"The Body Electric" is now finished, thanks to a slow day at the counter running a riftbound launch event. As a given (and once I have the ability to edit posts I'll likely edit my first post to state this) there will be spoilers in my posts in this thread and I ask that people don't spoil anything I haven't read yet.
As I said in my introduction, I don't know that I'll have particularly in-depth reviews, and I describe how I read to my wife (who is much more analytical) as letting the story wash over me. I'm also not sure how much of a review I can write compared to restating the plot, but I can bring my highs and lows out.
The Body Electric by David Mack (and some thoughts on the trilogy of the whole)
Published December 2012
Part 3 of the Cold Equations trilogy, and a follow-up to "The Immortal Coil". I admittedly did not read The Immortal Coil though I think I picked up everything I needed to know from context over the trilogy. I enjoyed the premise of this book, and also that all 3 of the books in the trilogy could even be said to stand on their own with self-contained episodic narratives. The thing that stood out to me the most was the b-plot with Chen, perhaps just because I like interpersonal "drama", but I found it interesting how it tied back into the story near the end.
The main plot of book 1 is Data's return to life, upon which he speaks about searching out The Immortal Flint/Vaslovik. This is partially due to his father's obsession (I found Soong to be a grating egotist, but I suspect this was the intent), but I believe it's also stated because he knows how to revive Lal, Data's daughter.
Book 2 starts with this quest but is sidetracked by Typhon Pact politics, which I found quite interesting. I was saddened by the murder if Esperanza, which again, I expect is somewhat the point. A character who's been at Bacco's side for quite a while now is suddenly snuffed out, which Bacco definitely feels.
One thing that bugged me throughout the book (and perhaps the previous one) was use of acronyms. By the end of this book, the one that kept coming up was MSD, which is "Master Systems Display" (I have now looked it up to confirm), and I gathered as much from context, it just bugged me a bit. Nitpicky, I know.
Returning to book 3, we get the main follow-ups with Flint and the AIs, and a converging plot of a large Machine Entity, effectively a cousin of V'Ger, who may destroy the galaxy. The crew attempt to reason with, and upon failing diplomatically, destroy it. The destruction attempt goes poorly, as I somewhat expected with no characters I recognized going on that mission.
Wesley Crusher returns again in this book from the travelers, and I didn't feel particularly strongly about it. He was there, and had some interaction with his mother and Picard about his nature and how he viewed humanity, perhaps it helped put things in perspective.
Data felt a bit swing-y in this book to me, but he was under extreme pressure in the book between being a captive and forced to torture flint, after which he internally is quite angry and his internal narrative talks about holding himself back from killing their captor. The captor seems to see the error of their ways and is just let go by Data at the end, which felt a bit lacking.
I also disliked the conclusion's trolley-problem style ending of Data being forced to choose between McAdams and Flint (and by extension Lal), with both yelling at him to save the other, but I suppose they can't all be happy endings (I don't have to like the ending for it to be a good story). His choice gives us a set-up for stories with Data and Lal, opening ground to explore that relationship and Data's newfound parental feelings.
Writing this post reminds me why I don't attempt to do literary analysis. Everything I describe is just this was "Interesting" or doesn't particularly catch my interest and then some nitpicks and meta-analysis.
For the STRO website I'll need to make listings for some of the recurring splinter timeline characters and I don't think Taurik has a listing yet, but my notes so far include Picard, Data, Crusher, Geordi, Worf, Wesley, and Chen as main, Taurik, Rene, Flint, McAdams, Elfiki, Sm???rhova , and Dygon as supporting, and Q and the Traveler as other. In particular I need to re-figure out what rank many of the Starfleet characters are.
