Books: Star Trek: Coda: Oblivion's Gate by David Mack (2021)

 

"At the end of Moments Asunder, author James Swallow’s middle chapter of the Coda trilogy, our reneged Starfleet folks have taken shelter in the Mirror Universe to escape Admiral William Riker, who is being influenced by some kind of temporal personality disorder, and the Devidians’ attack across all of time. Here we meet new versions of our familiar characters, including Luc Picard, the captain of the CSS Enterprise and Director Savvik of Memory Omega, a scientific facility that houses all kinds of advanced technology. It is also here that the team of Data, Spock, and Wesley, using the Bajoran Orb of Time, learn a horrible truth about their existence and what they’ll have to sacrifice if they’re going to stop the end of the universe."

 

While Oblivion‘s Gate hits the ground running, once I got some fifty pages into it and learned that entire two decade run of Star Trek novels since Nemesis (well, really since First Contact) has actually been set in an alternate branch of the Prime Timeline seen in TNG, DS9, and VGR –called First Splinter- and this revelation left me cold. I mean, I’ve not read a lot of those Star Trek books that have been published in the last 20 years, but then I began to think about those long time readers who have. So then comes the Coda trilogy, and watch out, because this series is now saying that every single event these readers have read in those books, every character moment they have loved, every emotional loss and success that the crews of various series has encountered, has now been explicitly erased –they never happened. So all those relationships the readers have invested in, the ongoing Picard and Crusher relationship, or Janeway and Chakotay one, all the journeys these characters have been on in the last two decades are lost, leaving no mark in the extended Lit universe of Star Trek.

 

While the notion of First Splinter tangent was created during the events of Star Trek: First Contact film is an intriguing idea, as I read, I began to realize the cause to effect of this revelation and then it makes me feel there should’ve been a better way to close out this portion of the Trek-Lit line. Sure, the writers of this trilogy remind us what Star Trek has always stood for: self-sacrifice, the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, that giving up their lives in the service of stopping the Devidians is a noble cause, but it comes with the idea that nobody will know what they did.

 

This theme has also been done many times before on the Star Trek live-action series, especially on Voyager, in the two-part Year of Hell, Timeless, and series finale, Endgame. It’s a shame that this was the only way three talented writers could end this two decade period.

 

Sure, Disney labeling their Star Wars EU novels as “Legacy” tales not connected to the franchise relaunch back in 2015 angered long-time readers, but they have (for good or bad, depending on your view) cherry picked some of the best characters and situations from them, especially for both the animated series and Disney+ live-action series. So repeating this error with the Star Trek books was not going to work.

 

For good or bad, for me, the Coda trilogy does not end on a hopeful or optimistic note. In addition, while as I've said, I’ve not devoted a lot of time to these various novels over the last twenty years, I can see where some that have will not be pleased with what has been done here. Then again, there may be an equal number who loved all of it.

 

But for me, the series (and this book) has too much going on, too much jumping around, too many characters to keep track of, so it became an effort to keep things in some cohesive structure. Had I read the seventeen novels and other short stories that comprise this conclusive series, I may have felt more connected. Try as they might, I do feel anyone reading this series will need to have read those previous books to really get a better perspective from them.

 

But again, this was all designed to retcon Star Trek Picard into the literary Star Trek universe. My end thought is maybe they just should’ve just slapped “Legend” on the old books and been done with it.

Books: Star Trek: Legacies: Best Defense By David Mack (2016)

Star Trek: Legacies: Book 2: Best Defense by veteran Trek author David Mack is the middle installment in the Legacies trilogy commemorating 50 years of Star Trek.

“A debt of honor: One brave woman ventures alone into a parallel universe to save her old shipmates, exiled there decades earlier by a mysterious device called the Transfer Key. She soon learns the alternate universe harbors not just an alien invasion force, but a secret that underpins its very existence. A mission of peace: A long-awaited Klingon-Federation peace conference convenes, led by Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan and Councillor Gorkon of Qo’noS. But both sides have enemies who would prefer the two great powers remain at war—and who will do anything to make certain hate wins the day. An errand of justice: Captain Kirk and his crew seek the stolen Transfer Key that opens a door between universes, but their hunt is cut short by Ambassador Sarek’s plea for help. The Enterprise crew soon becomes targets in a deadly crossfire—one whose outcome will decide the fate of two universes.”

While this book builds on story elements from book one, it leaves a lot of the alternate universe stuff –where Una went to at the end of book one- as subplot (which is actually a good thing and a bad one) as it focuses on negotiations of a treaty between the Federation and the Klingons. Once again, a novel in the Pocket Book line-up uses a previous TV series episode as springboard to extend Errand of Mercy (among others) plotline, where the Romulans attempted to cause a war. And while this is a logical extension –if you can excuse the phrase- of that story, I find the adding of Joanna McCoy to the story as too much convenience and coincidence.

I mean, yes it makes sense Ambassador Sarek and his human wife Amanda our on Centaurus for these negotiations, and maybe it’s even logical Gorkon, only a Klingon Councillor here, is present also, but the happenstance Centaurus being a medical training facility and Joanna McCoy studying there is just too annoying for me. Yes, it adds drama to the story, yes it gives Doctor McCoy something more to do than trade bards with Spock, but it’s also bad storytelling.

I’m also annoyed at both the Romulans and the Klingons, as there is no subtly to them. It’s all very black and white with them, and it amazes me that they’re not on the same side (or have been destroyed by their stupidity). Sure, the Romulans are sneakier in their strategy, while the Klingons are openly aggressive, but both believe in honor. At some point, I’m saying, they could put some of their difference aside and work together, for both have the same goal: destroying the Federation alliances. There were passages in this book that made me roll my eyes, especially with the Romulans and their human Tal Shair officer –something that seemed out of place.

Meanwhile, the events in the alternate universe function as a subplot this time, as it appears its all set up for the final book in this trilogy. Which, I noted was good and bad. Part of the problem is that Mack was obviously hobbled by an uninteresting plotline. The events happening on Usilde are not very interesting to say the least and not spending much time there is good thing. The bad part, of course, is the reader assumes on the books blurbs that we’ll be spending time in this different universe. Which we don’t.

As I pick up the third book here, I’m hoping for an exciting adventure, even if I already know how this is going to end. Once again, this is another issue with these extended universe books of Star Trek (and Star Wars). You know how they’re going to end, you know that none of the main crew is going to die; you know that Joanna McCoy is going to survive and I can probably guess Una is going to sacrifice herself in the last book.

These books are fine to read between better novels, I guess, but I’m still hoping for a Star Trek book that tries to be different, original, and less dependent on any previous episode for the TV series. But I also know that won’t happen. So I may end up just stop reading them again.