When I stopped off at the huge BMV used bookstore on Bloor Street in downtown Toronto afrter work last night, I was surprised and pleased to find a near-mint copy of Diane Duane's 1997 TNG novel Intellivore for just $C2.99. I like Duane, I like her Trek novels, I like that one my copy is packed in my parents' basement on Prince Edward Island), I'd an evening free, so the logic for picking the book up seemed unimpeachable.
My conclusion? Intellivore stands up well, a mystery/horror-leaning novel that reflects a lot of Duane's interests and fits in pretty well with many of the themes that modern Trek is exploring.
The novel begins with the Enterprise-D being sent, along with the Galaxy-class Oraidhe captained by the Trill Gohod Clif, to join the long-range explorer Marignano (captained by Ileen Maisel, a former subordinate of Picard from the Stargazer) in policing the pirate- and disappearance-prone fringes of the Orion Arm by the eerie ruins of Kepler's Supernova. It's not long at all before the three ships discover that something much worse is hiding in the dark, something that has a taste for souls. Something Must Be Done.
Intellivore fits into the Duaneverse as influenced by TNG and DS9, the blue-green colour of Trill's atmosphere popping here and references made to the sort of generation-starship travels made by the proto-Romulans/Rihannsu and the unusual mathematics of the Hamalki (akin to that of the Trill, it seems) being mentioned in passing. An annoying thing is the discrepancy in the depiction of her mobile trading culture the Lalairu, in the Dark Mirror where they were introduced being a multispecies trading civilization with an impenetrable language, here in Intellivore the Lalairu are shown as a culture drawn from a single species capable of regenerating indefinitely so long as a DNA coil remains Intellivore. Minor discrepancies--let's say they ran into two different Lalairu subcultures--and I can't help but wonder whether Pocket Books in its pre-continuity days forced this shift in the description of the Lalairu.
This novel isn't as immediately engaging as Dark Mirror, though I suspect that may be because Intellivore lacks the Mirror Universe hooks that made Dark Mirror so fantastic (fun-loving Security Officer Deanna Troi, say). It's a quieter sort of story, the initial investigations into piracy and disappearances becoming more complicated when it turns out that there are worse things out there than the quotidian pirate. Some entities don't want your property, or your life even; some entities might want you, the life force that makes anyone a person.
Picard featured prominently, a man trying to lead a coherent response to an unexpected horror, as did Data (our hero) and the Dr. Crusher who outlined the mechanics of what was going on, while her new characters of Captains Clif and Maisel--one mature, the other impetuous, both engagingly inquisite--got me.
One major element of Intellivore that I appreciated at the time and still do now is the extent to which it's rooted in a wider universe. It's part of the Duaneverse, as I mentioned, and the sentient planet Iruh that sucked the minds of shiploads of proto-Rihannsu makes an appearance here. The action takes place in a three-ship task force, letting the TNG characters interact with their peers in a more socially complex Starfleet environment that we're used to in the novels. There are distinctive cultures, like the hapless life-hating Third Submission colonists on their mission, or the Lalairu. Most interestingly, Intellivore refers to the sciences, not only to the hard(ish) sciences but to the social sciences, to the indexed folklore of a galactic civilization. I encountered this sort of thing much later in Christopher's The Buried Age and liked it even more then. Trek's good as a rule, but Trek that's explicitly embedded in an actual universe is even better.
Intellivore is a fun book, with interesting characters featuring in a compelling plot with plenty of action and cool natural and social background. I have to wonder why Intellivore hasn't been reissued, like Laurell K. Hamilton's Nightshade. Duane's a non-Trek writer of the same scale as Hamilton, and Intellivore fits with the Destiny-era continuity's emphasis on individual identity. Coming across a passage describing someone begging to keep his soul, I couldn't help but think of the way in which the Borg was constructed as an entity bent on the domination and exploitation of others' intimate identities. (And as for the thing that was taking the souls, well.)
My conclusion? Intellivore stands up well, a mystery/horror-leaning novel that reflects a lot of Duane's interests and fits in pretty well with many of the themes that modern Trek is exploring.
The novel begins with the Enterprise-D being sent, along with the Galaxy-class Oraidhe captained by the Trill Gohod Clif, to join the long-range explorer Marignano (captained by Ileen Maisel, a former subordinate of Picard from the Stargazer) in policing the pirate- and disappearance-prone fringes of the Orion Arm by the eerie ruins of Kepler's Supernova. It's not long at all before the three ships discover that something much worse is hiding in the dark, something that has a taste for souls. Something Must Be Done.
Intellivore fits into the Duaneverse as influenced by TNG and DS9, the blue-green colour of Trill's atmosphere popping here and references made to the sort of generation-starship travels made by the proto-Romulans/Rihannsu and the unusual mathematics of the Hamalki (akin to that of the Trill, it seems) being mentioned in passing. An annoying thing is the discrepancy in the depiction of her mobile trading culture the Lalairu, in the Dark Mirror where they were introduced being a multispecies trading civilization with an impenetrable language, here in Intellivore the Lalairu are shown as a culture drawn from a single species capable of regenerating indefinitely so long as a DNA coil remains Intellivore. Minor discrepancies--let's say they ran into two different Lalairu subcultures--and I can't help but wonder whether Pocket Books in its pre-continuity days forced this shift in the description of the Lalairu.
This novel isn't as immediately engaging as Dark Mirror, though I suspect that may be because Intellivore lacks the Mirror Universe hooks that made Dark Mirror so fantastic (fun-loving Security Officer Deanna Troi, say). It's a quieter sort of story, the initial investigations into piracy and disappearances becoming more complicated when it turns out that there are worse things out there than the quotidian pirate. Some entities don't want your property, or your life even; some entities might want you, the life force that makes anyone a person.
Picard featured prominently, a man trying to lead a coherent response to an unexpected horror, as did Data (our hero) and the Dr. Crusher who outlined the mechanics of what was going on, while her new characters of Captains Clif and Maisel--one mature, the other impetuous, both engagingly inquisite--got me.
One major element of Intellivore that I appreciated at the time and still do now is the extent to which it's rooted in a wider universe. It's part of the Duaneverse, as I mentioned, and the sentient planet Iruh that sucked the minds of shiploads of proto-Rihannsu makes an appearance here. The action takes place in a three-ship task force, letting the TNG characters interact with their peers in a more socially complex Starfleet environment that we're used to in the novels. There are distinctive cultures, like the hapless life-hating Third Submission colonists on their mission, or the Lalairu. Most interestingly, Intellivore refers to the sciences, not only to the hard(ish) sciences but to the social sciences, to the indexed folklore of a galactic civilization. I encountered this sort of thing much later in Christopher's The Buried Age and liked it even more then. Trek's good as a rule, but Trek that's explicitly embedded in an actual universe is even better.
Intellivore is a fun book, with interesting characters featuring in a compelling plot with plenty of action and cool natural and social background. I have to wonder why Intellivore hasn't been reissued, like Laurell K. Hamilton's Nightshade. Duane's a non-Trek writer of the same scale as Hamilton, and Intellivore fits with the Destiny-era continuity's emphasis on individual identity. Coming across a passage describing someone begging to keep his soul, I couldn't help but think of the way in which the Borg was constructed as an entity bent on the domination and exploitation of others' intimate identities. (And as for the thing that was taking the souls, well.)
