Re: Star Trek: Mirror Universe: Rise Like Lions review thread (spoiler
Just finished.
It was enjoyable, and it certainly did a good job of wrapping things up, which can't have been easy given that the Mirror Universe saga was never the most cohesive collection of stories, and characters so often came and went to fill the People Must Die quota, which is particular to this universe. Crafting a large-scale arc out of such a mess is an impressive task, and I can't complain about the thought put into it. Still, I thought it was weaker than usual for David Mack, mostly because it seemed to lack the
cohesive emotional depth of his other works. Individual scenes still had the weight I've come to expect from his story-telling, but the novel didn't entirely hold itself together. In some ways it felt a lot like reading
To Brave the Storm again; the content being engrossing and the emotion hitting true, but without much time to stop and let it sink in. Given that the book had from the start the same basic complication as
TBtS - the story needing to follow on from other works while also flashing through multiple years - this isn't too surprising, but it did drive home how Mack's works are at their most effective when the plot's a lot more compressed, so the events and character moments hit with greater impact. (
A Time To Kill/Heal, Warpath, various
Vanguards, Destiny, Zero Sum Game...besides
Sorrows of Empire, was this his first multi-year novel?)
Time went by a bit too swiftly a bit too often, and the scene jumped around a little too rapidly for my taste. Again, I don't think that could really be helped given that the book had to encompass and then conclude a dozen pre-established character arcs sprinkled across the MU and largely unrelated up until now. The resolution
was satisfying on multiple fronts, both character-wise and political, so it certainly did its job. It just felt less satisfying than it might have. The chapter on Vulcan, with the accounts of free Vulcans returning to the birthworld, was very powerful, and a great echo/mirror of the Vulcan scene in
The Sorrows of Empire (one of the most powerful scenes in Trek lit, in my opinion). The transition of "Hallowed be Spock's Name" to Gleer droning on about Spock's recording without the point really sinking in was amusing and also strangely reassuring. Having Gleer be more or less a constant regardless of universe actually helps sell the Commonwealth-as-Federation idea better than any moralizing speeches. Indeed, choosing to represent the full reality of the new system of government - that it's boring, annoying, slow and difficult - is a good sign, because it shows they're taking it
seriously. It would be easy to pay lip service to their new ideals, but their willingness to actually spend hours discussing whatever Zife's got into his head about resource allocation lets us know that this is a government we can root for. But the point is also made that the idealism needs to be there too, and the Commonwealth's business can't just devolve into being mundane or taken for granted, because then what would stop them growing disillusioned with the effort and falling into old habits? As zh'Faila says, the Commonwealth peoples need to reject the easy route now and dedicate themselves to a harder one, so they need to be sustained by the will to not be their ancestors...and not to be Spock, despite everything he did for them.
(Mirror Spock's a fantastic character in these stories, by the way. He's like a Lord Vetinari who actually believes in "good" (if people get the reference...). He's so clear-headed a villain he goes right through to the other side and uses his "evil" to serve "good", knowingly. And he uses his villainy to destroy other villains...as well as himself. He was smart enough to know he couldn't win so he dedicated himself with heroic zeal to losing - and sweeping the entire board out from under him at the same time. And then posting a note saying "no one ever play this again, please"
).
So, yes, I thought these concluding scenes were very effective at presenting a multi-faceted face for the Commonwealth as part of a positive ending, and they did pay off emotionally, particularly the bit on Vulcan. And on the personal front, I'm very glad Smiley and Keiko ended up where they did.
Kes' story had a surprising ending, but I was intrigued by it, too. And Ezri's fate made me smile. There was much to like; it's just that it all happened without a sense of weight behind it such as I usually find in a Mack novel. I'm not sure I'm explaining this at all well. Perhaps it
is the time-skipping and "rapid" nature of the plot's progression, or maybe it's just that the MU "doesn't count" as much in my perceptions and so it's more of an upstream effort to drive the emotion home? For whatever reason, it seemed to me one of Mack's weakest...but it's still very enjoyable, skillfully crafted and satisfying as a conclusion to the MU. So I guess it is another
Beneath the Raptor's Wing, or another
Cast No Shadow - good, but not to the author's highest standard.
I just finished reading Rise Like lions the ending of the novel makes you wonder
