I was fortunate enough in Calgary last night to stop by my bookstore, and saw not one, but two copies of
Infinity's Prism on the counter, and grabbed the better looking of the two...(one of them looked a little beaten up, probably due to shipping issues)
I just finished reading not five minutes ago,
A Less Perfect Union. So, I'll go ahead and offer a review of the story, as Geoff requested early readers do. LOL.
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A Less Perfect Union takes on the question, 'What would have happened if Terra Prime succeeded in isolating Earth?' We have an answer: in the aftermath of the attack on Starfleet Headquarters as a result of Paxton's verteron beam, we learned that all the diplomats gathered for the talks relating to the Coalition Compact were killed. Those worlds wanted Paxton's head, and so did Earth as well. Terra Prime members managed to find a loophole in the political and legal system and decided to try Paxton for crimes against humanity ONLY. Who cares about the off-worlders??? It sealed the fate for all those non-Terrans as they were forced and expelled from the planet, except for T'Pol. Like in E2, Trip and T'Pol get married, although there's no word whether they have a child, except for the mentioning of Elizabeth. Trip's fate is clearly detailed, and no, this is not a holodeck recording of it: Trip DOES DIE. I do not know whether it's supposed to be humorous or not, but it's funny that even with an 'authentic' death (even as authentic you can get with
Myriad Universes), it's still a regrettable and somewhat less than heroic way to go, much like his on-screen 'death' was depicted in
These Are The Voyages. I found humor in it, and found myself really liking this story because even if it is an alternate take on events, they're familiar enough that you could almost be watching them on television.
So as for the core narrative, a lot of the story parallels that of
Babel One, the ENT episode where Archer escorts a Tellarite delegation to meet with the Andorians to settle a trade dispute. In this case, Captain Pike and the
Enterprise escort a Terran delegation to meet with members of the Interstellar Coalition to discuss a union between the two. However, just like in
Babel One, the conference is disrupted by an unseen presence, and yes, that presence is the same in both the story and in the episode in that the Romulans once again try and cause havoc. There are several other plots that are followed, including T'Pol's uneasiness being around humans again, Kirk's racism towards Vulcans after what happened to Carol and David, Doctor McCoy's new assignment as the
Enterprise's CMO among others. For a short novel, it had a lot of substance to it, and I found it very enjoying. For me, it felt like a great bridge between ENT and TOS, even if it is only an 'alternate' story.
The Interstellar Coalition...ironic that even without the presence of Earth, and the influence of Jonathan Archer, the Coalition still moved forward, but not as it should have been. In
The Good That Men Do, Archer makes a plea to the fledging Coalition at the end to stand strong and united against the Romulans, just adding onto the dreams and desires he had for the Coalition that he expounded on in the episode
Terra Prime. The Coalition, and the Federation, ultimately, were created in support of cultural, technological, and militaristic interests that benefited the whole. In this instance, the signers of the Coalition only saw one part of what Archer was talking about: the need for defense. They had the look of the Coalition, but lacked the spirit of it. In the end, where T'Pol learns the truth of her situation, I could see for myself in what spirit the Coalition was created in: creating a détente against the Romulan Empire. But, what of the heart and soul? That's what Archer contributed to the idea of uniting worlds. And, through reading about the Coalition in the story, that's what I was missing from it: heart and soul... Again, a definite thumbs up here.
Even though I did mention that the narrative of the story follows a structure akin to
Babel One, one must also look at the story being akin to that of
The Undiscovered Country. One looks at Kirk to find that answer. In ST VI, Kirk couldn't get past his hatred for the Klingons for what they did to David. In this case, he couldn't get past his loathing of the Vulcans for what they did to Carol and to David. At the end of the story, T'Pol sees Trip in Kirk. Throughout the story, I saw a lot of Archer in Kirk, especially in the beginning. Pike I saw as a type of Admiral Forrest character. Sure, Kirk really didn't ever
like the Vulcans in this story, but he went a long way to trusting them, especially in the end where it mattered most.
For me, the one beautiful part of the story was the explanation for 'Babel'. For those who do not know the context of the story in the Bible, it is explained in the story for it is a short, but relevant story. You'll find it in Genesis 11: 1-9. The idea of all men speaking the same language is symbolic of all unions, especially the United Federation of Planets. Since the Coalition Compact of the television and literature Trek led to the UFP, it heralds the same idea. However, in the Genesis account, the men decided they were going to build a tower in that they can reach the heavens, essentially returning to God. Why? The account doesn't necessarily say why, although one can speculate that earlier in Genesis (Genesis 5), one of Adam's descendants, Enoch, walked with God, and was said that God took him. (You ask any Latter-day Saint and they can tell you what they believe happened to Enoch, myself included, but this is not about preaching
) I could speculate these people wanted that same blessing, and for their own protection (again, you can ask me in a Private Message what I mean by this), the Lord confounded the languages at Babel, thus making it impossible for the men to finish their tower. Now, in the context of this story, how does the Coalition Compact look like the Tower of Babel? In this context, Archer had everybody speaking the same language, but what he wasn't ready for was the fact that humanity had demons they needed to exorcise, but weren't willing to do. There was fear, resentment and distrust between Terrans and non-Terrans. Paxton fed that fear, and as a result, Earth and the other worlds went their own way. Kind of hard to describe Paxton as a deity in this case, but you could speculate about it. The Lord confounded the languages at Babel for two purposes: for their protection, and for a rebuke. Had Earth joined the Coalition before it was ready, it would have been damned, especially if people weren't willing to give up old prejudices. The result would have been civil war, or even a war between the Coaltion members. To look in the story, we see that even after the rescue of T'Pol, and the asylum of the Romulan Commander, Earth does not join the Coalition just yet. In fact, it's 100 years later concurrent with the events of TNG's episode 'Sarek', that United Earth has just only recently joined the Coalition. It took time, but it did happen, but only when people were ready. In this reality, humanity and non-humanity alike had to take time and resolve the conflict within before they could join and unite with each other.
It's funny because in this case, you almost have a more benign version of the Terran Empire depicted in this story. It's not like the Coalition and United Earth are enemies, but that they just really don't trust each other. Paxton fed the notion of Terran supremacy, and until Empress Sato along with T'Pol reformed that notion, granting Vulcan an equal status with Earth in
Age Of The Empress, the Empire believed that as well. A main difference is that law governs United Earth, where chaos and anarchy governed the Empire. May sound far-fetched, but this is where my mind went when reading this story. There's more here than what meets the eye.
This story contains a lot of juice in 179 pages. The narrative was awesome, and the little nuggets in the story worked out really well. I was unsure whether I'd buy a series like this, but with stories like
A Less Perfect Union, I can see why I liked it. I look forward to reading the rest of the stories in not just this volume, but in Volume 2 as well. All in all, this story rocked!
