Day of the Dove by: Jerome Bixby and directed by: Marvin Chomsky

 

“Day of the Dove” is written by: Jerome Bixby and is directed by: Marvin Chomsky.  It was filmed under production code 66, was the 7^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 62^nd episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on November 1, 1968.

 

As Star Trek’s third season is well underway, it’s been quite interesting to note the shift in quality.  While there have been largely two episodes that I would call bad with “Spock’s Brain” and “And the Children Shall Lead”, there have also been three episodes that have been downright good and interesting, something that genuinely was not expected from the show at this point.  Largely this is because as the third season progresses, the production team for the show as a whole will shift into largely new writers.  “Day of the Dove” is one of the few episodes from a returning writer, and a returning writer who had written one of the best episodes of the previous season.  Jerome Bixby returns to the series for his third episode and like “Mirror, Mirror”, “Day of the Dove” is interested in exploring the darker aspects of the main cast by putting them in a situation made to test them.  This is another episode with a godlike alien in control of our main characters, putting them up against the Klingons in a situation where the Enterprise itself is under siege and the goal is to completely overtake our heroes.  The high pressure of the situation also brings an interesting aspect of unreality: ordinary items are transformed into medieval weapons as well as the phasers following suit, the power is slowly being drained, and the crew are being dragged into insanity with the dark, unconscious thoughts being brought to the surface.  There is already the hatred of the Klingons as enemies of the Federation, but as the episode progresses this becomes towards other members of the crew including outright bigotry.

 

“Day of the Dove” can be applauded for not shying away from attempting to show bigotry and portray the human characters at their individually lowest: seeing the crew attack each other is always going to feel off and once a female Klingon prisoner, Mara played by Susan Howard, is captured she is seen being assaulted.  Now this assault is difficult to watch and while not particularly portrayed well, it’s still an assault done for shock value showing how the usually good characters have gone bad and Mara doesn’t get nearly as much agency, it adds to the madness and uniqueness of the episode which is essentially mashing “The Naked Time” and “Arena” together.  Bixby’s script is odd, however, in the way that it ramps up tension and insanity among the crew.  The early scenes of the episode actually take place on a planet with the Enterprise crew and the Klingons each receiving a distress call and a Federation settlement being disintegrated along with a Klingon ship.  This should be enough to hang the episode’s plot on, but the tensions immediately rise with the insanity of Chekov having an imaginary brother that is portrayed on-screen with hilarity because William Shatner’s performance as Kirk can do nothing but go over the top for these moments.  Shatner’s over the top performance is something the entire episode builds to, the climax sees Kirk and the Klingon commander Kang, played by Michael Ansara, throw down their weapons and laugh with each other so the godlike alien just goes away, the resolution being the final shot of the episode.

 

Jerome Bixby is clearly interested in writing a Cold War allegory, the Klingons since “Errand of Mercy” are a stand in for the Soviet Union and “Day of the Dove” is another aspect interested in exploring if the Cold War went hot.  These are themes Star Trek have tackled before and certainly will tackle again whenever the Klingons appear, but this being an episode that ends with the Klingons and humans shaking hands means for an interesting view from Bixby of how the war may progress, both sides coming together in aid for the greater good.  The greater good for this one is sadly a godlike alien entity of energy that’s causing the tensions in the first place.  Bixby doesn’t really capitalize on this aspect in any real way, just focusing on the damage the entity causes.  “Day of the Dove” also redesigns the Klingons, for the worse.  While before this they were already portrayed by white men in yellowface with specific orientalist features, “Day of the Dove” becomes incredibly difficult to watch because the redesign darkens the makeup to brownface, with black paint being used for the actors’ hands, at least for the male Klingons while the females are largely left in the yellowface tones.  While Michael Ansara as Kang and Susan Howard as Mara aren’t putting on accents, and indeed are still ruthless villains, the racism makes “Day of the Dove” all the more difficult to watch, especially since half the guest cast are Klingons and in the makeup.  Marvin Chomsky’s direction is also insistent on framing the Klingons front and center so they are on-screen far more than you might expect (though Chomsky has improved since “And the Children Shall Lead”).

 

Overall, “Day of the Dove” just nearly gets by on how ridiculous the premise and execution of the idea are instead of being particularly good.  Once again this is a third season episode whose best moments are in the regular supporting cast, both Nichelle Nichols and James Doohan have moments and Walter Koenig’s insanity with Chekov’s non-existent dead brother is something that has to be seen to be believed.  The ideas that author Jerome Bixby sets down, however, are quite half-baked and part of that may be because of Gene L. Coon had completely left the show at this point.  This is compounded with the Klingon designs being at their most bigoted, it undercuts an episode that really wants to be anti-racist and is already not thinking through those themes to their fullest extent leading to a very mixed experience.  5/10.

Spectre of the Gun by: Lee Cronin and directed by: Vincent McEveety

 

“Spectre of the Gun” is written by: Lee Cronin, a pseudonym for Gene L. Coon and is directed by: Vincent McEveety.  It was filmed under production code 56, was the 6^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 61^st episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on October 25, 1968.

 

If I had a nickel for every 1960s science fiction series whose third season had an episode focused on a pastiche of a gunfight at the O.K. Corral, I would have two nickels which is not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.  Yes “Spectre of the Gun” is Gene L. Coon’s last full script for Star Trek, under the pseudonym Lee Cronin, and with his last script he decides to do a pastiche of a western.  Now the television western has a very long history, its roots of course being in the many, many western films of the period, but by the 1960s the film western was largely a foreign concept as it transitioned to the spaghetti westerns pioneered by Sergio Leone and other Italian filmmakers.  Doing a pastiche of the genre is honestly not something that one would expect Star Trek to do, but Gene L. Coon had an idea for a script involving aliens transporting the crew to a version of the Earth’s past as a trial for opening relations with the Melkotians, yet another race of seemingly god like aliens who are able to create these psychic landscapes to inhabit.  It’s essentially running on a similar theme to “Arena”, even down to the general message of anti-violence and humanity’s potential to overcome the violence revealed at the last minute of the episode.  This is also another episode where a regular character, this time Walter Koenig’s Chekov, is killed and this holds the key to the fact that it’s a psychic projection.

 

Where the episode shines is actually in its production design, something essentially forced by the decreased budget of the third season.  Coon clearly hoped to have this episode shot at least partially on a suitable location, but because of the budget the script is confined to studio sets.  Because of this, none of the built sets are complete buildings, instead largely facades while the interiors can be seen without walls.  There is a clock which is floating in midair which is essentially our countdown to the gunfight, the bar is there but there’s this constant red background.  The red background may be intended to represent the Arizona sunset, but it’s another piece of theatricality in the episode because all of this is clearly a sham.  That aspect of the episode is fascinating to watch, especially added to with the guest cast largely giving performances that feel uninterested in actually giving a performance.  It almost reflects the tired nature of the Western in ways that I’m certain production did not intend.  James Doohan and De Forrest Kelley are the standouts from the main cast here as well, largely giving in to the historical setting and theatrical nature of the episode.  Scotty gets to have fun trying good old bourbon from the period while McCoy attempts to reason with Doc Holliday to create tranquilizers to save themselves, both very fun scenes to watch.

 

The direction of the episode is the last by Vincent McEveety, a stalwart director and this time the direction is no less interesting because of the slashed budget.  Because of the half-finished sets and the studio bound nature of the episode, McEveety continues his use of interesting and rather odd shots throughout the episode to keep things visually interesting.  Obviously, the big problem with “Spectre of the Gun” is that it’s an episode where there is very little new ground to cover for Star Trek.  There is almost a hint at the end with Kirk and Spock musing about the fact that Kirk still had violent urges and was willing to kill the Earp’s, even though the climax involves Spock mindmelding with the crew to fully commit to the setting being false and the bullets being not real.  It’s a shame that it came right at the end because it feels like a logical aspect of Kirk’s character to follow up on, though because this is the last script by Coon I fear it will be forgotten in the largely episodic nature of the show.

 

Overall, despite several elements of “Spectre of the Gun” going over old ground for Star Trek, the old ground is actually traveled quite well.  Gene L. Coon is still a wonderful script writer who knows how to inject interest in a script and clearly is delighting in the historical setting.  Vincent McEveety is also having a lot of fun with injecting a surreal theatricality into the unfinished sets and the regular budget cuts of the series.  What’s really holding this one back is a supporting cast that isn’t interested in connecting with the material seriously, potentially because of how bloated the Western genre had become, potentially because Star Trek was having the reputation of an overbudget show.  The potential energy is there, but the lack of it becoming kinetic brings the episode down to a simple hour of fun and not one of the great’s it could have been.  7/10.

Defiant by: Brandon Sanderson

 

So here I am at the end of my over one-year long series of reviews to the works of Brandon Sanderson.  Defiant was the last novel released by Sanderson, not as part of the secret projects but through his regular young adult publishers, and ending the Skyward series overall.  The Skyward series had been good, each of the books were enjoyable if a familiar spin on a popular story of the hero’s journey mixed with stories of the boy and his dragon.  Defiant takes things in a different direction.  The novel is essentially 400 plus pages of the climax of a Brandon Sanderson novel and honestly since that’s where Sanderson excels, in exploring the climax of a story from the multi-layered perspectives of characters.  Defiant still lies in the young adult space, however, with Sanderson largely staying in Spensa’s perspective until the final climax against the Superiority where the perspective shifts through several.  This is largely because to justify the big ending of all the heroes Spensa has met through this series comes to save the day and free the universe the reader genuinely needs to see where the other characters are reacting to Spensa’s capture disguised as a diversion.  After three books of buildup with these characters, and three novellas cowritten with Janci Patterson, Sanderson also makes it very clear that by the end this series is still a fairy tale for children.  The bad guys get punished in the end in a mirror darkly from where the series began, a surprisingly dark ending being potentially read as being okay with retribution and revenge on the oppressors.

 

Defiant at several points feels almost like Sanderson reflecting, however unintentionally, on Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay, a novel that reflects on the nature of war and becoming a symbol.  The protagonist of The Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss Everdeen, becomes a symbol against the oppression, a similar path that Sanderson has set out for his protagonist Spensa Nightshade: she becomes a symbol after integrating with a rebellion.  While Katniss finds the system of the rebellion perhaps equally as oppressive as the Capitol, Sanderson’s Defiant responds by asking what would happen with a rebellion that is determined to keep themselves in the right.  Sanderson has the humans struggle with a young leader, Jorgen is having his own character arc of continual following of protocol, struggling with Spensa’s impulsive attitude and mastery of her own cytonic, and having to deal with what comes next.  Defiant wants to genuinely ask what comes next.  Spensa’s internal narration has become less willing to kill, less willing to be a warrior, and less willing to remember her grandmother’s stories’ conclusion while finding her own solution.  Spensa is continually baited into engaging with the Superiority, largely in a way that plays on her insecurities.  It’s kind of surprising that with the end of the series and the opening of the universe into a legacy series to be written by Patterson, leaves Spensa behind in the end.  Like Mockingjay before it, there is a sense of purpose and belonging in the finality of the novel, though a very different finality to Collins’ work.  The title of the novel is integral: the war is the one last act of defiance to find freedom and the first real time that humanity’s future history is explored in the novel.

 

Overall, if you’ve been following the Skyward series from the beginning, Defiant will not disappoint.  It’s actually the novel in the series where it feels like Sanderson has improved since the four secret projects and The Lost Metal gave readers some of his best work.  It’s a simple rebellion plot that’s largely musings on what will come after, but it works so well because it’s come after three novels and three novellas to really work through that baggage.  It’s not perfect, the final fate of the Superiority is dark but presented in this almost comic light with one of my favorite little character interactions of the novel.  The series has peaked here and while there is intrigue for myself to continue, it feels like what should be a proper ending that any follow up is honestly going to have to struggle with continuing.  9/10.

Is There in Truth No Beauty? by: Jean Lisette Aroeste and directed by: Ralph Senensky

 

“Is There in Truth No Beauty?” is written by: Jean Lisette Aroeste and is directed by: Ralph Senensky.  It was filmed under production code 62, was the 5^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 60^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on October 18, 1968.

 

I have the sneaking suspicion that Star Trek’s third season is going to flip flop quite often in terms of quality.  After two weeks of mid to outright awful episodes, I have come to “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”, which while not an episode much spoken of, is an episode that perhaps should be given a second look by fans who may have forgotten it in what it’s generally surrounded by.  Jean Lisette Aroeste, according to Wikipedia, was a librarian who sold this and one other script to Star Trek with no prior television experience.  It’s something that feels out of place considering television today is rarely that easy to break into, so Aroeste managing to sell two scripts and be one of four writers to do so for Star Trek is already an achievement.  Aroeste’s Star Trek work would also be the only work in film or television, continuing her career as a librarian.  Now, not coming from a television background explains what is holding “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” back from reaching the heights of some of the best Star Trek episodes.  This is an episode that structurally has some rather large issues, mainly because the general plot of the episode shifts between the acts as problems arise and are resolved.  While it’s not uncommon for a new problem to arise at the end of the second act of a story, a risky gambit at the best of times, the plot of the episode largely shifts at the end of the first act as well, leaving some of the ideas Aroeste is exploring limited into essentially 20-minute segments.

 

“Is There in Truth No Beauty?” is largely a piece of very human drama about a woman attempting to live in a world that clearly does not understand her.  Dr. Miranda Jones is a psychologist, played by Diana Muldaur, putting her career over being a man and working with a Medusan ambassador, Kollos, a character that cannot be seen without going mad and only Jones and Spock seeing them through a visor.  Jones is perhaps one of the most fleshed out female characters in Star Trek, despite being a one-off character, largely being defined as a woman who wishes for more of her career and connection with helping the wider galaxy over tying herself to a man.  Muldaur’s performance is particularly fascinating throughout the episode, she is constantly being the one to discuss her own goals and retort to the crew largely diminishing her down to her looks.  It’s particularly fascinating since Star Trek has this problem of not really characterizing the female characters, Jones still ends the episode in a mind link with Kollos but Aroeste is clearly attempting to avoid the connection of women being defined by men.  Kollos, while portrayed by Leonard Nimoy as Spock in the initial mind meld in the third act of the episode, is characterized as truly alien, not understanding the need of senses nor necessarily understanding the madness they impart.  The second and third acts also strand the Enterprise leading to the mind meld, which is where the regular cast is generally occupied with conflict which is perfectly fine conflict but leads to large sidelining of the main cast.  It also has the fascinating reveal that Dr. Miranda Jones is blind, making her a disabled woman actively working in a world that is against her.

 

The first act is particularly the strongest, and the one with the most human drama, as Jones is pursued by the affections of Larry Marvick, played by David Frankham.  Marvick’s descent into madness is excellent, Ralph Senensky’s direction throughout this sequence and the final act is particularly great at setting up interesting shots and lighting to portray the madness, enhancing an already great performance.  It’s the part of the episode that largely explores Jones’ telepathic abilities and establish what may be the central theme of Star Trek’s vision of the future in a handy little catchphrase: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.  The only thing bringing that down is the fact that it is introduced in a handy little badge integrated to clearly sell replicas for the general audience.  As an idea, however, it’s something that is utterly fascinating and utopian, despite the fact that much of Star Trek has actively gone against that due to the biases of series creator Gene Roddenberry and the television culture of the time, and culture of the future of the franchise.

 

Overall, it’s genuinely surprising to me that the larger Star Trek fandom doesn’t seem to appreciate what “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” is largely going for.  Taking cues from The Tempest and from a writer clearly interested in pushing what she sees as deficiencies in Star Trek it’s actually a very interesting human drama that doesn’t quite fit within the usual fare for the show.  Structurally there are certainly issues with the script, and some of the messaging feels as if the editing by the series’ regular crew dulled some of the edges.  It’s actually a pretty good time if lacking in action and in need of a bit more structural stability and thematic exploration o push it into great territory.  7/10.

And the Children Shall Lead by: Edward J. Lasko and directed by: Marvin Chomsky

 

“And the Children Shall Lead” is written by: Edward J. Lasko and is directed by: Marvin Chomsky.  It was filmed under production code 60, was the 4^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 59^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on October 11, 1968.

 

Children as the source of horror has a long tradition in the genre: from representing the fears of parenting and childbirth to just providing some creepy imagery masters of the genre understand how to effectively make kids creepy by subverting their general cuteness as well as the general parental nature of humanity towards them.  Edward J. Lasko is clearly not one of these masters.  His sole contribution to Star Trek, “And the Children Shall Lead”, attempts to put children as the source of horror, making them responsible for the mass suicide of their parents and ready to conquer the universe for this random god like being called the Gorgan.  This could be something terrifying but Lasko’s script is one gets off on the wrong foot by not giving any real weight to the fact that all of these people have committed suicide outside of the mystery that opens up.  There is almost more concern on the fact that the children aren’t actually reacting properly to the death of their parents, which to be fair is something that is odd and DeForest Kelley gets his one good scene as Bones for the episode, but it doesn’t add to the episode.  The answer to the mystery is just this random god being that wants to take over the universe.  The Gorgan is given absolutely no real explanation or motivation, it’s just evil and when it is defeated it becomes incredibly ugly, perhaps because this might be attempting to say something about beauty standards but I cannot actually tell what it could actually be.

 

The Gorgan is also played by Melvin Belli, who is not an actor.  Belli was a lawyer, though one with several clients who were movie stars.  Before this his experience in showbusiness was as executive producer on the film Tokyo File 2121 and some television appearances, but watching “And the Children Shall Lead” you really can’t tell he has any experience.  It could be director Marvin Chomsky not directing his actors properly (Shatner’s performance has some issues) while Belli reads every line in this flat monotone, amplified by an effect to make it sound booming like a god when it really does not work.  The Gorgan, through the children, makes the crew of the Enterprise hallucinate random horrors and secretly do its bidding through magic which is never actually explained, not even a feeble attempt of saying it’s science of words manifesting physically.  The sequences of hypnosis are particularly repetitive, Sulu sees several swords on the viewscreen scaring him into no moving the Enterprise off the course they set for it and Uhura seeing herself as ugly, old, and wrinkled.  The repetition feels as if the episode was running short, and the children just do this weird motion with their clenched fists to enact the magic which looks goofy.

 

In fact, much of the episode looks goofy whenever it isn’t on the normal Enterprise sets.  Now Season 3 of Star Trek was severely cut in terms of budget, but the flag for the Federation is made of felt and the episode overall looks particularly cheap despite being one that should have been easy to make on existing sets.  William Shatner as Kirk essentially has to lead the episode as he is the only one not tot be taken over by the children, and it's clear that he is not taking the material seriously.  Almost every line from Kirk is done to be over the top, which at least makes an emotion when compared to Melvin Belli who has absolutely no presence, but it’s not a performance you would expect from William Shatner.  Shatner as an actor is actually really good when working with children, “Miri” proved that, but “And the Children Will Lead” gives Kirk exactly one real scene of interacting with the kids and the resolution involves Kirk making them cry for some reason.  It adds this cruel edge to the episode in a way that’s attempting to maybe say something about the nature of grief and loss, but I’m honestly grasping at straws as to what that is supposed to be.

 

Overall, while “Spock’s Brain” is the episode that people say killed Star Trek and is derided as the worst, it took only three weeks for the third season to get worse in terms of quality.  “And the Children Will Lead” is playing with ideas that have been done before way back in the first season under better writing teams.  It’s a weak script under a director who is serviceable, mainly because it’s difficult to shoot the Enterprise sets too badly, being brought down further by some baffling performances.  The episode is honestly meaningless and that’s a problem because it doesn’t even meet the bar of being fun, campy escapism.  2/10.

The Sunlit Man by: Brandon Sanderson

 

The fourth secret project from Brandon Sanderson, The Sunlit Man, is the secret project for the fans as The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England was for Brandon and Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter were for his wife Emily.  The Sunlit Man is the Cosmere novel with the most connections to the larger Cosmere and once again is Sanderson putting reader at some point in the future of the series, potentially post-The Stormlight Archive (at the very least post the fifth installment at time of writing this review called Knights of Wind and Truth), and featuring characters from several planets.  The Cosmere has reached the space age and it is an utterly fascinating glimpse of things to come, this coming from a reader who doesn’t read the Cosmere for the massive connections but for Sanderson’s general mastery of modern fantasy.  There are several magic systems at play throughout The Sunlit Man, Hoid’s appearance in particular is fascinating and there is textual information in terms of his actual backstory, and it’s just a novel that ties the Cosmere together into telling a fascinating story of a man finding belonging.

 

This idea of someone finding belonging among people they do not belong to is a recurring idea in Sanderson’s work.  It’s the story of Viv in Mistborn, Kaladin in The Stormlight Archive, both sisters in Warbreaker, and as far back as Reod in Elantris.  The Sunlit Man is the story of Sigzil, a supporting Bridge Four character from The Stormlight Archive and apprentice to Hoid.  The apprentice has pushed himself away from Hoid, come into possession of a Dawnshard and been changed for it, and is just on the run.  It’s that last aspect that sets The Sunlit Man apart, this is a novel that from beginning to end feels as if there is no state of normalcy to begin from.  This is something that The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England actually attempted, but Sanderson used that as almost a springboard to make it work here.  Sigzil, going by Nomad due to his state, is suffering from a Torment and being constantly pursued by the Night Brigade, with his own Investiture allowing instant travel throughout the cosmere.

 

Nomad is a fascinating read: Sigzil while not underserved by The Stormlight Archive clearly had the potential to be a major player.  Much of The Sunlit Man is concerned with Nomad learning a sense of identity: part of the magic system on this world involves the specific loss of identity.  The world is one of heat and gems that can be implanted into people to bring them under the thrall of someone.  These sunhearts cause the person affected to lose their mind, and leaves them charred and burned.  The planet is one of heat and throughout the novel Sanderson excels at making the reader feel the specific kind of almost volcanic heat, despite the heat coming from the planet’s sun.  It’s an oppressive heat, perfect to work in tandem with the use of the Charred and the sunhearts to make a story about finding identity work.  Losing identity is supported by the numerous Cosmere connections: while Sanderson devotes time to characters native to the planet (including a trio almost representing the triple goddess of maiden, mother, and crone though not a goddess in the novel), it’s the many Rosharans, Scadrians, and Threnodites that make the planet itself feel like there is a loss in distinct identity.  There are ideas of choosing one’s own name, and adapting the name to fit what a person has become.  Sanderson uses Nomad among other characters to really explore the idea of the personal power of a name outside of the magic sense.  This does make it a little difficult at times to follow the fact that several characters are using different names in The Sunlit Man, but it also just makes the book all the more fitting.

 

Overall, The Sunlit Man is kind of a novel that works best when you don’t know what the actual plot is going in.  It’s a book that is not new reader friendly for Brandon Sanderson, while the plot is fairly simple, it’s steeped in so many Cosmere connections that you have to already be invested.  It has some of Sanderson’s most interesting thematic work, developing a common theme throughout his larger bibliography, a theme that has been explored in previous Secret Projects in different ways even.  It’s a book that I essentially read within a day on a very long train ride and because of that the rushing nature of the story also works incredibly well.  9/10.

The Paradise Syndrome by: Margaret Armen and directed by: Jud Taylor

 

“The Paradise Syndrome” is written by: Margaret Armen and is directed by: Jud Taylor.  It was filmed under production code 58, was the 3^rd episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 58^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on October 4, 1968.

 

Margaret Armen wrote her first episode of Star Trek in the second season with “The Gamesters of Triskelion”, an episode that I took particular ire with due to a rather uncomfortable plot about slavery full of sexual assault on top of collaring the only black person you have on your show.  Armen’s second script “The Paradise Syndrome” continues the trend of a racially uncomfortable A-plot and a B-plot that is superior in almost every way.  Now, Armen in between the episodes has improved because the script itself actually has some weight behind it.  The premise is classic Star Trek: there is an Earth like planet that the Enterprise discovers is in the path of an asteroid, the civilization is primitive and has not developed space travel or defense, but on a scouting mission Kirk falls down a hole and is rightfully abandoned so Spock can save the planet.  Kirk on the planet suffers memory loss and is brought into the society as a god destined to save the day and win the girl.  The Enterprise plot is once again the B-plot, obviously since William Shatner receives top billing so Kirk’s memory loss and integration into the society takes top priority, but it’s also the best thing about the episode.  Margaret Armen has this innate sense on how to write Spock and McCoy’s dynamic, slotting in Scotty as the third person in the trio just to add to some of the chaos.  It’s another example of a plot where Spock’s logic while the correct decisions does not lead to a smooth outcome: the Enterprise is unable to destroy the asteroid and it drains the ship’s power so two months pass before they get back to the planet.  James Doohan as Scotty has this amazing sequence of warnings and outbursts, plus the wry comments when the camera lingers on the engine rooms.  Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are also excellent in particular, overcoming the fact that in terms of direction there isn’t actually much vision for the episode.  Nimoy and Kelley are actors who have fully internalized their characters and know just how to play the scenes, Nimoy in particular proves why he’s the strongest link in the cast.

 

Shatner, on the other hand, really struggles with the material.  The script from Armen clearly has the character of Kirk underlying the complete amnesiac Kirk, but Shatner insists on playing the character as an almost complete blank slate.  Shatner plays going to integrate and lead these people to some sort of safety as if his character doesn’t understand what he’s doing instead of a more appropriate why his character is doing these things.  Some of this should be laid at the feet of director Jud Taylor in his first of five Star Trek episodes: Taylor doesn’t really direct any of the actors to emote in any way and that is particularly the case of Kirk’s love interest played by Sabrina Scharf.  The script is doing the work and Shatner as an actor generally can make some sort of chemistry with just about any female pairing, but Scharf in particular is just difficult to watch in terms of performance which is only expanded by the elephant in the room.  The society on this planet is Native American and yes that does mean that a majority of the supporting cast are not Native actors.  The costumes are essentially every stereotype for a Native American that you’d imagine from a piece of media from the 1960s, the script explicitly saying it is an amalgam of three separate groups, not drawing really from any of them.  Credit where credit is due Armen is clearly attempting to be respectful, but in doing so ends up baking this script in ideas of the noble savage as well as making Kirk and the Enterprise essentially white saviors.  It’s a story that’s incredibly predictable, there is a native rival for Kirk who is a true savage that must be defeated and his love makes her noble sacrifice because Kirk needs an excuse to leave.  There’s also this particularly uncomfortable moment early on where the characters muse on the possibility of other more advanced humans just waiting to come in contact with the tribe, which in a show that has in multiple ways shown planets that follow the history of Earth may be implying the centuries of imperialistic bloodshed and genocide to befall these people.

 

Overall, however, despite those many red flags “The Paradise Syndrome” is at least an improvement over “The Gamesters of Triskelion”.  While it’s clear that the script hasn’t been looked over by the usual team since this is the third season, Armen actually has a plot that under a different circumstance and a better director would at least be engaging in both the A and B plotlines and the minority characters aren’t entirely treated for laughs this time as her previous script.  There’s still the issue of Armen being a white woman who clearly means well but hasn’t thought through the implications of the way she includes minorities in her scripts but it has lessened.  The performances and poor direction are what’s stopping this from at least being an average episode of Star Trek, but subpar is certainly a better achievement than last time Armen wrote for the series.  4/10.

The Enterprise Incident by: D.C. Fontana and directed by: John Meredyth Lucas

 

“The Enterprise Incident” is written by: D.C. Fontana and is directed by: John Meredyth Lucas.  It was filmed under production code 59, was the 2^nd episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 57^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on September 27, 1968.

 

When I knew I would be going into the third season of Star Trek, I was ready for even the highs to not match what worked about the first two seasons.  “The Enterprise Incident” exceeded those expectations largely because D.C. Fontana was allowed minimal interference in her script, plotting a tightly paced thriller split entirely between two ships so the episode could be shot on a tighter budget, for the model shots ships are reused to great effect.  “The Enterprise Incident” begins with the viewer brought into a mystery: instead of Kirk it is McCoy who gives the opening log narration, noting how Kirk has become erratic as the tease has Kirk demanding the Enterprise cross the Neutral Zone between Federation and Romulan space and become surrounded by three Romulan ships in their own space.  William Shatner’s performance is dialed to eleven here, snapping at the rest of his crew to go forward and eventually being transported to the Romulan ship with Spock as prisoners.  Then the twist hits, the Federation is entirely aware of Kirk’s actions, he has sealed orders to infiltrate the Romulan ship with Spock to steal a new cloaking device in a piece of espionage.  This is a Cold War story that directly paints the United States in a negative life while the Romulans, representing largely the communist enemies of the United States during this period, yet still manages to have them coming out on top at the last moment.  The Federation is largely portrayed in this episode as shady: Kirk is being used for this mission because of his previous recklessness would give them plausible deniability in the event the mission goes awry, only Kirk and Spock are initially aware of the mission with the rest of the crew having actual deniability and are saved because the Romulans realize that they are just following orders, and the Enterprise itself is at stake during the mission.  Shatner’s performance is reflective of this, after dialing back the outbursts once the twist is revealed Kirk undergoes plastic surgery to imitate a Romulan which is one of those ridiculous plot points that is somehow played completely straight.  Shatner dials it back and plays Kirk as the strategist throughout, becoming almost sinister in achieving the goal, something that is done with a decent amount of the runtime left so a further wrench is thrown in with Spock’s plot of the episode.

 

Leonard Nimoy once again is the standout performance of the main cast (though there are moments where DeForest Kelley as McCoy early on gets wonderful moments to be caring and James Doohan as Scotty gets the chance to be over the top in command of the Enterprise while Kirk is on the Romulan ship).  Spock throughout this episode is established to be unable to lie, so D.C. Fontana’s script is careful in the wording of Spock’s conversations with the Romulan commander, played by Joanne Linville, and sub-commander Tal, played by Jack Donner, as to be obvious enough to show he is hiding something while never giving the game away.  Spock does this verbal dance, building the idea that perhaps as a Vulcan and genetic cousin to the Romulans he may actually wish to build power within the Romulan Empire of his own, only if he gives the Enterprise over to them properly.  Joanne Linville as the Romulan Commander, like the Romulans in “Balance of Terror”, is one of the most complex characters developed for Star Trek.  Both D.C. Fontana’s script and John Meredyth Lucas’s direction allow this rare female character to have her own power, set completely outside of her sexuality, while building this little romantic temptation with Spock.  It’s something that female characters really haven’t been allowed to have with Gene Roddenberry’s views on women in power interfering, but Fontana has clearly written the commander to be powerful.  Lucas never shoots the commander through the male gaze either, her costume is also not accentuating her sexuality in any large way, and Linville’s performance is often even and measured.  It’s one of the best guest star performances in Star Trek and it ends with the character a prisoner on the Enterprise and the world going on.  “The Enterprise Incident” becomes an episode where the development of the Romulans cannot change but the Federation inherently does, it’s opening the door for Star Trek to become a modern story not afraid of criticizing the dominant power structure all in late 1968.

 

Overall, “The Enterprise Incident” is an episode that Star Trek needed after a very lackluster third season premiere.  D.C. Fontana proves that she is one of the best scriptwriters on the show and clearly deserves her spot in the history of the show.  Director John Meredyth Lucas shoots the limited sets incredibly tightly and Leonard Nimoy and Joanne Linville carry the episode with their excellent performances throughout.  Heck even William Shatner’s over the top performance at the beginning is fun and the transition from mystery to thriller is wonderfully done to make this up there with some of the highs of the series.  9/10.

Bookshops & Bonedust by: Travis Baldree

 

When I read Legends & Lattes I noted that it wasn’t a book that was in the genre I generally read, but it was incredibly charming, incredibly cozy, and incredibly romantic.  It was also quite a quick read from start to finish, and Travis Baldree wrote and released the follow-up exactly one year later with Bookshops & Bonedust, instead of continuing the story, jumping back for a prequel story about Viv before discovering her love of coffee.  Baldree’s prequel continues the general vibe of being a cozy fantasy, however, the perspective of Viv here is quite rough: she is still a mercenary and believes that might just be her only purpose in the world as an orc.  It’s a particularly interesting element for the character as an issue prequels can generally fall into is the problem of knowing where characters have to end up, the story already has an endpoint where it must go and while this can be rectified depending on the genre, it’s something that is largely an issue.  Bookshops & Bonedust is a prequel whose biggest issue is that it falls into this problem because the reader knows where Viv is going, Baldree writing on the strength of making this earlier Viv being different enough from the Viv the reader is familiar with while essentially following the same, very cozy, plot of Legends & Lattes, but with a bookshop.  Now the setting itself is something that largely tempers the similarities between the two books, and Baldree does succeed at largely making Viv feel less developed, but not in perhaps a lazy way.

 

Viv’s arc here is getting her to the point where she would be fully willing to leave the mercenary life behind her.  She is a woman who largely wants action and is dealing with a society that as an orc has the world look at her as a warrior and just a warrior, potentially a very dangerous one.  Baldree’s opening chapters of Viv being unable to do anything and walking with a cane are genuinely great and a fascinating little character study.  She is stuck in a small town and has her eyes on a largely disused bookshop, something that when she enters she nearly destroys some books and the proprietor, Fern, and her pet, Potroast, are determined to make friends.  This leads the three of them down a rabbit hole and around town into revitalizing the bookshop as Viv discovers a love of reading.  Yes, this is essentially the same plot but the switching of the roles so Viv is the one who has to learn to accept new ideas and fall in love with reading action and romance.  Now without the slow burn of the romance that was the heart of Legends & Lattes, Baldree replaces it with an interesting series of female friendships and expansion of one’s own worldview which is incredibly fun.  Like Legends & Lattes there is a third act “big bad”, one that had been foreshadowed and built up nicely throughout the novel, though not nearly for the same impact which is perhaps the thing that’s holding Bookshops & Bonedust back from being perfect.

 

Overall, Bookshops & Bonedust is a book that’s going to give readers essentially the same feeling of reading Legends & Lattes while potentially setting up something for the sequel.  It falls into some of the general issues of prequels and removing the romance doesn’t quite hit the same, but the new characters are equally as wonderful and it’s just nice to see more of Viv.  Baldree clearly struggled with finding what would be his second book and I hope the third will work out and exceed the ever so slight step down this book represents.  8/10.

Star Wars: The High Republic: The Rising Storm by: Cavan Scott

 

As I move into the third Star Wars book with Cavan Scott’s The Rising Storm, continuing the High Republic era of stories, I am reminded of my experience with the prequel trilogy.  Star Wars has always had political commentary, much of the original trilogy has its roots in deriding the Vietnam War with the Empire largely representing the United States.  The prequel trilogy is equally political, though also completely through the storytelling lens of George Lucas which largely failed due to issues with pacing, dialogue, and just muddling some of the themes.  The Rising Storm is the first of these High Republic novels that feels as if it is taking George Lucas’ themes of political corruption and how that can begin the crumbling of a democratic republic as represented by the High Republic.  Now Cavan Scott clearly hasn’t written a novel that completely encompasses these themes as this is a novel that is one early installment in a multi-year initiative to explore the era, but Scott makes the all important effort to show the early stages of corruption, mainly through alliances being made with the Hutts which is essentially shorthand for a government dealing with the mob.  The Rising Storm is as close as a direct sequel to Light of the Jedi that could be with a completely different writer, pushing the timeline one year in the future which assists in making this easier to get into without having to be bogged down with the continuity details of the previous novel which is wonderful.

 

Scott as a writer also clearly had more experience in novel writing than Charles Soule, understanding how to make a breakneck pace of a novel, especially as the plot moves towards a quite explosive climax.  This is not done with a countdown to the climax a la Light of the Jedi, but by Scott decreasing the length of the chapters as they increase on average, though also understanding that sometimes a chapter may need to be longer than a previous chapter.  Though like Light of the Jedi Scott is dealing with many, many characters, not all being given perhaps enough time to be fleshed out.  The characters at least on this read who I found the most interesting to follow were Bell Zettefer, and Chancellor Soh, at least on the side of the Jedi  Where Scott does succeed are the several philosophical discussions on the Jedi and their relationships with one another.

 

Sex is something that Star Wars as a franchise feels a little too light on necessarily including, especially with the prequel trilogy largely establishing the rule about Jedi Knights and Masters not being able to be married, as well as a general discouragement of sexual relations.  The Rising Storm actually posits that perhaps the no marriage and no sex rule isn’t as set in stone as possible: characters have sex in this novel, though not explicitly depicted, and there are discussions about how that relates to their emotions.  This is largely something drawing on real world Buddhist and Hindu ideas of nirvana and enlightenment, not allowing one’s emotions to truly rule them, the Jedi being explicitly written as having to put the needs of the Order and others before their own personal feelings.  It’s something Claudia Gray equally worked with in Into the Dark, though for a younger audience, and feels as a natural theme for the High Republic novels.  It’s paired nicely with the exploration of the Nihil as villains, largely being as complex as the Republic in terms of a society.  The Nihil are very human villains and seeing events from their perspective is excellent, large point of views with their agents and how their plans can largely be one step ahead of the Republic.  It’s also nice to have a faction of antagonists who aren’t the Sith.

 

Overall, The Rising Storm shows that Cavan Scott, while wonderful on audio, is equally competent as a novelist.  While the novel suffers from being a bit overstuffed with characters and occasionally cutting away too early from a plotline, it’s quite the fun read from start to finish, feeling like an action movie put to page in a great way.  The philosophical discussions comparing the Jedi, Nihil, and the Republic are the high point especially when some of the characters sadly don’t have enough time to always be as developed as they can be.  7/10.

Spock's Brain by: Lee Cronin and directed by: Marc Daniels

 

“Spock’s Brain” is written by: Lee Cronin, a pseudonym for Gene L. Coon, and is directed by Marc Daniels.  It was filmed under production code 61, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 56^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on September 20, 1968.

 

Star Trek was essentially up for cancellation at the end of Season 2, but fans Bjo and John Trimble organized and executed a letter writing campaign to NBC to renew the show.  Gene Roddenberry took this opportunity for some leverage with NBC that if they were to continue they’d maintain an ideal timeslot of 7:30. However, this would not be the case as the third season of Star Trek was shifted to the Friday night death slot of 10:00.  Gene Roddenberry took a backseat, leaving producer duties to Fred Freiberger, a producer who in science fiction circles would become known as the show killer as he oversaw the cancellation of several science fiction series, and script editing duties to Arthur H. Singer.  Both Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana throughout production on the season had falling outs with the team and their respective story and writing credits would be replaced with pseudonyms, plus the budget, already cut during production of the second season, was cut one final time and the episode count decreased.  As had become tradition with Star Trek the episodes were aired out of order with the season premiere being “Spock’s Brain”, an episode that is held in Star Trek fan circles as the worst of the entire show.

 

So, of course, “Spock’s Brain” is an episode that is bad, but not quite as bad as its reputation would suggest.  The plot is utterly ridiculous and there is a lot of sexism here, but in the same vain of “Mudd’s Women” there is this utterly odd retro camp appeal that at least watching the episode you have some enjoyment at the insanity.  Leonard Nimoy, however, is not served at all by this episode, the plot being that a child like female humanoid alien boards the Enterprise, causes everybody to pass out after Kirk immediately makes a pass at her (Shatner’s performance here is incredibly over the top which is not good but is at least fun), and steals Spock’s brain.  This leaves Nimoy no real opportunity to act, spending much of the episode just standing or walking through the scenes, whenever his voice is heard coming from the stolen brain Nimoy is almost phoning in the voicework because there really is no material to work with.  Coon’s script almost wants to explore a society divided along lines of sex with the women living underground as these naïve and rather stupid children while the men live above ground and are savage and stupid.

 

There could be an interesting dichotomy there as Coon seems to lead the episode to a resolution where the men and women have to live together, except it’s mired in the sexism of explicitly claiming the gender roles of men and women are objectively split along those lines.  What further drags this down is not only having this society being rather underdeveloped but the performance from Marj Dusay as Kara is this almost insipidly high voice that’s meant to sound sweet and innocent but just is incredibly grating.  The character is essentially viewed as having the mind of a child making the sexual advances feel incredibly weird.  The society itself has a computer that Spock’s brain is needed to operate that somehow gives intelligence in bursts, something to add tension to the final act when McCoy has to perform surgery on Spock to put his brain back in his head.  And then the episode just ends, it’s kind of a mess.

 

Overall, “Spock’s Brain” may deserve the reputation of being quite a bad episode of Star Trek though there are a few moments with some genuine care, largely the brief sequence of trying to trace the aliens that took Spock’s brain, but the dialogue has this weird tendency to repeat, the premise itself is ridiculous and over the top, and it’s clear that nobody in the cast are actually getting material tot use their acting skills.  This is an episode I don’t ever need to see again.  3/10.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by: Brandon Sanderson

 

In keeping with the four Secret Projects from Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is written to take Sanderson largely outside of his own comfort zone in writing a primarily fantasy romance.  While Sanderson has written several romance subplots, like many male fantasy authors, it’s not something that is necessarily his strong suit.  The romantic subplots have a tendency to follow the same general structure and with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter Sanderson has taken that structure while expanding it to the length of a novel.  The general plot beats and progression for the third of the secret projects is actually quite predictable, Sanderson sets up a pair of love interests who are complimentary opposites forced into a mutual situation and the relationship builds from there, though with a general twist of this being a Cosmere novel and like Tress of the Emerald Sea, is narrated by Hoid to the reader (Hoid being present for Painter’s half of the novel in the form of a statue).  Yumi is essentially a monk summoning spirits to grant the wishes of the villages she travels to, while Nikaro is the Nightmare Painter, tasked with holding back living nightmares from destroying his society.  Yumi’s world is bright and warm with flying plants and spirits that must be summoned by Yumi as yoki-hijo, while Painter’s is dark and he is tasked with destroying the lesser nightmares with his own paintings.  There’s a large portion at the beginning of the novel wonderfully dedicated to showing each characters’ dissatisfaction with their particular lives, even if that is largely subtextual, before the true inciting incident of the pair being bound to go between their worlds every day or so.  Yumi has to navigate Painter’s world while Painter has to navigate Yumi’s.  The rest of the book is the “investigation” and exploration of their respective roles as they fall in love with one another.

 

The actual plot beats of the romance are perhaps the most predictable thing about the novel, as well as one of the large twists about their respective worlds that the narration from Hoid actively lampshades.  However, Sanderson being predictable does not mean that he is writing a bad book, far from it.  There’s this clear love throughout Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, the reader clearly understanding how much of this was a love letter to his wife much like Tress of the Emerald Sea.  The general romance may be simple, but it’s a simple romance story done incredibly well, especially when Sanderson gets to dissect who Yumi and Painter are.  Both characters are being held back due to their own situations and decisions they have made that they must overcome, both fulfilling these restrictive roles in rather oppressive societies, albeit societies that are oppressive in very different ways.  Yumi comes from an esteemed religious upper class background which has forced her into an exclusively ritualistic life while Painter’s lower class position is working within a system that only allows advancement for those already with wealthy connections.  Perhaps the best sequence of the novel is this point where Yumi and Painter, on Painter’s world after several weeks of dealing with the body swap shenanigans, go to a carnival and for the first time really cut loose.  Sanderson uses this after both characters have revealed their particular damage and one of the bigger twists about the nature of their world has been revealed.  It’s where the slower burn of the romance can actually come to fruition without a kiss since when in each other’s world they become incorporeal, Painter only being seen in this form by Design, a cryptic from Roshar who owns a noodle shop and is a delightfully inhuman character.  Yes, this is still a Cosmere novel so there are actually a lot of references to other pieces of the Cosmere, including some things that have not been published yet, but luckily Sanderson is wonderful at straddling the line of giving the correct ones enough explanation so well-versed readers will understand the references.  It is a bit integral for the climax of the novel to work with an understanding of the Cosmere, but as an ending it’s actually outside Sanderson’s usual type of ending.  There is that usual increase of pace to the climax, but it is a much more reserved ending that reflects on the nature of art and why art is important.

 

Overall, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter was an almost surprising success. Sanderson’s Asian influences never feel as if he is attempting disrespect and there are clearly ideas being drawn from cultures he is familiar with.  Things are added once again by the deluxe edition’s illustrations by Aliya Chen add to that understanding, Chen doing something more somber and suitable for the more reserved tone than the previous two Secret Projects.  Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is a novel that works so well because Sanderson plays to his strengths where he can with a pared down story that focuses in on the characters, the supporting cast being quite small for a fantasy novel and especially for a Sanderson novel.  While it doesn’t quite reach the heights of Tress of the Emerald Sea it genuinely reads among some of Sanderson’s strongest works.  9/10.

The Shadow Rising by: Robert Jordan: Reactions to Evil (Chapters 2 to 4)

 

““Light!” It slipped out before Perrin could stop it.  Moiraine’s eyes turned to him.  “You mean what happened to . . . Rand is going to start happening to everybody?”  “Not to everyone.  Not yet, at least.  In the beginning I think there will only be a few bubbles, slipping through the cracks the Dark One can reach through.  Later, who can say?  And just as tav’eren will tend to attract these bubbles more powerfully than others do.”  Her eyes said she knew Rand was no the only one to have a waking nightmare.” – The Shadow Rising, p. 101.

 

The Shadow Rising proper begins with bubbles of evil.  This is not the first time for an installment of The Wheel of Time to begin this way, The Great Hunt began with the suggestion of a bubble forming around Rand al’Thor while training with Lan in Fal Dara, but it is the most expansive time yet.  The chapters this essay covers are the first time the reader gets to be in the heads of Rand, Mat, and Perrin and specifically their reactions to these described bubbles of evil appearing in Tear.  Jordan takes the particular time for the manifestations of evil to form related to each of the characters on their deepest levels: Perrin’s axe tries to kill him and Faile, Mat is attacked by the images on playing cards, and Rand is attacked by images of himself.  Mat’s is perhaps the least obvious ‘fear’ to parse out exactly what it means.  Perrin and the axe has been a thread since The Eye of the World as he grapples with violence and Rand’s fear of his own madness since The Great Hunt, but Mat as a character hasn’t actually had enough time to fully explore his own fears.  His reaction to the bubble of evil is also the one that takes him furthest away from Rand: he actively finds Thom Merrilin for advice.  Thom is playing his own game, he's positioned himself in the servant’s quarters to stop the association with Rand while Mat’s fears are laid out here: “As good as.  She’s always asking people where I am, what I’m doing.  It gets back to me.  Do you know anybody who won’t tell an Aes Sedai what she wants to know?  I don’t. As good as being watched.” – The Shadow Rising, p. 109.  It’s the Aes Sedai as an organization whom Mat blames for his missing memories and a lack of identity.  Identity being in flux is something that all three of the boys generally share, Rand having just declared his identity while Perrin spends much of his perspective unsure of where he will be going as a person.  Mat as a character is so determined to not be manipulated, Thom is easily able to manipulate him into staying until the next morning, despite the base instinct to run away from his problems and go.

 

Rand’s reaction is perhaps the most vulnerable reaction.  Over the past three books, while all three of our characters of this section have gone through much, Rand’s internal torture has been there since The Great Hunt and Jordan has realized this.  Rand is being manipulated on essentially all sides, while Moiraine is the closest to having Rand’s best interests at heart she is still an Aes Sedai and still is preparing for the Last Battle.  The Shadow Rising’s opening sees Rand in a position of institutional power, he is exclusively referred to as the Lord Dragon and has already been having nightmares of the women he loves destroying him and Moiraine still manipulating him.  Rand is not only confronted by the bubble of evil but has to deal with those using their sexuality to get to him: Berelain, first of Mayene, introduced at the end of The Dragon Reborn establishes herself here by attempting to seduce Rand.  Jordan coats the language in Mayene not being so formal of a culture, dismissing his rejections initially due to Rand’s own naivety as being promised to Egwene (something already being broken at this point in Rand’s own mind with dreams of Elayne and Min) and just a general disinterest or reluctance in sex.  Berelain joins several female Wheel of Time characters in the femme fatale archetype, something that will develop towards different affections going forward but here is how the interaction ends ““I am the only one there is…The one you were treating as if we were betrothed.”  He meant it to smooth her, perhaps make her smile—surely a woman as strong as she had shown herself to be could smile, even if facing a blood-drenched man—but she bent forward, pressing her face to the floor.  “I apologize humbly for having most grievously offended you, Lord Dragon.” Her breathy voice did sound humble, and frightened.  Completely unlike herself.  “I beg you to forget my offense, and forgive.  I will not bother you again.  I swear it.  Lord Dragon.  On my mother’s name and under the Light, I swear it.”” – The Shadow Rising, p. 85.  Rand has power and does not understand how to use it, reacting by lashing out against the evil and showing himself to the world to be the dominant force of power rising.

 

This is finally contrasted with the equal uncertainties of Perrin.  When the bubbles of evil manifest, while Mat runs away, Perrin is the one to go find Rand, reflective of the fact that between him and Mat, Perrin is the one to stay and chase after Rand throughout The Dragon Reborn.  The loyalty of Perrin is fascinating as he is the first of the boys we see in this novel, and he is equally as uncertain as with Mat.  His relationship with Faile, something that The Wheel of Time fandom is rightfully critical of is actually quite sweet here.  There are the beginnings of the tensions between the two characters, but Perrin has grown a beard and it feels right for the character and their relationship.  The relationship is quite cute, Faile being the advocate for Perrin doing what he wants to do, despite their mutual stubbornness and the cultural differences of the pair there is that sweetness.  Faile genuinely cares about Perrin and while Jordan makes some interesting decisions with the character, here she has begun to become his rock to reailty.  We also see the aftermath with Rand and Moiraine from Perrin’s perspective, continuing the general thread from The Dragon Reborn so it’s his reaction that the reader sees, as well as more of the Aiel culture.  Mat is tricked into playing a game called Maiden’s Kiss, and Perrin is asked if he wishes to play.  Maiden’s Kiss is a game of being kissed at spearpoint by Maidens of the Spear.  It’s this interesting detail of Aiel culture, especially as the Aiel will also be taking center stage as the novel develops.