The Wounded Sky by Diane Duane (Star Trek #13, 1983)

The last ST novel of 1983 was a very lucky #13 indeed for Pocket Books. Certainly the best of the Pocket entries in the series thus far, challenged only by David Gerrold's "The Galactic Whirlpool" for finest Trek novel of all to this point. Diane Duane produced a very metaphysical novel here, tempting the curse of Marshak and Culbreath, but pulled it off with a care for the characters and an ear for dialogue rarely seen in the ST series, or in any other books.

Duane was already a writer at the time of this novel but mostly of TV cartoon scripts such as Scooby-Doo and Captain Caveman. Prior to turning to writing full-time, she had worked as a nurse, which would help immensely in writing Dr. McCoy. For those interested, she maintains a weblog at this website. Duane now lives with husband Peter Norwood in Ireland.

The plot: the Enterprise is on a routine patrol but Captain Kirk is on pins and needles waiting for Starfleet Command to pick the starship to test the new type of engine drive, which will carry the first mission completely out of the galaxy to the lower Magellenic Cloud. When the Enterprise gets the honor the crew meets K't'lk, the engineer who created it. The new system works based on a recently developed branch of physics, involving singularities and immediate transportation over great distances.

While the transfer itself is supposed to take zero time, the crew finds themselves having dreamlike experiences during the "jumps" but with a heightened sense of reality. Then they discover that the jumping is causing a rift with an adjacent universe and letting "non-entropy" leak in; a way must be found to stop it or the entire universe is in jeopardy.

While the metaphysical elements could threaten to take the book over the deep end, Duane's outstanding grasp of the characters lets her keep the book moving because it is the characterizations that drive the story. It's not perfect: Sulu gets far more freedom to plot a course in a battle situation than he would ever get with Kirk. But here it works, because it fits in with the book. Duane looks inside and lets each character, both the established ones from the series and the ones she has created, speak from the deepest part of their souls.

Duane also has a tremendous grasp of alien races, and of specific speech patterns for these different races. She introduces here Harb Tanzer, the middle-aged head of Recreation, who at once becomes a beloved character. There are many wonderful turns of phrase in these pages as Duane simply writes so well and so smoothly. The story flows so beautifully, even in transitions.  The book would not translate well to the screen, as it was made into the Next Generation episode "Where No One Has Gone Before," the sixth episode of that series.

Books like this one raised the profile of the ST series to eventually reach the best-seller lists. This one, and the future series on Romulans (Rihannsu) Duane would write, made her reputation as an SF writer.

Mutiny on the Enterprise by Robert E. Vardeman (Star Trek #12, 1983)

This is Vardeman’s second outing with a Star Trek novel and so far his last. Like his first effort it is hard to judge his handling of the series’ regular characters because the players involved are supposed to be out of character and under another’s mental influence. It works only slightly better here than it did in “The Klingon Gambit,” (Star Trek #3) Vardeman’s initial attempt.

The Enterprise, badly in need of repairs and engine overhaul, pulls into Starbase 1 (which I thought was Earth) but is immediately sent out again on a mission to take a team of ambassadors to a serious situation, a conflict between planets near the Romulan border. Kirk protests the ship is not up to the trip and the crew is badly in need of shore leave, but is overruled. The ambassadors are a brusque Tellarite (the pig-faced creatures seen in “Journey to Babel”), a capable but officious Earthman, and a plant-man, whose presence on the mission is never well explained except to present a different alien. Not long after departing, the sensors locate a derelict adrift in space with a single life reading aboard. The alien is transported aboard and identifies herself as Lorelei.

Soon, it becomes clear that Lorelei has remarkable persuasive powers. She begins convincing the crew that their mission is one of war, not peace, and that manning the phasers is immoral. To stem the tide, Captain Kirk arranges for Ambassador Zarv and Lorelai to each address the crew. This turns out to be a serious error as Zarv speaks well but Lorelai completely captivates the crew with the sound of her voice. Soon, the crew is in mutiny, refusing to man their posts even in the face of danger. Kirk and Spock must figure out how to combat Lorelai’s influence and win back the ship.

This time Vardeman introduces an alien with some sort of sonic powers, able to convince anyone of her position simply by speaking to them; only Spock proves resistant to her abilities. Her origin and the source of her abilities is left in question except that she is from the unknown planet Hyla, but the author clearly leaves room for a sequel yet to be published. Only Spock, and Kirk to an extent, are left in character, but while Spock is reasonably well done (he is generally the easiest character to capture in a few words), Kirk is not (Kirk is probably the most difficult character in Star Trek to write well). This novel is a slight improvement on Vardeman’s first but is still not a very good book. It reads like one of the mediocre TV episodes, and reveals little.