younger audience but certainly it feels to me like the prose you'd find in many contemporary children's stories, although possibly a little dated and perhaps stylistically leaning more towards the 1950s.
Perhaps Mission to Horatius' dated feeling was part of Roddenberry's dissatisfaction with the novel. Producers of the television series felt that the novel was dull and badly written, it was also felt that there were lots of inaccuracies with terminology and characterisation. There was also concerns about offensive descriptions of Sulu and Uhura; Sulu was described as a 'bland faced, short oriental' and Uhura as a 'negress' who sings a 'spiritual'. Ultimately changes were made; however, Roddenberry remained unhappy with Mission to Horatius and wrote an analysis about what was wrong with the novel. I don't have a copy myself so I can't give any examples to you, however I can certainly guess!
Mack Reynolds used his favourite themes in Mission to Horatius, which generally revolve around the ideas of 'Utopia', alternative socio-economic systems, and revolution of the systems / Utopias. Although interesting subjects (certainly some of my favourite sci-fi deals with this!) I think as a subject for a children's book in which there is no intention to really delve into or demonstrate the various situations because of either page constraints or the misguided over-simplification which children's literature often suffers, it is indeed dull. That being said, Reynolds does create an interesting situation which probably would have benefited from being written as an adult book. The scope of Mission to Horatius is a little too large, Reynolds would have been better condensing his ideas and cutting out some of the more superfluous elements (Mickey the Space Rat being one of them). On the other hand, I have to remind myself that it's a children's book and so I need to accept that Mickey the space rat is probably a good move for the younger audience.
The structure of the narrative is relatively simple, the Enterprise receives a mission to answer a distress call from a distant system. On arriving at the system the Kirk and the Enterprise must investigate where the distress call came from. The first planet they investigate is Neolithia which is populated by humans who wish to live a primitive (stone age) existence, obviously the distress call did not originate here. In their investigation of the planet they meet a young teenage boy named Grang, who acts as the reader's surrogate.
The second planet, Mythra, is a theocracy, the inhabitants of which are living in a strange mixture of time periods from the medieval (from observation) to the 1900s (on the basis that they have radio). Kirk and his crew find out that the Mythran elites have been drugging the population in order to keep them happy and compliant. Naturally Kirk makes sure this can't continue by releasing an antidote to the drug into the water supply. These people too are too under-developed to have sent a subspace transmission however and so the Enterprise moves to the next planet.
The third planet, Bavarya, is basically populated by Nazi's who clone themselves and want to take over the other planets in the system, eventually trying to dominate the entire Federation. It turns out that the distress call was sent by Nummer Ein's daughter, who wanted to try and stop the corrupt government. Kirk, Spock, and Grang are forced to fight a gladiator style battle against clones before breaking out and destroying the cloning facility which causes the death of all the cloned soldiers. Mission accomplished Enterprise turns for home (after dropping off Grang), however, McCoy fears a break out of Space Cafard, which is basically cabin fever, and engineers a game of hunt the rat in order to give the crew something to do and to prevent madness. The game is a success (although not for the rat) and the crew stay sane until they can have some much needed R&R.
The idea itself of the contrasting societies isn't a particularly creative one; however, I was most interested in what Reynolds had to say about the cloning, the idea of 'ghost dubbing' (a term I'm borrowing from Shirow Masamune for convenience) and the question of whether clones have souls... well at least clones made in a particular way (the answer here is no by the way!).
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| Ghost Dubbing Machine in Shirow Masamune's Ghost In The Shell (1989-1990) |
I think probably the most disappointing part of Mission to Horatius is that ultimately the 'big bads' are space Nazis, which is just lazy narrative shorthand for "look, aren't these people irredeemable and deplorable?!". Well, that and there's not an alien in sight just fringe humans being mostly terrible to each other; which somewhat defeats the object of having alien races representing different facets of humanity, yes?
Characterization isn't very good on the whole, but perhaps would be satisfactory to younger children. it surprises me that a capable author would get stuck on some characterization elements, There's only so many times you need to mention that Spock looks 'satanic' for example. Kirk's characterization is very off key and isn't really the Kirk we can really recognize from the TV show, books, or fan fiction... he's just wrong. Whilst I accept that everything is simplified; bad characterization doesn't have to be a direct result of writing for children: If anything characterization should be stronger in a children's novel.
A definite shortfall which blights the whole book is that it has been artificially simplified 'for children' and so made dull. That being said adults seem to have hated it while children liked it, so what do I know, eh?
Anyway, I think it's an interesting, quick read for those interested in fiction contemporary to Star Trek being on television. I don't think there's much merit to the book personally although the dated illustrations and language add to it's charm somewhat. I'm glad I read it out of interest, but I'm unlikely to read it again, if you see it going for pennies, it might be worth getting, but otherwise don't worry about adding this one to your collection.
Characterization isn't very good on the whole, but perhaps would be satisfactory to younger children. it surprises me that a capable author would get stuck on some characterization elements, There's only so many times you need to mention that Spock looks 'satanic' for example. Kirk's characterization is very off key and isn't really the Kirk we can really recognize from the TV show, books, or fan fiction... he's just wrong. Whilst I accept that everything is simplified; bad characterization doesn't have to be a direct result of writing for children: If anything characterization should be stronger in a children's novel.
A definite shortfall which blights the whole book is that it has been artificially simplified 'for children' and so made dull. That being said adults seem to have hated it while children liked it, so what do I know, eh?
Anyway, I think it's an interesting, quick read for those interested in fiction contemporary to Star Trek being on television. I don't think there's much merit to the book personally although the dated illustrations and language add to it's charm somewhat. I'm glad I read it out of interest, but I'm unlikely to read it again, if you see it going for pennies, it might be worth getting, but otherwise don't worry about adding this one to your collection.
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