Are these novels any good and would you recomend them?
Eugenics Wars.
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Yes, they're really good, fast, lot's of Action, good characters and it's quite entertaining to see how all those little bits of information we have about that period are tied together to one big panorama. Definitely Greg Cox best books and also among the best TOS-Books.
Simply and to the point, I will have to pick them up, are they available on Kindle?
not really, no.
For me the duology is the weakest part of Greg Cox's Star Trek bibliography. Way too many nods and references to Star Trek and other pop culture items (and I'm saying this as someone who actually likes such things), way too much cheesy Seven and Roberta stuff and too little actual insights into Khan and the Eugenic Wars.
sorry, i didn't like the 'secret' nature of the Eugenics Wars. Spock's descriptions in Space Seed sound more like open warfare and naked aggression to me. World War 2 with '90s gear.
^Like I always say, I don't think the Eugenics Wars as portrayed in the books were nearly as "secret" as the hype would have it. I mean, we were shown that Khan was the ruler of a large kingdom; it's not like all those people were unaware of his existence. The story was told in such a way that Americans might not have noticed that these things were going on, but then, that's not hard to do, given how insular and parochial Americans tend to be.
Also, a lot of the things in the books were major events that the whole world was aware of; they were just presented as being caused by the machinations of the Augments (to retcon that term onto the book for convenience).
Anyway, a number of things that we know about WWII were secret at the time. The Manhattan Project was a big secret. And the world as a whole didn't really know the whole truth about Nazi concentration camps until after they were liberated. The way an event is taught by history is often different from the way it's experienced by those living through it, because history filters, reinterprets, and systematizes the events it describes.
Also, a lot of the things in the books were major events that the whole world was aware of; they were just presented as being caused by the machinations of the Augments (to retcon that term onto the book for convenience).
Anyway, a number of things that we know about WWII were secret at the time. The Manhattan Project was a big secret. And the world as a whole didn't really know the whole truth about Nazi concentration camps until after they were liberated. The way an event is taught by history is often different from the way it's experienced by those living through it, because history filters, reinterprets, and systematizes the events it describes.
Well, since that didn't happen, the fundamental purpose of the book (to fit a fictional war into a real-history framework) would have had to be different.
I personally don't much care for the core premise of the Eugenics Wars being a "secret war" that can be reconciled with real 1990s history. BUT I found these books to be very well written, very entertaining and found the characterization of Khan to be very compelling and true to the original. The in-jokes and cross-overs may be a little much for people, but I didn't have a problem with then (and I usually get iritated by such references very quickly).
I recommend them all.
I recommend them all.
I enjoyed the books as well, but after the end of the second book, one wonders where Roberta and Rain were when things got really bad in the 21st century. Why wasn't there anyone from Gary Seven's world to prevent WWIII?
There was a time when I really liked the Eugenics Wars books. But sadly, after ENT's Augment Trilogy, I don't feel that they fit anymore. ENT established that the death toll of the Wars was around 30 to 35 million, nowhere near as high as the books made out. ENT also established that at the time of their defeat, Khan and other Augments were fully capable of creating new generations of Augments from embryos; while they did attempt this in the books, they definitely failed.
Subsequent Trek fiction has established that 9/11 and the War on Terror took place in the Trekverse. But seriously, would someone like Khan have let someone like Saddam Hussein remain in power in Iraq? I don't think so (Unless Khan's empire never included Iraq).
Subsequent Trek fiction has established that 9/11 and the War on Terror took place in the Trekverse. But seriously, would someone like Khan have let someone like Saddam Hussein remain in power in Iraq? I don't think so (Unless Khan's empire never included Iraq).
Maybe the books only told part of the story. I'm willing to squint a little and gloss over some of the details. After all, the books are presented in the context of Kirk reading the historical records of the EW. Maybe some things were overlooked in those records.
Well, for one thing, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, despite the Bush administration's self-serving lies. Saddam was a secular leader who came to power on an Arab-nationalist platform and pursued policies of modernization and Westernization, and thus was exactly the kind of person that bin Laden and al-Qaida saw as their primary enemies in their fight to convert the Mideast to theocracy. Sure, after the first Gulf War, Saddam claimed solidarity with Islamists, but that was only because it was politically expedient to do so, since the Islamists' characterization of the US as an evil invader aligned with his own self-interest. But in reality, the Islamists hated his guts. So there's no reason why there should be any correlation between whether Saddam was in power and whether 9/11 happened. Although if Saddam had been replaced by a Khan flunky, it would've actually made the War on Terror more effective, since Bush wouldn't have used 9/11 as an excuse to pursue his family grudge against Saddam and therefore US military resources would not have been diverted away from Afghanistan where they belonged.
For another thing, Saddam's rule was threatened in the '90s by increasing ethnic unrest and dissidence within the Iraqi military. Within a Trek context, those could've been secretly backed by Khan as an effort to overthrow Saddam and expand his empire, but they didn't succeed before Khan was overthrown.
