An all-original novel based upon the explosive new series on CBS All Access.Aboard the Starship Shenzhou, Lieutenant Michael Burnham, a human woman raised and educated among Vulcans, is promoted to acting first officer. But if she wants to keep the job, she must prove to Captain Philippa Georgiou that she deserves to have it. She gets her chance when the Shenzhou must protect a Federation colony … Shenzhou must protect a Federation colony that is under attack by an ancient alien vessel that has surfaced from the deepest fathoms of the planet’s dark, uncharted sea.
As the menace from this mysterious vessel grows stronger, Starfleet declares the colony expendable in the name of halting the threat. To save thousands of innocent lives, Burnham must infiltrate the alien ship. But to do so, she needs to face the truth of her troubled past, and seek the aid of a man she has tried to avoid her entire life—until now.
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Another Star Trek story. This one takes us to a time just before the start of Season 1 of Star Trek Discovery. Michael and Saru are working to try and be the next first officer, but they must first prove themselves.
I was hoping for the novels to be handed over to the same people who have always handled the novels for what I considered to be the “James Luceno effect.” Which is a reference to James Luceno getting offered to do a Star Wars novel after the canon reboot and the immediate effect being he incorporated as much previous Expanded Universe into the book as humanly possible. In this case, David Mack does an excellent job of handling a much bigger job of making it clear not only does Discovery fit into the timeline of the Original Series but there’s no reason to be exceptionally worried about it.
In fact, I didn’t see this as a likely problem from the beginning as while Trekkies would snarl and hiss about the Klingons looking different or the Saucer-size not being the right number of meters, I knew the novelists would provide explanations. Are they canon? Well, no, but they’re canon to themselves and really it’s all about satisfying YOUR vision of the galaxy isn’t it? What was that moment in Galaxy Quest? “The show is real.” “I knew it!” In this case, Desperate Hours explains away a few of the tech problems and states while the Constitution-class may look a little weird even in-universe, it’s fully capable of kicking the Discovery’s butt back to Earth Spacedock. Which makes sense because they have phasers that go “pew pew” while the Enterprise has phasers that can decimate continents.
The premise for the book is a surprisingly well-established colony of humans (300K+) on the edge of Federation Space has accidentally awakened a 2 kilometer creature I kept mentally picturing as one of Mass Effect’s Reapers. Captain Georgiou, who I hope gets a 22+ book series sort of like the Stargazer adventures, is assigned the task of dealing with the threat only to get Captain Pike added to her detail seconds later. Pike is full of Klingon gagh and vinegar with a desire to simply blast the Juggernaut (as they name it) out of existence. This leads to a conflict between the two which is only resolved by their first and second officers: Lt. Commander Michael Burnham along with Lt. Spock.
I was somewhat surprised to see Spock and Michael interacting as you’d think that’d be something they’d save for the television show but I suppose if they want to overwrite the novels they certainly can. In any case, their interaction is the highlight of the story as we get a sense of what makes the two characters similar as well as what makes them different. We also get a sense of why Spock changes from the somewhat angry young Vulcan in the Star Trek Pilot to the more established one in TOS. David Mack’s mastery of Trek history is full of little references here and there that seem primarily designed to make Discovery’s characters feel welcome as part of the franchise rather than the unwanted new neighbors so many friends are treating them as.
I really like Captain Pike’s portrayal because while the Abramsverse made him basically TOS Captain Kirk 2.0, the one seen in the pilot was kind of an [expletive]. He was angry, unhappy to be in Starfleet, sexist, and generally a piece of work. Here, it’s because he’s overcompensating for being extremely young in his command as well as just being plain meaner than your average Starfleet captain. It makes a nice contrast to Captain Georgiou, who is somewhere between Kirk and Picard in terms of being an officer and a gentlewoman. Mind you, I don’t think even Kirk ever considered firing on a fellow Federation vessel.
If I have one complaint about the book, it’s the fact it did an excellent job of setting up the Governor as a villain with complex motives yet a truly despicable self-serving core yet she was dealt with anticlimatically. Really, I was looking forward to her getting her comeuppance far more than I was seeing the 9 million year old death machine being dealt with.
So, how good was the book? Well, I wasn’t in any way interested in reading Star Trek: Vanguard by the same author, before but now I am picking up the series.
I loved it! I definitely recommend it!
Couldn’t put it down! Great read!
Fantastic story line and hope this is the start of a series…..I want more to read.
Decent story was understandable even though I have not watched the new series.
Not particularly memorable, but an OK way to pass a few hours.
I found myself speed reading through some parts of the book, thinking, yeah, I get it. The storyline felt contrived as a vehicle to provide background for the TV show characters. That said it was entertaining and I did finish the book. It had the same feel as the original Star Trek.
It was all right.
As expected, this was a great read. David Mack has proven himself to be one of the best writers of Star Trek fiction, and his handling of the Discovery characters meets his usual high standards. He handles the mercurial relationship between Burnam and Saru quite well, as he does with all the established characters. It is difficult to write other writers’ established characters, but David Mack does it, and does it well.
Really ties well into the Discovery CBS series giving more depth to the characters.
hard to follow. to me it jumps around
It started with profanity and it never stopped. This ruined the book. The profanity did not add to the story. I cannot recommend this book.
This was an excellent read. Fits into the whole Star Trek saga well.
Great background to the series! More pls.
Goes a long way to help get me interested in the new Star Trek series. I’m honestly of the opinion that the 23rd and 24th centuries are already crowded enough and that a new century ought to be mined for a new series. That said, I think this version of the 23rd century of ST lore will win new fans and actually engage some of the old ones.
loved it