How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford (Star Trek #36, October 1987)
A StarFleet resouces exploratory vessel finds a planet that promises to be the richest source of dilithium known. This valuable mineral that powers all kinds of energy systems including warp drive is sought throughout the galaxy by space-travelling races, and as luck would have it the Klingons are not far off. The Enterprise comes quickly in response to a distress message, and by the terms of the Organian peace treaty the Federation and Klingons will each present their case to the planetary natives. But the natives are acting oddly, and misunderstandings ensue. A fortune stands to be made by someone.
Ford's previous novel, "The Final Reflection," was a deadly serious look at Klingon culture that was a marvelous depiction of an alien society, even if it was ignored by the visual artists of the series as the character of Worf was developed. This novel plays on Ford's Klingon background a bit, but here all is played for comedy right up to a classic slapstick climax. If you ever wanted to read a story about Kirk in a pie fight, this one is for you.
Ford is obviously a fan of old movies, and uses the devices of those pictures a lot. He also pairs Enterprise and Klingon characters together to great effect, all in the name of diplomacy. The humor in the book starts from the beginning with blue-colored orange juice (which seems to occur on all three ships) and keeps going to the final page. Spock is off center stage for most of the book, which suits the character. As is usual with comedy adventures, he is best used as a straight man.
This book invites more difference of opinion than just about any other Star Trek novel, as the use of the characters for such broad humor is often met with disdain by the serious fans. I found it funny from beginning to end. It has many of the qualities of the musical comedy, and is based in part on Gilbert and Sullivan operettas as well as classic film comedy.
This is Ford's last Star Trek novel to date, and that's too bad.
Reviews and discussions of Star Trek novels and related publications.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
The Romulan Way by Diane Duane and Peter Norwood (Star Trek #35, 1987)
A StarFleet deep cover agent is posing as a servant in the home of a Romulan government official. She is a trained sociologist, and has been in the household for a number of years. She has been surgically altered to exist as a Romulan. Her mission is not to gain military secrets, but to observe Romulan society to aid Federation understanding of the Romulans. Her position is peaceful and secure, under Dr. McCoy is captured and brought to the home where she serves.
This is the plot followed by the storyline, but it is only half the book. The other half serves as a Romulan history lesson, but the foremost Romulan ST novelist, Duane. It is a shame this work was not used as background for the recent movie Star Trek: Nemesis, which could have used the help.
Duane's work on the "Rihannsu" is now considered classic, and this and her previous novel, "My Enemy, My Ally," have been reprinted and have also gotten sequels. These books have helped established Duane, working here with help from husband Peter Norwood, as the best of the novelists, at least in my opinion.
This was the second straight release to do little (or in this case, nothing) with the supporting characters of Scott, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura. This trend was one of the things that unfortunately led to the overediting of the novels a few months hence. Soon it would be required to have only the "Magnificent 7" in featured roles, with little work by anyone else, and the universe in the balance. Right now, however, the creativity of the novel series was hitting an all-time high.
Diane Duane is my favorite ST novelist not because of her plots, which are usually pretty simple, but because of her fluid, sweeping writing style and her intimate grasp of the characters. Everyone is a Diane Duane book seems to be a close acquaintance of hers, and some of them her closest friends, she knows them so deeply. You just don't get an undeveloped character in a Duane novel. Her stuff doesn't seem to translate as well to other media, as the TV script she wrote for "The Next Generation" fell flat. This may be more due to rewriting than Duane's shortcomings, rewriting being a major problem during the series' Season 1.
This book is highly recommended, as are all Duane's novels.
A StarFleet deep cover agent is posing as a servant in the home of a Romulan government official. She is a trained sociologist, and has been in the household for a number of years. She has been surgically altered to exist as a Romulan. Her mission is not to gain military secrets, but to observe Romulan society to aid Federation understanding of the Romulans. Her position is peaceful and secure, under Dr. McCoy is captured and brought to the home where she serves.
This is the plot followed by the storyline, but it is only half the book. The other half serves as a Romulan history lesson, but the foremost Romulan ST novelist, Duane. It is a shame this work was not used as background for the recent movie Star Trek: Nemesis, which could have used the help.
Duane's work on the "Rihannsu" is now considered classic, and this and her previous novel, "My Enemy, My Ally," have been reprinted and have also gotten sequels. These books have helped established Duane, working here with help from husband Peter Norwood, as the best of the novelists, at least in my opinion.
This was the second straight release to do little (or in this case, nothing) with the supporting characters of Scott, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura. This trend was one of the things that unfortunately led to the overediting of the novels a few months hence. Soon it would be required to have only the "Magnificent 7" in featured roles, with little work by anyone else, and the universe in the balance. Right now, however, the creativity of the novel series was hitting an all-time high.
Diane Duane is my favorite ST novelist not because of her plots, which are usually pretty simple, but because of her fluid, sweeping writing style and her intimate grasp of the characters. Everyone is a Diane Duane book seems to be a close acquaintance of hers, and some of them her closest friends, she knows them so deeply. You just don't get an undeveloped character in a Duane novel. Her stuff doesn't seem to translate as well to other media, as the TV script she wrote for "The Next Generation" fell flat. This may be more due to rewriting than Duane's shortcomings, rewriting being a major problem during the series' Season 1.
This book is highly recommended, as are all Duane's novels.
Strangers From the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno (ST Giant Novel #2, July 1987)
Mankind knows that historically, Earth first encountered aliens when a spaceship reached Alpha Centauri, and some years later warp drive was discovered. An alliance between Earth, Andor, Tellar, and Vulcan provided the basis for the Federation a short time later. But a new book challenges that. It says that two Vulcans landed on Earth years before the first contact, and those aliens came on a ship powered by warp drive. After reading the book, Admiral James Kirk begins to have nightmares about the book's characters, who lived years before he was born. The dreams become so disturbing Kirk is committed for psychiatric evaluation, when Captain Spock returns to Earth from a training cruise and tells his commanding officer that he has had the same dreams.
To discover the reason for the shared memories, Spock mind-melds with Kirk and reveals suppressed memories of a mission in the early days of Kirk's command, when Gary Mitchell, Lee Kelso, and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner also served on the Enterprise. That group and Spock had been pulled through time to the Vulcan contact incident, and had to set it right and get the Vulcans headed back home. Spock must restore Kirk's memory of the incident before the repressed thoughts become a danger.
In many ways this is the book that "Enterprise," Vonda McIntyre's novel of the first adventure of Kirk and crew, should have been. McIntyre used the typical crew and ignored the original group from the second pilot. They are used to good effect here, as Kirk's friendship with Mitchell and with Kelso, his unease with Spock, and the counterpoint of Dr. Dehner are used to good effect. It was good to see the characters of Mitchell and Kelso in particular fleshed out. Mitchell as the controlled maverick and Kelso as "Old Reliable" are in fine form, and feel like three-dimensional characters. Bonanno's device of the character "Parneb," a Merlin-type, falls a bit flat.
In many ways this plot parallels the story of the Next Generation movie "First Contact," with Vulcans landing on Earth first. To be truthful, I like what Bonanno presents as the "accepted" story, as it makes more sense for Earth to reach out first. If the Vulcans can invent warp drive and other things themselves, why do they need humans? It makes more sense for the Vulcans to seek an alliance because humans can provide that spark of creativity that logic does not always allow.
The story itself works well. Once again, Bonanno spends most of her time on the Kirk-Spock dynamic, as before she examined in different characters in her novel "Dwellers in the Crucible." This time out she looks both at where they are just prior to the second movie, and how they developed that relationship in the very early days together on the Enterprise.
Dr. McCoy has a small part, but the other characters are little seen here. It's a good book, as Bonanno always writes well. The author has stated that only seven of the words from her manuscript were editorially changed for this book. That would be very different in her next effort, more on that story in a later essay.
It's a good solid novel and character study, holds up well over time. Of more interest to Star Trek fans than others.
Mankind knows that historically, Earth first encountered aliens when a spaceship reached Alpha Centauri, and some years later warp drive was discovered. An alliance between Earth, Andor, Tellar, and Vulcan provided the basis for the Federation a short time later. But a new book challenges that. It says that two Vulcans landed on Earth years before the first contact, and those aliens came on a ship powered by warp drive. After reading the book, Admiral James Kirk begins to have nightmares about the book's characters, who lived years before he was born. The dreams become so disturbing Kirk is committed for psychiatric evaluation, when Captain Spock returns to Earth from a training cruise and tells his commanding officer that he has had the same dreams.
To discover the reason for the shared memories, Spock mind-melds with Kirk and reveals suppressed memories of a mission in the early days of Kirk's command, when Gary Mitchell, Lee Kelso, and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner also served on the Enterprise. That group and Spock had been pulled through time to the Vulcan contact incident, and had to set it right and get the Vulcans headed back home. Spock must restore Kirk's memory of the incident before the repressed thoughts become a danger.
In many ways this is the book that "Enterprise," Vonda McIntyre's novel of the first adventure of Kirk and crew, should have been. McIntyre used the typical crew and ignored the original group from the second pilot. They are used to good effect here, as Kirk's friendship with Mitchell and with Kelso, his unease with Spock, and the counterpoint of Dr. Dehner are used to good effect. It was good to see the characters of Mitchell and Kelso in particular fleshed out. Mitchell as the controlled maverick and Kelso as "Old Reliable" are in fine form, and feel like three-dimensional characters. Bonanno's device of the character "Parneb," a Merlin-type, falls a bit flat.
In many ways this plot parallels the story of the Next Generation movie "First Contact," with Vulcans landing on Earth first. To be truthful, I like what Bonanno presents as the "accepted" story, as it makes more sense for Earth to reach out first. If the Vulcans can invent warp drive and other things themselves, why do they need humans? It makes more sense for the Vulcans to seek an alliance because humans can provide that spark of creativity that logic does not always allow.
The story itself works well. Once again, Bonanno spends most of her time on the Kirk-Spock dynamic, as before she examined in different characters in her novel "Dwellers in the Crucible." This time out she looks both at where they are just prior to the second movie, and how they developed that relationship in the very early days together on the Enterprise.
Dr. McCoy has a small part, but the other characters are little seen here. It's a good book, as Bonanno always writes well. The author has stated that only seven of the words from her manuscript were editorially changed for this book. That would be very different in her next effort, more on that story in a later essay.
It's a good solid novel and character study, holds up well over time. Of more interest to Star Trek fans than others.
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