Star Trek: The Original Series: Shadow of the Machine

Author:  Scott Harrison

First Publication:  March 2015

Publisher:  Pocket Books

Source:  NetGalley

Cover Artist:  ???

Challenge:
42 Challenge 2015

One of my favorite Next Generation stories was the one that showed how Picard dealt with being turned against the Federation by the Borg.  It showed him returning to Earth and visiting his brother’s family.  Many times we see a big event but do not get to see how the characters deal with the repercussions.  “Shadow of the Machine” is done in a similar style.

The crew returns to Earth after the first movie encounter with V’Ger.  The Enterprise needs repairs and it is the perfect time for shore leave on the homeworld.  As Scott Harrison shows us, the crew is not perfect.  Take a look at how things go wrong for Sulu when he visits his daughter.  Kirk is hesitant about visiting his nephew (who is struggling with the death of his father).  I give Harrison high marks for capturing the voice and personality of the various characters.  While the stories are not a threat to the Federation, they are very important to the crew.  It is the personal stories he touches on that make this one of my favorite Trek books of recent years.  And the shorter length is perfect for this story.


I will be looking for more stories by Scott Harrison.  Highly recommended.

35. We Who Are About To... by Joanna Russ

Writer:  Joanna Russ

First Publication:  Galaxy SF Magazine, January and February 1976

In keeping with an unofficial theme for this month, I have been reading authors or stories I originally read in the seventies.  I first read Joanna Russ’ “We Who Are About To…” when it was serialized in Galaxy when it was edited by Jim Baen.  Baen's  tenure produced one of my favorite science fiction magazines.  

The first part of the story (January 1976) had a Rick Sternbach cover for an essay by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.  They explained some of the process of “Building The Mote in God’s Eye”.  The second half of the serial appeared in the February issue.  Once again Larry Niven was featured on the cover for the novelette “Down and Out”.  “Down and Out” was later incorporated into the novel “A World Out of Time”.  

Russ’ novel stood out at the time.  The main character was a woman.  At that time it was still the exception to have a female lead character.  I have not read it anywhere but I believe the story was inspired by Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations”.  At the start of the story, we find out that she is on a small vessel that is damaged and has to land on a different planet.  No other ships are close to them and none would be able to make it in time to pick them up.  They are basically doomed to die on a planet without the resources to survive.  The comparison to theme of “The Cold Equations” is only to the basic idea of there being no way to beat the odds.  As you can tell by that short description, it is not a happy go lucky, feel good story.  

This is truly an exploration of the Kobayashi Maru from Star Trek.  It is the famous no win test that Kirk was able to beat (he cheated).  Fortunately, as was common at the time it was written, “We Who Are About To…” is a short novel.  If it appeared today as a 500+ page novel, I don’t know if I would have finished it.  As it is, it makes a powerful story that has stuck with me since the first time I read it.  It is not a book that I would say I enjoyed but it is a somewhat more realistic take on the classic science fiction story about explorers crash landing on an alien planet.  

If you are interested in a different type of story, read it.  But if you are looking for a light-hearted escapist book, avoid at all costs.

Spock Must Die! by James Blish

Title:  Spock Must Die!
Author:  James Blish
First Publication:  1970
Cover Artist:  None-photograph
Series:  Star Trek

Synopsis (from Amazon:

When a transporter experiment goes horribly awry, suddenly there are two Mr. Spocks. One is the true First Officer of the "Enterprise." The other is his complete opposite, a traitor whose very existence poses a grave threat to the crew, the ship, and the Federation itself. One of the Spocks must die. But which one?

Double, Double by Michael Jan Friedman

On a routine exploratory mission, the Starship U.S.S. Hood picks up a distress signal from a research expedition thought lost long ago-the expedition of Dr. Roger Korby, one of the centuries’ greatest scientific minds.  Korby himself is dead, it seems, but his colleagues have made a most incredible discovery.  A discovery they insist the Hood’s captain sees for himself.  Reluctantly, the captain agrees to beam down.

Meanwhile the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise begins a long overdue shore leave on Tranquility Seven.  James T. Kirk is looking forward to a few days of rest and relaxation…until what seems like a bizarre case of mistaken identity plunges Kirk into a whirlpool of mayhem and murder and puts an inhuman stranger with his memories in command of the Enterprise.

Have you ever wondered what happened after a television episode?  Michael Jan Friedman shows us the follow up to the original series “What Little Girls Are Made Of”.  It is one of the best of the Trek books I have read.

Timetrap by David Dvorkin

In a remote area of Federation space, the Enterprise picks up an urgent distress signal from a Klingon vessel.  Tracing the signal, the crew finds the Klingon cruiser Mauler trapped in a dimensional storm of unusual power.  Surprisingly the ship refuses both the Enterprise’s call and offers to help.  Determined to discover what the Klingons are doing in Federation space, Kirk beams aboard their ship with a security team just as the storm flares to its highest intensity.  As the Spock and the bridge crew watches in horror, the Mauler vanishes from the Enterprise’s view screen.  And James T. Kirk awakens…one hundred years in the future.


Before reading the Star Trek:  The New Frontier series by Peter David, I thought I would revisit some of the older Star Trek books that I remembered enjoying.  I remembered one of my favorite eras in Trek fiction was during the Pocket Books series numbered in the 40s.  Two of the better ones appeared close together.  One was “Double, Double” by Michael Jan Friedman.  The other was the first one I chose to re-read.  It was a classic original Trek by David Dvorkin.