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Welcome to dinner at Willey home. What are we having? Why good ol' Jumble Pie. What's Jumble pie, you ask? First you get a pie crust. You'll also need a pot. You grab the first half dozen or so random ingredients out of the cupboard. You chop them up. Add a little water. Stir until you get mush. Then boil until most the water has evaporated. Then pour the mush into the pie crust. Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. Then wait for it to cool. The worst part about Jumble Pie is that sometimes you wind up with a marshmallow, sardine, pineapple, guacamole pie with just a hint of Gorgonzola cheese. The best thing about Jumble Pie is that it is never the same thing twice.
So what are our ingredients this time?
Well, when we last left the Enterprise crew (in Diane Duane's My Enemy, My Ally) they had just helped a rogue Romulan Commander named Ael stop the Romulan military from using Vulcan brain samples to create a psychic army. Now for a rarity for 80s Star Trek books - a direct sequel.
- The Romulan Way By Diane Duane with Peter Morwood:
This should have been a Star Trek novel I absolutely loved. Duane's Star Trek books, even when they deviate heavily from canon, are usually a lot of fun. Secondly, it is a very fine look at an entire culture. Thirdly, the secondary- or some might say mandated by Roddenberry's assistant Richard Arnold- canon character plot focused on Dr. Leonard McCoy. I'm a sucker for any non-canon Star Trek story with a lot of Bones. In fact it is the first original series novel I've ever read where Kirk and Spock don't appear at all. And that's sort of the problem. McCoy is a fascinating character but he really needs someone to play off of. While he remains entirely in character his scenes lack focus. This allows Diane Duane's original characters to run amok but not always in a good way. I picked it up expecting a really good adventure where Bones is sent to rescue a deep cover agent. Yes, I got a strong story. I just would have preferred one where McCoy's actions actually changed something. Aside from the 'Dr. McCoy Goes to Romulus' bit at the end the book wasn't terrible, but it was kind of a let down from the previous volume in the series.
When I set up the rule revisions in year two, they were as follows: One the book had to at least have been ordered by the end of December of the previous year. This one barely passes but it does. The second rule was I actually had to have read the whole thing. Normally I wouldn't review my textbooks but this one was frelling huge and I actually read it front to back (save for the indexes) multiple times over the last eight and a half months. So yeah, it's going in.
- The Language of Medicine Ninth Edition by Davi-Ellen Chabner:
At least in terms of textbooks this is one of the best I've ever had. It is well organized. Many of the chunks of information are in multiple chapters and most things you need are pretty easy to find. Most of the units are easy enough that even someone whose sole interest in reading it is to become an expert in Medical Coding and Billing, not a nurse or rad tech or something more complicated, can understand it. There are few chapters I took issue with. The chapter on the senses didn't cover as much on the ear as it did to the eye. The unit on Psychiatry insisted that Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder exists solely in children. That is just bullshit and I'm living proof. Now I know most of you would never go out of your way to read this book. You'd really only need if you were taking a Medical Terminology Class. In regards to that, I have one reason and one reason alone not to read this book. Most colleges have phased it out. I took Medical Terminology II this summer so I wouldn't to pay ANOTHER $150 to buy the Tenth Edition which came out late this summer, just in time for the Fall Semester.
- One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde:
The laughs keep on coming in a book that doesn't even bother picking up on the major cliff hanger left at the end of 'First Among Sequels'. This is the book where the Thursday Next we've come to know and love hardly appears. The less you know about that the better. Needless to say the opening is a little confusing. Once the reader slowly figures things out, the book becomes funnier. Fforde once again plays with genre conventions parodying pretty much everyone from Agatha Christie, Phillip K. Dick, Robert Ludlum with a lot of goofy name dropping. It manages to be bizarre and wacky without being silly. Thursday- if the narrating character is indeed her and I'm not going to tell you- is different and just slightly off from before. There is a reason for that. Again- it's the type of story that relies (at least somewhat) on the plot twists for humor so I don't want to ruin it for you. If you've liked the series so far keep going. If you don't like the series you have no sense of humor and should just move to an outhouse in Kentucky. This one is a little weird (and for Jasper Fforde that's saying something) but totally worth it for the chapter where they literally go exploring fan fiction alone.
- Hit or Myth by Robert Asprin:
It's time for another comedic romp through the dimensions with Aahz and Skeeve. For the last three books Skeeve has been the somewhat out of place apprentice wizard. However when Aahz goes missing and then Masha (the witch from Mythdirection) shows up asking for training, the question gets asked: does Skeeve really need Aahz? Well- when King Roderick comes to Skeeve wanting him to use his disguise spell so he can have a 'vacation', we get to find out. Then Roderick's intended bride shows up. The whole thing turns into a comedy of errors and politics which ends up with Skeeve more or less saving the day. But that's not all- because Skeeve's solution ends up causing another set of problems. Aahz returns but that opens up a whole other can of worms. Their relationship really changes and- surprising for Mythadventures- grows as a result. If you like comedic fantasy then this is fairly standard but if you're a fan of Mythadventures in particular this is a can't miss.
And because our crust was made of Star Trek- you know it was coming,another Star Trek book. This one is the novelization of one of the 'lost episodes' by none other than Theodore Sturgeon.
- Star Trek - The Joy Machine by James Gunn (from a story by Theodore Sturgeon):
This book is one of those rare Star Trek novels that reads like it could be a lost episode of the series. Unlike most of those other books this one actually is a lost episode of the series. Theodore Sturgeon submitted an outline. Meyer 'The Architects of Fear' Dolinsky wrote a preliminary draft and then nothing came of it. The ideas of a planet where people are given bursts of pure joy by a computer in exchange for work , even pointless busy work- gives an interesting commentary on the human condition. It is written in the way Star Trek would address them. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Uhura sound very much like themselves. Everything goes extremely well until it gets to the last two chapters. It slightly deviates from Roddenberry's philosophy when it includes a church of any recognizable religion on the planet something Roddenberry fought against in other episodes. (He lost during Balance of Terror.) The other problem is that it falls into that old plot trap of 'Kirk beating the super intelligent computer with a logical paradox'. We'd seen Kirk do this at least twice by the time this episode was completed 'I, Mudd' and 'The Changeling'.) Overall it's a good book. However between that ending and some of the subplots that are necessary to the story that would have been impossible to do on a 1960s TV budget, I can see why the episode wound up on the cutting room floor.
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