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By now you all know I love Star Trek and I have about zillion Star Trek books in the to be read box. More than enough of them that I can break them down and do sub-themes within the Star Trek universe and still have plenty of choices. So I thought for the first Star Trek month of the year I would stick to good old fashioned Star Trek: The Original Series. Starting with:
- Star Trek - The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold:
Mr. Gerrold wrote one of the most fondly remembered episodes of Star Trek: The Original series. While some of the smaller story elements have since been invalidated- he produces one of hell of a Star Trek book. This comes in part from the fact that it was based on a story he pitched to Gene Roddenberry was thought to be one of the best the show had ever gotten but was too expensive for any TV series back in 1967. The story has many of the elements of great Star Trek. It's got a planet in danger. It's got a moral dilemma to solve. It's a Prime Directive story. An interesting point about this story is not the use of Kirk, Spock and McCoy who are always the stars of TOS novels, but the inclusion of Kevin Riley in a major role in the story. He probably got more time in this story than he did in the two actual episodes he appeared in. It's got quite a bit of real world science it a lot more than your average bit Star Trek. Ultimately, like most good Star Trek it's all about the people.
And now onto one of the first multi-author epics. This one is a doozy since parts of it were written during the Richard Arnold era when that kind of thing was frowned upon. Writers had to be subtle about it. I wish I had known about the connection before because some books in this arc were already covered over the last two years. It starts in:
- Star Trek: Covenant of the Crown by Howard Weinstein:
This book is a rarity for the early Pocket Books era. It references not only Star Trek: The Original Series but Star Trek: The Animated Series by borrowing a few plot elements from Weinstein's episode 'The Pirates of Orion'. This time McCoy has plenty of the necessary drugs handy as they are escorting a stricken princess to the lost crown. Alas, they are being pursued by Klingons who don't want her reunited with her people so they can benefit from trade. While the book is short it is very slow moving. It is almost too slow to be worth it. It is saved by some fun interplay between the book's two central characters Spock and McCoy. However the subplot of the somewhat one sided romance between the 19 year old princess and Dr. McCoy is a little awkward. However how it inevitably plays out is very true to the Leonard McCoy fans have come to know. It's nice to see a book where Kirk is not the lead, especially given what happened to Star Trek books just a few months later with a mandate from Roddenberry's assistant. It's not the worst Star Trek book I've read but far, far, from the best.
As I said many authors collaborate to sneak little references to each other's work into their books. While completely unrelated to Weinstein works, the next one to tie-in somewhat indirectly is A.C. Crispin's Yesterday's Son. Then comes the seemingly unconnected 'The Wounded Sky' and 'My Enemy, My Ally' by Diane Duane followed by 'Crisis On Centaurus' by Brad Ferguson. Which than leads us back to Howard Weinstein for-
- Star Trek: Deep Domain by Howard Weinstein:
A real world legend goes that Howard Weinstein somehow or another spent an evening with Leonard Nimoy. They came to discussing dolphins because they both happened to have had experience diving. Nimoy used these discussions when developing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home which, in something of a rarity, Weinstein was given a special thanks credit. Weinstein had an entirely different Star Trek story in mind. Deep Domain is that story. It is a fairly well paced Star Trek novel. While it was much longer than Covenant of the Crown, it seems much shorter than Weinstein's previous Star Trek work. There are one or two rough patches but it is again saved by some very funny moments between Bones, a scientist on the planet and Spock. The story itself of the type we have seen before. There are some things that were not typical of Star Trek books of this time frame. Overall not that bad. It just doesn't quite fly it out of the park. The last chapter- which Weinstein tries to place the story into continuity- seems a little forced and pointless. It's sort of moot since we know Kirk does return to the Enterprise and Chekov's stint on the Reliant does not go well. Still it's just the last chapter of a nice little page turner.
Another parallel plot thread builds in Diane Duane and Peter Morwood's The Romulan Way. I reviewed that one last year. While it was released after this book was released- the next in sequence is Diane Duane's Spock's World. (Which Crispin admits to having gotten to read in production.) Next comes a Star Trek book I almost saved for the next highly recommended month. It's one of three Star Trek books I've gotten quite a few requests for -
- Star Trek: Time for Yesterday by A.C. Crispin:
I really liked Yesterday's Son, Mary Sue-esqe character warts and all. I'm used to Star Trek novels having their share of flaws, particularly overuse of adverbs. Crispin- or her editor- kind of overdo it here. One, maybe two adverbs a page. At times she was packing as many as six. You could have had a much stronger book that was maybe 5-10 pages shorter if you just cut most of them out. That being said- in terms of plot and story it was a good one. I understand the need for the chapter recapping the previous book. It is part of why Richard Arnold didn't want sequels to previous Star Trek books being written. Some fans just aren't hardcore enough to read every book. They might just pick one up for a friend, relative or just because it has a neat cover. To make the book even more delightfully fannish she uses characters and situations from many other previous Star Trek books including almost all the ones I've mentioned above. While it is a sequel to Yesterday's Son it is directly tied to Deep Domain as well. Given that they are released only a few months apart, one must assume she read that in production as well. The sequel seems crowded and a little muddy. It was nowhere near as good as the original.
This brings us back to-
- Star Trek: Swordhunt Diane Duane:
Duane's Star Trek books are always full of goodness: interesting new takes on old Star Trek ideas, strong characterizations with a little bit of humor here and there. She was the first to develop her own little side cast which is probably why she went almost 12 years between books. Such things were more or less banned by Paramount for a good, long while. Swordhunt is full of all of those things. While it may have only been less than a year since I last read most of her Trek books, this one was written about 11 years after Spock's World so the chapter spent recapping is forgivable. In fact, the only bad thing I can say about it is one that's a pet peeve of mine with a lot of multipart Star Trek books. I don't mind multiple stories going on as long as at least one of those stories actually gets finished. This reads like Pocket Books took what was supposed to be one four to five hundred page Star Trek book and split it into two at just the right point to build tension. Considering they stopped doing the 'Giant Novels' and hardcovers around the time, Swordhunt and Honorblade being released that way might be exactly what happened. Especially given in my omnibus edition the two are treated like one book.
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