Spoilers TOS: The Captain's Oath by Christopher L. Bennett Review Thread

It's about 6 weeks later, enough time for Mere Anarchy Book 1: Things Fall Apart. I figured the trip out to even the nearest face of the galactic disk would take a month or more (even with the "speed lane"), and we know from Vanguard: Harbinger that it took 8 weeks to limp back from the Taurus Reach to home, so it probably took even longer to limp back from the edge to Vanguard. The travel time alone eats up months, so they have to get assigned the mission fairly soon in Kirk's tenure.

That's the thing -- if the galaxy's edge could be reached quickly, it wouldn't be "Where No Man Has Gone Before." So you can't just casually slot it into a string of adventures -- unless those adventures happen while they're en route. Who knows? Maybe they get into an adventure on the way to Aldebaran Colony, or once they reach it. Maybe they answer a distress call along the way and get drawn into a story that way. And so on.

 

The frame and flashback structuring felt right for the book, definitely. Glad that was always the plan.

The program that McCoy gets involved in definitely gave me the sense that it tied in to the Doctor's earlier visit to the world in "Friday's Child," and it helped me understand why Starfleet was in contact with the civilization there (I like the explanation for how that situation came to be). I felt sad that McCoy had left the Sacagawea, but the reason for it made sense to me.

Yes, I thought of Bailey, and the younger Garrovick was on my mind as well. The moment were Garrovick punches him to try and play the hero, but Kirk is still forgiving of mistakes. I've read other authors play out similar scenarios; the one that jumps most readily to mind is a crewman in the novel First Frontier who also uses physical violence for some reason, and Kirk later forgives him. The outcome with Diaz and Lee Kelso in this book made me think of that; even after a temporary betrayal or an impulsive moment of violence, Kirk still nurtures the characters' strengths going forward.

Thank you for the book, I had a lot of fun with it. And thank you for the behind-the-scenes perspective, as well. Hope the book does well.

I actually had a similar thought, too; I was surprised that TCO implies a direct lead in to the second pilot episode. It made me think of Doctor Dehner saying something about that Spock and Gary had already been colleagues for years (I've read on here some people interpret that as a minimum of two, and extrapolated that the Enterprise crew shown in Where No Man has been the key Enterprise senior staff for those two years; but I can't remember the details of others refuting those extrapolations. I thought I remember reading something about how The Making of Star Trek says that the first time we see Kirk in the show, he's already been Captain of the Enterprise for two years, but apologies if I'm mis-remembering, my memory is really bad sometimes.)

My preferences sound similar to yours, Damian. I think it works well for the book as a standalone story that draws connections between other novels and it's primary source, the original television series. It gives a strong context for the book's own place in the continuity. Plus one can always look at it from the standpoint that Christopher Bennett is dramatizing the "real" version of the adventures of Kirk and the Enterprise, and taking small liberties to strengthen the idea of the book by leading into WNM.

Happily we get a more direct, straightforward elaboration:

Emphasis mine. If there's room for a whole bunch of adventures, on the way there, and on the way back, too, that's great! And all before the 5YM kicks off.

 

I don't think I'd call Kelso action a betrayal. On the contrary, he was refusing to act in what he saw as a violation of the Prime Directive and Starfleet regulations. It's not like he actively mutinied or tried to sabotage the operation; he merely informed the captain promptly that he was unable on principle to follow his orders, so that he could be relieved of duty in favor of someone who could. That's basically the right thing to do in that situation.

Honestly, I wasn't aware of that line until just now. I really should've reviewed the episode more carefully, but it got lost in the rush. And I fell prey to the downside of expertise -- you assume you know all you need to, so you don't double-check.

Anyway, it's reconcilable. Since Dehner only came aboard recently at Aldebaran, she doesn't necessarily know Spock and Mitchell's prior history and may have jumped to an erroneous conclusion.

It says that Kirk is 34 and has captained the Enterprise for a bit over 4 years, and Kirk was 34 as of "The Deadly Years" in season 2. But of course, offscreen info isn't canonical. (TMoST also said Scotty was an only child, yet the TWOK extended cut gave him a sister and a nephew.)

 

Oops, I over simplified it. It reads exactly as you elaborate here. It's a good scene, because Kelso and Kirk are both right, in their own ways. Nice follow up scene,too, with Kirk encouraging him. Kelso comes across really well there, makes his character more interesting, and tragic. Apologies for misrepresenting your depiction of Lee.

I watched that episode recently to get into the spirit of things, before reading the book. Twice. Once for fun, a few weeks before I was able to start TCO. And then again right before I started reading, because I enjoyed re-visiting it, also for fun. The line jumped out at me because I remember some talk about what it suggested somewhere on the forum. I just thought it was an interesting possibility to contemplate, a surprising possibility. The episode and that line were fresh on my mind. Actually, I also wanted to get a handle on Gary Lockwood's performance of Gary Mitchell, and Paul Carr's performance of Lee Kelso.

Ah, thank you for clarifying that detail.

 

Just posted my video review. I loved this novel, great character work for a young James T. Kirk.

 

Finished it today. If indeed it in one sitting, it might have been easier to follow.
Perhaps the best part was the dialogue in the last chapter with admiral Comsol.

 

Finished this yesterday. Rated outstanding. Really, deeply enjoyed it. I loved the refugee and prime directive storylines and felt that the characterization of Kirk was spot on. Favorite book I’ve read in a good while!

 

I voted it 'Outstanding'. I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I thought the flashbacks and leaps forward meshed very well. I particularly enjoyed the Sacagawea crew members and how well developed they were...to the point of wanting to see more of them, if possible at some point.

The best praise I think I can give about The Captains Oath, is that it usually takes me a week or two of reading a few chapters a night to finish a book...I finished this one in a day and a half! Great job Christoper and thanks!!

 

I'm re-visiting the book in audiobook format, after having read it with my own eyes a month or so ago. I'm going through it at a relaxed pace, and so far I'm really enjoying it at a more leisurely speed. I like the narrator, his performance sounds right at home with the performance style of Star Trek actors generally. I can't get more specific, that's just a general impression. He does a really good impression of Captain Kirk, but it might be annoying to fans who feel the periodic pauses in his dialogue is over exaggerated in the public perception of Shatner's acting. I personally have found it to sound like a man who is thinking through parts of what he's saying next while he's already speaking. Anyway, the narrator gives a good rendering of Kirk, as well as McCoy and Sulu.

A major positive point is that he is pronouncing the Sacagawea the way Chrisopher Bennett has established in the book (Sa KAH ga wea, more emphasis on the second syllable, hard G). What's interesting is I've already seen a couple youtube videos and review podcasts that pronounce it the way Bones did when talking with Kirk early in the book, which has made my eyes pop out. I had difficulty with it, and spent a few moments early on in the book trying to get right, so that I would read it right every time it came up. Sometimes I pronounced it out loud when I came to the name in the book. I think it was only towards the last half or third of the book that it became more or less second nature. The narrator for the audiobook does it second nature with any telling pause.

Edited to add: A major point when any audiobook is the narrator, and that can sometimes be a huge deal breaker. And this may sound prejudiced, but even as someone in the US, I sometimes find it very easy to get annoyed by narrators with an American English accent. I'm spoiled on a lot of British narrators, and almost never come across one that I dislike. Before I bought the audiobook for TCO, I listened to the narration sample on Amazon. The fact that the narrator, Robert Petkoff, immediately did not annoy me was huge. I heard enough of his rendering of Captain Kirk's dialogue to sell me on the audio. I hope they keep him for Star Trek books for a good long while, I think he's a good fit for them.

The prose flows well, and is so far very easy to listen to in audio format.

It works okay for the weird way I do audiobooks, which is usually to re-visit a book in a more "lazy" way. When I say that, I don't mean people who listen to audiobooks are being lazy. I just mean that I personally will re-experience a book in a more lazy way, because I know the flow of the story, and I know what unusual words and names look like spelled on the page. I know what Khorasani's name looks like, and I've heard the word's she's spoken without accent in my head; so when the narrator speaks them with accent, the accent doesn't throw me off.

You're talking about the time-jumps between events on the Sacagawea, and I agree that it might be difficult on audio. With the book, I was able to physically flip back and forth between sections. So a moment where the story jumps from Enterprise to Vega Colony, to Sacagawea I can definitely see as being disorientating. While physically reading with my eyes, I did pause and flip back and forth, and took a few moments to anchor myself and figure out that Chrisopher Bennett broadcasts were the story is going to jump to in the next very heavily in the closing paragraphs of a given section early on. I can see the numbers on the page, and if I want, jot down a timeline for a visual. With the audiobook, I tend not to do this kind of things. Numbers, and years kind of don't register as strongly.

The audio works okay after having read it physically, and doing a little extra work anchoring the overall novel's trajectory. It flows easily as a listen. But I will tell you, every once in a while I do listen to an audiobook as a first time experience of a book, and that really is a bit more disorientating; I will listen to it differently than when I'm listening to a book I am re-experiencing.

 

Just finished the book.

Absolutely loved it. It fit perfectly with the Kirk we meet in early season TOS. Great to see the events that formed his captaincy.

Thanks for your literary efforts @Christopher

 

One could argue that given the pivotal role Spock has played in many previous conflicts, Kirk felt that the odds of another such catastrophe were high, and that therefore saving Spock in effect would prevent (future) threats to the ship, crew, Federation, etc.

Back on topic...about the book. I cringed a little with some of the current events parallels, but I suppose that was what you hoped some would do. On the plus side, learned a few new words (though some of the sciencey stuff was incomprehensible to me, not being sciencey).

But I did like parts of the stor(ies). I also respect all the continuity mining you did to tie the universe together.

Not the easiest read for me overall, but I stuck with it.

I, too, would like to see further Sacagawea adventures.

A question regarding the "turn the other cheek " explanation - it occurred to me while reading this book that you could further see the "And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles" differently.

Instead of merely staying with the person longer than the agreed upon distance (loyalty, compassion, doing more than you're expected to), does it maybe mean compelling the guy who dragged you along to his destination to accompany you all the way back to where you started? (give and take, equality, etc)

"I'll go with you, but then you have to come back with me."

Probably I'm reading too much into this.

 

I just finished this one yesterday. Can't praise it enough. The characters were great, both the new ones and how the one's from the series were portrayed. I was a bit put off about the different stories being interwoven, but really came to love it by the end. Some great takes on the Prime Directive, I especially liked the Nacmor one. Would love to see more early TOS work from @Christopher in the future.

There's something about this book, it really reminded me why I love TOS. I'd probably rank it in my top 5.

 

I'm looking forward to his upcoming novel, which is a post-TMP novel. I really enjoyed Ex Machina so this one should be good. He had a good handle on the post-TMP universe. And he's usually pretty good with the lost era stuff. If you haven't read it I'd highly recommend "The Buried Age", a lost era TNG book.

 

Voted above average. A bit slow going at the beginning, it turned out to be a nice story about Kirk's former years as Captain. Characters like Adebayo and Diaz are fleshed out well and it was nice to see Gary Mitchell. I liked the friendship between Kirk and Rhenas Sherev. The book ended well with Pike handing over the Enterprise to Kirk with some personal advices.

 

Guys -- would this be OK for one's first foray into the 'TOS novels' territory? I'd like to read a TOS novel and at the same time I'd like to read a relatively new Trek novel. This one satisfies both requirements :-) but I have never read a TOS novel in my life so I'm not sure if I wouldn't miss any important elements?

 

The novel should work fine as a standalone; after all, it's set before TOS, so it's not dependent on events from TOS. What continuity references and foreshadowings it contains are just bonuses for those who recognize them, and anything you need to know to follow the story is made clear within it.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Welcome to the forums, Elwro! The Captain's Oath is a fine TOS novel for what you are looking for, though I would say the newer one from Mr. Bennett, The Higher Frontier, is even better. The Higher Frontier is a little less episodic in structure than The Captain's Oath, which is my personal preference.

 

Thank you for the welcome and for the suggestion! I see both are available in Storytel. I guess I will start listening to one and order a paper version of the other...

 

I'm a few hours in, listening to this book, and I'm loving it. I enjoyed the little bit about the possibilities for a military application of the transporter beam (I wondered about this myself... I certainly couldn't have been the only person to do so ;-)). Kirk is characterized in a way that certainly gives him the TOS vibe (as opposed to the Kelvin 'air'). But what I like the most is that we are given insight into the intellectual, if pressed for time, processes underlying the difficult decisions captains need to make. Top marks, looking forward to reading The Higher Frontier which is already waiting on the shelf.

(Mr. Petkoff is a great narrator.)