Books: Star Trek: The Original Series: Lost to Eternity by Greg Cox (2024)

 

"2024: Almost forty years ago, marine biologist Gillian Taylor stormed away from her dream job at Sausalito’s Cetacean Institute—and was never seen or heard from again. Now a new true crime podcast has reopened that cold case, but investigator Melinda Silver has no idea that her search for the truth about Gillian’s disappearance will ultimately stretch across time and space—and attract the attention of a ruthless obsessive with his own secret agenda.

"2268: The U.S.S. Enterprise’s five-year mission is interrupted when Captain James T. Kirk and his crew set out to recover an abducted Federation scientist whose classified secrets are being sought by the Klingons as well. The trail leads to a barbaric world off limits to both Starfleet and the Klingon Empire—and an ageless mastermind on a quest for eternity.

"2292: The Osori, an ancient alien species, has finally agreed to establish relations with its much younger neighbors: the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans. A joint mission involving ships from all three powers, including the Enterprise-A, turns explosive when one of the Osori envoys is apparently killed. Each side blames the others, but the truth lies buried deep, nearly three hundred years in the past."

While I liked the tale, it does have problems –mostly the 2268 time period. The 2024 setting is the best, if only because Star Trek fans knows what happened to Gillian Taylor. So using the format of the a true crimes pod-cast was an inspired choice to see how Melinda and Dennis piece all the parts together. With this being a loose sequel to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, this section gave fans and readers a chance to revisit (almost) some characters from that era that are still around in 2024.

It took me a while to figure out who the mysterious man in the 21^st Century was who was trying to hinder Melinda and Dennis’ investigation, but eventually I guessed (rightly) there was a connection with Project Chrysalis, which was part of the backstory of Cox’s Eugenics War books. So the villain is human and tied to the Augments.

Meanwhile, in 2268 we get the trope filled story of a "scientist captured: must rescue without breaking prime directive” blah, blah, blah. While probably the most classic aspect of Star Trek, and was somewhat entertaining, the only thing really going for it was knowledge it was set in and around season three of TOS. And putting Kirk and crew in danger was anti-climatic at best.

We skip to 2292, set after Star Trek V: The Final Frontier but before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and is the other good part of the novel. Here we get more traditional Star Trek plot territories, along with understanding whom was behind all of it. It’s the second best of the tree time periods, as Cox ties a lot of continuity together –which has what these Extended Universe Star Trek books are really about.

I mean the 2268 time period was just filled with continuity references –sometimes to the point of annoying. Like the 1990’s Doctor Who novels, the writers tended to go overboard trying to connect so much unintended continuity, that the books lost something. Hard-core fans enjoyed, I guess, but here –like Cox’s Eugenics War series- tries too hard to make it line up perfectly. But it sometimes hurts the flow of the narrative. In the end, I felt the 2268 TV era part was unnecessary. 

We do get a resolution to what happened to Gillian Taylor, who pops up (in, I guess, a cameo) in the final chapter. We learn what she is working on, which will eventually become part of the animated Star Trek series Lower Decks, but I would admit as well, it was disappointing she showed up so late in the book.

It’s a fine book, but it’s a reminder why I eventually gave up reading a lot of these Star Trek novels. Long gone in one of these franchise books is a creditable villain. 

Books: Star Trek: Legacies: Captain to Captain By Greg Cox (2016)

Much like Doctor Who, the longevity of Star Trek has allowed much iteration with many stories, not only on TV, film, and fan made shows on the internet, but in novels as well. While Doctor Who waited until it was close to thirty years old before allowing original novels to be released, Star Trek has been giving us new (and non-conical) tales almost since the show ended its run back in 1969. And since 1979, there has been one continuous run of original novels.  

But Star Trek has a uniqueness to it that has allowed novelists to continue to release new adventures. What a lot of writers have done is take minor elements (and major ones) within the continuity of the franchise and go off in tangents both good and bad. They’ve been able to expand minor characters (both guest casts and other crew members who did get names) and give them a full back-story –whether you care or not.

Greg Cox’s Legacies: Captain to Captain is designed to tie-into the fiftieth anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Series, and is the opening story in a new trilogy that stretches from the earliest years of the Starship Enterprise under Captain Robert April to Captain Kirk’s historic five-year-mission, as well as one universe to another. Hidden aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise is a secret that has been passed from captain to captain, from Robert April to Christopher Pike to James T. Kirk. Now the return of the enigmatic woman once known as Number One has brought that secret to light, and Kirk and his crew must risk everything to finish a mission that began with April so many years ago. Nearly two decades earlier, April and his crew first visited the planet Usilde, where they found both tragedy and a thorny moral dilemma. Today, the legacy of that fateful occasion will compel Kirk to embark on a risky voyage back to that forbidden world—which is now deep in territory claimed by the Klingon Empire!

As always, the novels are not “official” Star Trek. But Cox, who has written a number of other titles in the franchise including the duology Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, does a fair job of exploring the unmade TV years of Captain April and Captain Pike (beyond the TV series first pilot) along with giving us a look into the Number One character that vanished in the re-writes the series went through when NBC gave Star Trek a second chance. In Cox’s tale, we learn that Number One is Illyrian who goes by the name Una. The moniker of “Number One” comes from the fact that she was a high achiever in everything she did, not only on her home planet, but in her rise through Starfleet. 

Of course, we get references of Kirk era stories, in particular Mirror, Mirror (even though the Captain and crew are more supporting characters here) and that mysterious Tantalus Device that the alternate Kirk used, which connects the plot along. Cox does spend an insufferable amount of time giving us minute detail about the landing party and them walking the six kilometers (and if Usildar is a rainforest, why do the original inhabitants of the planet need misters? They’re only beneficial in areas like a desert where there is low humidity) which, sadly, enabled me to skip a number of pages (and a reason I read it so fast -though having the day off from work helped). Then there is Una’s plan to rescue her fellow crew members, which is nearly the same plan as Older Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyagers series finale. 

It’s an okay book, but it is a reminder to me why I eventually gave up trying to read these them. Part of it, of course, there are so many novels, not only in TOS line, but The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise (but since I dislike the last two, I’ve never taken the time to read those spin-off novels). 

I have so much other stuff I want to read that I cannot lock myself into one series, one genre anymore. 

The other part of my issues with them is that these tales are always (well it seems) connected to past episode stories; at least when Bantam was releasing titles back in the early 1970s, they writers tried to do original science fiction stories. Now everyone seems to have its roots in previous television episodes.

I suppose there is some logic to that. Online fan shows, in particular New Voyages and Continues, are setting their stories within TOS TV run and usually feature some sort of continuation of tales started there. It’s comforting and familiar, I guess, to those old school fans. But current Star Trek, in whatever form it comes in now, seems more concerned with rehashing previous episodes than actually telling a great science fiction story with a moral dilemma.

Books: Star Trek: Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox

For a number of years during the 1990's, I collected almost all of the Star Trek books that came out. 99.9% of them, I never read. They sit now in box's in my garage, awaiting a fate I don't know.

Still, the above novel was published in 1998, and it was one I did not have (or if I did, I've lost it). So, I ordered a used edition. Why, may you ask, did I do this? I've always liked the TOS episode Assignment: Earth. That 1968 episode was originally planned as pilot for a potential spin-off. It featured Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, a mysterious human working for aliens who come from the future. Kirk and company use a gravitational slingshot around the sun and time travel to 1968 Earth for historical research (this time travel plot device was alluded to in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). Suddenly, the Enterprise intercepts a highly powerful transporter beam from a thousand light-years away and a man dressed in a business suit materializes on the pad. He carries a black cat with a diamond collar. He converses with his cat, Isis, then introduces himself to Captain Kirk as Gary Seven.

That episode also featured an appearance by Terri Garr, who played Roberta Lincoln, a young woman who thought she was going for a job interview only to become entangled in Seven's plans.

Anyways, it was a cute episode that never went anywhere. So in 1998, Greg Cox revived the character for the Pocket Book Star Trek line-up. The novel also include many humorous references and inside jokes alluding to TOS, TNG, DS9 episodes, and the TOS movies, as well as references to some popular 1960's and 1970's television series not related to Star Trek.

The plot of the book has a Romulan traveling to the future and assassinates Spock in 2293 during the Khitomer Peace Accords (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). Gary Seven's colleague, Supervisor 146 (a.k.a. Septos) alerts him, and he and Roberta Lincoln travel to 2269 to stop the Romulan and save Septos.

Cox would continue his take on Seven and Roberta in his two volume novels The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (2001/02). Those I've yet to read, and have recently gotten used versions of them.