I listened to the podcast . Nice to hear the discussion about this novel. And serious topics mentioned in the book dealing with Lenore Karidian's dealing with mental illness and her dealing with it. I liked hearing Greg talking about writing this book and hopefully we'll get some more TOS movie era novels please.I like seeing novels with a more mature Kirk and crew members.
Thank you! I am with you, I really hope we get more movie era novels. I am a little weary of the TOS 5 year mission books and think these are the perfect antidote. We have plenty of other great interviews too
Finally had the chance to get to this one, read through it in one sitting. Overall, I was mostly pleased. The characterizations were mostly on point, especially the more reflective Kirk and the more expressive Spock. For the most point, the plot worked for me, although it did feel somewhat disjointed. Most of my complaints with the book would fall into the nitpicking category. Some of the references to past events felt a tad shoehorned, and I think there is a dating problem timeline wise. I had two significant problems with the book that ended up bringing my overall impression down from very good to just pretty good. One, my reading of the book seemed to indicate that Chekov was new to the job of security chief and was proving himself up to the task for the first time to Kirk. That not only flies in the face of what we see in TMP, where Chekov is established as Security Chief there in 2273, and with the fact that by 2288, the time of the book, Chekov had not just been Kirk's security chief before, but the first officer of the Reliant for some time as well. This isn't the green behind the ears Chekov of TOS, this is a seasoned forty something year old Commander Chekov. While I appreciated the focus on Pavel, and the use of a literal Chekov's Gun, the overall characterization felt off compared to how well the rest of the cast fared. My second, and more serious problem, is the resolution to the central whodunit. Without spoiling anything, I felt the solution came rather out of left field, and was just one callback too many. Certainly the events that follow the Scooby Doo moment style reveal are more or less deftly handled, but the actual answer to the mystery left me somewhat cold. Still, if Greg Cox wants to give me more movie era stories that are at least this good, if not even better, then go ahead and sign me up. The movie era is perhaps the most underrepresented era in Trek lit recently, so the more the merrier.
Even though I don't really like the movie era books(they remind me that for this crew the end is nearing) I genuinely enjoyed this one,the plot fairly rattled along.I will confess however that I skipped the whole hostage rescue sequence as these things are always a little tired and cliched(but this being a Kirk book,probably mandatory). It was nice to see Kirk's more mature attitude to Lenore and finally see her achieve some form of redemption(though we won' mention the conveniently glassed- jawed redshirt) .
Same here. Very much enjoyed this one, and feel that the whole, "there-are-now-fewer-days-ahead-than-behind-us" undercurrent-vibe to the later TOS movie era is actually one of its chief strengths and attractions. It provides a rather sharp contrast to the 5YM novels. Here's hoping that Greg (and other writers) return to this era soon -- speaking of which, Greg, any tiny tidbits you could throw our way concerning your next two TOS books (including your outline-stage movie-period one)?
I agree with you both. Great interview and I would love to read more novels from the movie era! Also a big welcome to the new co-host of the show Dan
Thank you! I'm a long-time listener of Literary Treks and was absolutely thrilled when Matthew asked me to join the team!
I deliberately watched "The/A Conscience of a King" and then immediately began reading this book. Another excellent book from Greg Cox. The plot was rather standard, and not too engaging, but as always I appreciate Greg's ability to capture the essence of TOS/Movie Era characters and settings. It was a very easy to visualize novel, and I appreciated how he was able to give Lenore Karidian some depth and tie up her story rather neatly. Bonus points for making a Horta an engaging and interesting character.
Finally got to this one, and I liked it. The whole bit of "The Enterprise mediates peace talks between warring factions and someone is trying to sabotage them" setup could have been routine, but the involvement of Lenore Karidian and the baggage of her past with Kirk and Riley gave it a lot of emotional weight and tension, particularly with the characters' doubts -- especially Lenore's own -- about whether she was truly sane and reformed. Unlike some, I liked the hostage rescue sequence, which felt very much like the kind of thing you'd see in a Trek movie from this era. And I disagree with those who've said that Kirk shouldn't have brought Lenore to the ship because of her reputation. Star Trek is supposed to be about a future where people don't discriminate or give in to prejudice. And the assumption that a criminal can never reform or that a mentally ill person can never be healed is just one more prejudice. Lenore was rehabilitated and paid her debt, and she deserved to be treated the same as anyone else, not hated for the rest of her life for something she did as a result of an illness that's now been cured. I admired Kirk for his commitment to basic fairness despite his personal baggage. One problem I did have with the plot was that it could've been easily resolved if they just had security cameras in the corridors. But it's been long since established that, for some reason, Starfleet vessels do not have such a thing, and thus Greg was just being consistent with the universe. Still, I wonder why a tricorder scan of the murder scenes didn't pick up the evidence detected by Chekov's respiratory system. I noticed that, but the later instances happened after the ship had been damaged, so maybe the sensors were down. It was mentioned that Kirk did try to give Riley a heads-up, but Riley was in meetings all day and couldn't be reached. Except the book also establishes how dangerous it is, and how desperate one would have to be in order to try it. The attempts that were made to compensate for the drawbacks of the process proved unsuccessful. Nor was it easy, since the safeguards on the transporter had to be disabled. I didn't get any sense from the book that Chekov was new to the security post. Indeed, I seem to recall references to Chekov's past experience in the post. However, the time frame of the book would place it not long after TFF, and thus probably less than a year after Chekov resumed his old post as the Enterprise security chief after several years serving as Reliant's first officer. That could account for any sense that he has something to prove. And since it's 20 years after "Conscience," that would put it in 2286-7, depending on your TOS chronology. The Okudas put TFF in '87, so this would have to be after that, though I've never been able to justify putting it later than '86.
Glad you liked the book. And, yeah, the lack of security cameras, even in vital areas, reads as really odd to modern eyes, but plenty of old TOS episodes--including "The Conscience of the King"--seem to imply that they don't exist . . . .
Maybe that's the result of the Statutes of Alpha III or the Martian Declaration of Independence, i.e. there's a historical reason. Privacy rights.
^Yeah, but if privacy rights were to be subordinated to security anywhere, it'd be on a military vessel. Particularly the VIP section when you had diplomats aboard and needed to ensure their security.
There was an IDW comic series a few years back (Burden of Knowledge) set late during the 5YM which explored this a bit, with a newly-encountered species using the Alfa 177-method to duplicate captured beings for organ-harvesting, etc. As far a repercussions went, basically it was exactly what Christopher just mentioned -- revealed to be extremely dangerous, and possessing huge drawbacks, despite some of the economic benefits. I remember a passage in the ST:TMP novelization where Kirk takes a moment to spy on the Enterprise crew just prior to the Rec Deck scene (he covertly activates several different surveillance cameras around the ship, and notes that everyone is totally hauling ass to get the ship spaceworthy in time for the pushed-up launch ). Possibly this was a doctrine that fell out of favor at some point between 2273 and 2288, with internal cameras removed from the more "public" areas of starships, though we do know from stories like Star Trek IV that sensitive regions such as the bridge still had around-the-clock recording underway.
Well, not exactly. I just checked, and the comics story doesn't overtly reference "The Enemy Within" in any way. The "transporter replicants," of which there are hundreds, are perfectly viable, and Spock explains that the process is outlawed for ethical reasons, rather than the kind of non-viability seen here. So presumably it's a different technique, more like the accident that created Thomas Riker. The engine room too, since Kirk and Sarek in ST III were able to watch a recording of Spock's meld with Bones.
Right, yeah -- looking back, I probably should've phrased that differently, there. Since they were a new Starfleet contact, it wouldn't have been the exact Alfa 177-technique, but more of a similar-yet-new method (as you mentioned, which is what I was also largely thinking when I typed that).