Hope by: Mark Clapham

 

The Eighth Doctor Adventures have generally struggled when it comes to characterizing its female companions.  Sam Jones as initial companion was by far the weakest of the bunch, largely having her characterization be shallowly defined as activist and sassy as her character traits in an attempt to replicate the success of Bernice Summerfield.  Her immediate successor Compassion fared better by at least having a defined character and interesting concept for a companion, a woman from the future becoming a sentient TARDIS, but again there was inconsistencies in characterization and underutilization until her last run of appearances.  The current female companion, Anji Kapoor, by comparison is a back to basics model of companion who doesn’t really want to travel with the Doctor.  Her introduction, Escape Velocity, was something of a mission statement for the character was that her boyfriend Dave was the one who was really companion material, but he was murdered so Anji took his place.  Now here I am several books later and a year since I last read a Doctor Who book with the enigma that is Mark Clapham’s Hope, the book that feels like it’s meant to be Anji’s book.  As a character she has been served well in previous books but with installments in the lead-up to this like The Adventuress of Henrietta Street being very much the Doctor’s book and even further back Revolution Man being largely Fitz’s book, Anji needs one that essentially defines who the character will be and what she needs to go on.  It becomes especially interesting because that’s not how the book actually begins.

 

Hope begins with Mark Clapham deciding to push the Doctor and company to the end of the universe in a setup that Russell T. Davies would draw on for “Utopia”.  The setting is literally called Hope and it is clear from the off that the hope is false.  There is an organized militia in the city of Hope, the leader of the city is Silver another time traveler of a sort with a mechanical exoskeleton and electronic memory, and the TARDIS falls into the sea.  Much of Hope owes itself to film noir as it does cyberpunk, blending the two genres wonderfully with the Doctor being put in his own desperate situation.  This is one of those points where the Doctor’s own need for control becomes a problem for himself, agreeing to help Silver in exchange for retrieval of the TARDIS.  While not made explicit in the text, Silver is a Cyberman, converted at some point in Earth’s future while retaining aspects of his humanity.  At this point in the future, humanity has already evolved so seeing three figures that look all too human, and for one of them have found themselves closer to humanity then ever before, they are the outsiders.  Silver as a character also fits largely into the mythic trickster category of fiction: offering people exchanges for what they think they want, always with a price and twist on the original deal, and this is the man the Doctor must make a deal with to see himself, Fitz, and Anji survive.  The Doctor and Fitz’s plot to hunt a killer is one of those perfectly good plots, Clapham’s prose is quite compelling and it allows a lot of worldbuilding of the setting.  If it were just this plot, you’d have a fairly solid Doctor Who novel, but Anji is what elevates it above into something at the very least more interesting.

 

Anji Kapoor didn’t really want to travel the universe, that was Dave’s wish.  Like happens with many of the Doctor’s companions along with the wonder of the universe there are also the dangers and trauma, especially present around this period of the Doctor’s life.  Mad Dogs and Englishmen may have proven a respite, but Hope sees Anji’s mind preoccupied with thoughts of Dave from the first page.  This is a story where there honestly isn’t much for the Doctor’s companions to do, so Anji has plenty of time to herself and time to speak with Silver.  Clapham sets up this interplay of predation between the two.  Silver is far too charming and has far too many resources at his disposal, and Anji has been thinking about Dave.  Silver wants an escape, not a way to steal the TARDIS, but a way for Anji to give him the knowledge to build one of his own. Silver’s backstory is framed as a pulp adventure hero’s backstory and that pulpy charm allows him the perfect route under Anji’s skin.  Despite in her heart knowing that Dave is gone and never coming back, time travel does not allow for resurrection at least in the usual framework of Doctor Who, Anji’s temptation to have a Dave II cloned and brought into existence is the unsettling aspect of Hope.  It’s the hope that gets the woman through, and is something that has already shattered when the idea first arises, elevating Clapham’s novel.

 

Overall, Hope is a great novel to come back to the Eighth Doctor, Fitz, and Anji after my stint away.  While not particularly strong in certain areas, the Doctor’s plot is actually quite weak in places and a bit too standard, it philosophically embodies a lot of what the Eighth Doctor Adventures are going for.  It also gets to the roots of what the Cybermen and their relationship to humanity actually is without using the word Cyberman anywhere in the prose, but best of all, it’s the showcase for Anji Kapoor that she perhaps needed to lay her baggage behind her.  8/10.

Wink of an Eye by: Arthur Heinemann from a story by: Lee Cronin and directed by: Jud Taylor

 

“Wink of an Eye” is written by: Arthur Heinemann, from a story by: Lee Cronin a pseudonym for Gene L. Coon, and is directed by: Jud Taylor.  It was filmed under production code 68, was the 11^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 66^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on November 29, 1968.

 

By this point in the third season of Star Trek both Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana had moved on, despite both having story ideas that would be put into production under the pen of other writers.  “Wink of an Eye” is the first of these scripts, originally pitched by Coon and the story idea is credited to Coon’s pseudonym Lee Cronin while Arthur Heinemann is responsible for actually writing the script, and as such much of Coon’s general punchy and fantastical style feels sucked right out of the episode.  The premise is a pretty great one: the Scalosians are a people on the brink of total extinction and have found existence in a state of hyperacceleration and they have decided Captain Kirk must become their king, dragging him into their world for the episode from which he must use his cunning to escape.  The clear ideas from Coon are ones of examining Kirk’s duty as captain of the Enterprise which is an undercurrent of the entire episode, however Arthur Heinemann who actually writes the episode leaves it as undercurrent in subtext.  “Wink of an Eye” is an episode that must be built around the performance of William Shatner as Captain Kirk.  The rest of the crew are reduced to minor roles and it is clear that Heinemann has little interest in writing them, only having Spock get a larger role later in the episode to save Kirk’s life and repair the Enterprise.  Shatner’s performance further sinks the episode, he seems bored with the material.  Kirk as a character has always been one romantic and Shatner attempting to be bored with the female Scalosian Deela, played by Kathie Browne, just doesn’t work.

 

The characterization of the Scalosians who are largely the other characters we spend time with is just not there.  The designs of the costumes are interesting enough to look at, partially inspired by the idea of being out of time with odd designs and these light, faded colors that while campy are effective.  The internal politics of the characters suffer largely from not being there, Heinemann as a writer doesn’t seem to have the chops to really make even the regular characters shine.  For instance the dialogue between Spock and McCoy is a sequence where they feel out of character, mainly because it’s functional dialogue and not really character dialogue.  What’s stopping “Wink of an Eye” from being a total loss, however, outside of the interesting ideas is actually Jud Taylor’s direction.  “Wink of an Eye” is an example of a bottle episode, there is only one set at the beginning that was constructed specifically for the episode and the action takes place on the Enterprise.  For bottle episodes to work the direction often has to be interesting, and Taylor decides to make use not only of Dutch angles to indicate scenes in hyper acceleration but also physically tilting the camera while shooting which adds to the surreal nature of the episode.  If this was a script that went down a fully surrealist route it would have been a much better episode.

 

Overall, “Wink of an Eye” is an episode of Star Trek with a lot of potential, something that seems to be a recurring issue for the third season.  It’s an episode whose quality hinges on the script and the performance of William Shatner and neither are up to snuff in terms of what the episode needs to be doing leaving just a bland experience.  4/10.

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by: Timothy Zahn

 

When beginning the book exchange that brought me to read Star Wars novels with my good friend Joey, there was one trilogy that I knew he would have me read at some point would be Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy, the trilogy that begun the series of Star Wars expanded universe novels and comics proper after Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.  Heir to the Empire is the first sequel to be published after the original trilogy, though eight years later with Timothy Zahn being essentially given free reign to tell what he thought would be the next step in the Star Wars saga.  What is fascinating about this novel is that it is largely structured like a film that could easily slot into the original trilogy, elevating it in the minds of Star Wars fans to status of the official continuation of the series when George Lucas didn’t really have much input in what Zahn was allowed to write.  Return of the Jedi ends with the Emperor and Darth Vader dead, the latter redeemed in the eyes of our protagonist, and the galaxy presumably at peace with the heavy implication being that the Empire is just going to crumble and the Rebellion is going to take over.  Timothy Zahn realizes that that is clearly not what would happen, Luke Skywalker may be a legendary hero but he’s a hero who created a power vacuum.  While it’s clear the Rebellion and the burgeoning New Republic is expanding at the beginning of Heir to the Empire, it's also clear there are others vying for the position of Emperor replacement.

 

Grand Admiral Thrawn is the main villain of the book and the trilogy, and Timothy Zahn uses his introduction to really sell what the book is going to be.  Much like the introduction of Vader in Star Wars, Thrawn’s introduction is what essentially opens Heir to the Empire and Zahn takes the inspirations of Lucas from various fascist regimes and pushes them further.  Thrawn sets himself apart from the villains who came before by being an incredibly charismatic villain, one to propose and plan Xanatos Gambits, being one step ahead of our heroes all while not ever actually meeting them yet.  Zahn gives Thrawn’s perspective through the point of view of those under him, continuing the ideas of tempting Luke to the Dark Side using the insane clone of a “Dark Jedi” which doesn’t come to fruition, as well as tempting and training the unborn children of Leia and Han.  There is this utterly terrifying monologue about how one can know a people through their art that is perhaps Thrawn’s defining moment as a villain.  Much of Heir of the Empire is setup for the rest of the trilogy, but it is actually really good setup.  Zahn’s writing style is very pulp fiction from the 1990s meaning that it is breezy and fits right in with the pulp origins of Star Wars as a franchise, especially with the way that Zahn takes the main characters.  Zahn attempts to give Luke more depth and intrigue in the challenges he has to face as restoring the Jedi Order in stark contrast to the original trilogy’s more surface level characterization.  Leia also gets her own subplot with Chewbacca and his family though Zahn sadly doesn’t get creative with how he presents Wookiee dialogue, just using brackets to indicate a different language.

 

There is one large misstep in the novel, and that’s perhaps how much coincidence brings our characters back together after splitting up.  This wouldn’t be a problem if it happened once, but it happens essentially every time the characters need to meet up again it happens because of coincidence.  Han and Lando just happen upon the group that has Luke captured being the one that really took me out of the book, but Zahn does soften that slightly by having Luke escape on his own accord.  There’s also an alien species that suppresses the Force used to capture Luke which feels like such a 1990s pulp idea that I don’t quite know what to make of it.  As a novel Zahn also has to establish new characters and the clear standout outside of Thrawn is Mara Jade, a character I know is significant but I don’t know why.  While the whole Jedi/Sith dynamic hasn’t been established by Lucas yet, Mara Jade is revealed to have been an apprentice of the Emperor who by the end of the novel is clearly on the early path of a redemption arc, while Zahn makes her resentment of Luke feel real.

 

Overall, Heir to the Empire while not quite reaching the heights of the original trilogy did for me, a certainly difficult bar to clear, takes Star Wars from what it was doing in the 1980s and allows it to move forward and examine some of what was underdeveloped on-screen.  It’s not a perfect book but the trilogy is certainly more inviting now, supported by a fascinating villain that I just need more of.  8/10.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by: T.J. Klune

 

My first exposure to T.J. Klune was Under the Whispering Door which I adored, so I thought going to one of his earlier works would get me a sense of his larger bibliography.  The House in the Cerulean Sea is the book that catapulted Klune to public popularity and what can often happen with authors is that their earlier works do not hit nearly as hard as what occurs when they improve their craft.  The House in the Cerulean Sea is a book that sadly didn’t hit nearly as hard as Under the Whispering Door as well as just being slightly marred in controversy due to Klune’s influences.  Klune was influenced by Canadian residential schools for indigenous people and the atrocities committed at these schools.  Now the issue with this is largely that not only is Klune a cis-white American implementing an allegory he knows very little about, clearly not having sensitivity readers.  The setting of the novel is in an orphanage that has been reopened by a caring older gentleman caring for dangerous magical creatures, revealed in the third act of the novel to be a magical creature himself.  The book’s general thesis is that these types of institutions would be okay if it were indigenous people were in charge, which is a contradiction within itself.  They would not exist if indigenous people are in charge.

 

If this were the only problematic element of the novel, perhaps it could be looked past in pursuit of an interesting story of someone finding non-traditional love and connection, but the protagonist also has to connect and find himself humanizing a group of people he was largely detached too.  A cherry on top of this is also the text outright stating that change doesn’t happen unless people want it enough which is just a horrific idea and could only come from someone in a privileged position that doesn’t understand change.  Klune’s writing style throughout the novel is also far less refined than what would become his writing style in Under the Whispering Door.  The protagonist of the novel is Linus Baker who has a life that’s far too boring working as a case worker assessing the care homes of supernatural children.  He loves his job but is complacent in his own life and far too detached to properly see his charges as people.  His way of speaking is also incredibly old fashioned with British idioms like “my dear boy” coming up throughout the novel quite a bit and honestly they feel forced.  Where Klune does excel is actually writing the perspective of several children, clearly setting out to write something that captures a childlike whimsy and magic of growing up.  There’s also an undercurrent of romance is good and the emotional resolution for Linus Baker realizing that he actually does want more from life, but so much of that is marred.

 

Overall, The House in the Cerulean Sea is one of those books that while you read it, it feels like enjoyable popcorn reading material, but then you think about it and realize some of the really problematic elements just baked into the text and can’t help but become uncomfortable.  I waited a day before attempting a review because while reading it I had fun but now I feel quite cold once I realized what the inspirations were and because of that the entire lens through which I viewed the novel changed.  I honestly expected better of Klune for making a better book.  4/10.

Plato's Stepchildren by: Meyer Dolinsky and directed by: David Alexander

 

“Plato’s Stepchildren” is written by: Meyer Dolinsky and is directed by: David Alexander.  It was filmed under production code 67, was the 10^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 65^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on November 22, 1968.

 

“Plato’s Stepchildren” is one of those episodes of Star Trek that is among the most famous for one event: this is the one where Kirk and Uhura kiss.  Mythologized as the first interracial kiss on television, although that is a much debated event in television history with a quick glance on Wikipedia including interracial kisses in previous episodes of Star Trek, a kiss on The Ed Sullivan Show, Sea Hunt, Adventures in Paradise, I Spy, and Movin’ With Nancy as earlier examples, “Plato’s Stepchildren” doesn’t actually have much going for it beyond the kiss, and even the kiss is a bit of a mess.  This should not underplay the importance of an interracial kiss specifically between a white man and a black woman especially for 1968 even with the problems with the kiss and the sequence it is a part of.  The premise of the episode is another race of godlike aliens this time with psychic powers and a love of Greek philosopher Plato hold the Enterprise in the orbit of their planet because their leader is injured and dying.  Of course, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to help and in repayment the leader Parmen, played by Liam Sullivan, captures them, wishes to make McCoy one of them, and keep Kirk and Spock for entertainment, expanding that to Uhura and Nurse Chapel.  One of the biggest issues with this episode is that the premise is one that we have seen before done to death at this point in Star Trek and author Meyer Dolinsky doesn’t actually do anything with the premise.  Usually when we do godlike aliens what can make or break the episode is actually the setting and society being explored, but Dolinsky doesn’t do anything with the setting or philosophies of Plato outside of glib mentions of philosopher kings and the aesthetic of a pop cultural ancient Greece.  The episode is also largely limited by being shot on studio sets that look far too closely to studio sets: the walls lack windows and there isn’t even an attempt to suggest an outside world while director David Alexander makes this seem far too flat.

 

The climax of the episode is where “Plato’s Stepchildren” falls down in what it’s trying to do.  Parmen and company force Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Chapel to perform, dominating their minds with their psychic powers.  Spock is forced to sing, everyone prances around, and then we get to the kisses.  Chapel kisses Spock and Majel Barrett gets an admittedly nice character moment of professing her love for Spock in what has been one of the few undercurrents for her character, and Uhura kisses Kirk.  Nichelle Nichols gets a small confession of respect and admiration to Kirk before her kiss and Nichols performs it well, but the fact that the kiss is non-consensual adds the layer of discomfort.  Props should still be given to Nichols and Shatner for according to their recollections forcing the kiss to be kept in, but it’s actually what happens after that stops any goodwill that the episode was building.  Kirk and Spock are forced to pick up instruments of torture including a whip and a heated poker and threaten Uhura and Chapel.  This scene feels genuinely out of place, while Platonians have been callous and detached throughout the episode, this type of cruelty doesn’t feel in line with their tastes of amusement or really anywhere in the philosophy of Plato.  Yes, the idea is that Plato’s philosophies are being warped by his stepchildren, but there isn’t any examination of that philosophy before this moment.  Now, the episode isn’t actually all bad.  William Shatner gets a great line about the Federation being a place where “shape, size, or color makes no difference” and Dolinsky includes the main character to not have psychic powers be Alexander, a dwarf played by Michael Dunn.  Alexander is still a minority character in a 1960s television show, but he is allowed his own desires and rejects the society he is a part of the join the Federation.  He gets a happy ending and Dunn’s performance genuinely seems like he is being given a deeper characterization and respect from the rest of the cast and crew.

 

Overall, “Plato’s Stepchildren” is an episode that honestly feels like a first draft, at least in terms of the way its ideas are implemented.  It’s basically an outline of an average episode of Star Trek implemented with added torture bringing down the genuine attempt at progressive ideas.  While not an episode that has nothing to enjoy about it, it just doesn’t do enough with its premise and adds to the problem because of the shock value conflict at the climax.  The performances are at least interesting to watch and there is some attempt at characterization, but this is an episode remembered for one thing, and then forgotten about because of how uninteresting it actually is.  4/10.

Star Wars: The High Republic: The Fallen Star by: Claudia Gray

 

The Fallen Star is essentially the finale to the first phase of the Star Wars: The High Republic publishing initiative.  As such, it’s a novel that is stuffed to the brim with characters and storylines all wrapped around a central event of a Nihil plan to strike the Republic where it is going to hurt the most.  Somehow this novel has felt the most Star Wars of any of The High Republic novels that I have read, juggling a multi-threaded plot and characters, as well as bringing together plots from different authors writing in different media.  Light of the Jedi is responsible for beginning this initiative and in my estimation struggled to juggle its plotlines, but Claudia Gray is responsible for making The Fallen Star work.  Once again, all of the plotlines are wrapped around the destruction of a space station, Starlight Beacon, and the efforts to mitigate the disaster as it is literally split in half.  Gray’s largest success in this novel is managing to keep the characters engaging as well as important to the plot, while running in parallel with Cavan Scott’s comic finale (which I have not read).  Each character is given their distinct goal and characterization, the Jedi largely furthering the themes of The High Republic’s examination of what it means to be a Jedi.

 

Elzar Mann is a Jedi who throughout the books that I have read has had this incredibly interesting relationship with the Force.  It’s a largely creative relationship that has had his own touches with the Dark Side of the Force.  Gray’s take on Mann’s perspective is both creative but heavily introspective.  One of the musings of the novel is the relationship with other Jedi as well as the general principles against forming romantic relationships, something unavoidable with adolescence and overlooked by the order until they become attached.  The Fallen Star wants to examine the loss of the state of the universe with the threat of the Nihil.  Mann is put under another Jedi, Orla Jareni, essentially to monitor his attraction to the Dark Side and the most effective scenes in this book involve the two and Jareni’s fate on Starlight Beacon.  Jareni is killed by creatures that essentially petrify and dehydrate her, creating a further danger in the novel other than the Nihil threat.  The Nihil plan is also fascinating as this is the first novel where despite all odds, the Nihil essentially lose in the end.  Marchion Ro is the primary antagonist of the novel and his particular brand of villainy is an example of the Xanatos Gambit, being one step ahead of the protagonists and Ro’s own allies until the very end when while his plans succeed there is enough of a wrench to throw them off balance.  This is a book that ends with a mirror to the destruction in Light of the Jedi, the destruction of Starlight Beacon ends in far less death and destruction than there should have been.  Gray is careful not to ignore the destruction that does occur, a decent amount of the resolution is devoted to it, but the Nihil are hurt as well in the process.  They lose some of their operatives in a “noble” sacrifice and Nan who appears here after Into the Dark and Out of the Shadows spends much of the book questioning the Nihil.

 

Overall, The Fallen Star is the strongest Star Wars novel that I have actually read yet.  While not a major part of my review, Claudia Gray’s writing style is something that genuinely makes the world more accessible with others (there is a major Wookiee character and Geode returns and while both have no dialogue their personalities and communication with other characters is a feat in and of itself).  The arc feels like it’s an ending and a very satisfying ending at that. 8/10.

The Sun Eater: Empire of Silence by: Christopher Ruoccio

 

I would love to say that Empire of Silence was a book that I just gravitated towards, but no once again this is another of those books that I took a chance on based on the recommendations of YouTube.  There are several booktubers over the years who have sung the praises of Christopher Ruocchio’s first installment in The Sun Eater.  As a text, it is quite large, Ruocchio wearing his many influences on his sleeves.  Empire of Silence is presented as the first volume of the memoirs of Hadrian Marlowe, initially an heir to a throne and in the text clearly meant to go onto some sort of greatness that this volume does not actually explain what that greatness is.  It’s explained in the title as eating a sun, but Hadrian as narrator is coming from the perspective of the reader being familiar to exactly who he was.  Ruocchio’s gamble with Empire of Silence is explicitly making this a first volume, it was published traditionally and it’s one of those novels that ends at a point where it is clearly one small part in a bigger story (though this case will clearly be a much, much bigger story).  This is a novel that reaches a stopping point but honestly manages to straddle the line of being clearly the first part of an epic and telling a complete story, heck it almost tells multiple stories.  Brandon Sanderson has described writing installments of The Stormlight Archive as writing a trilogy and presenting it at one book; that’s what reading Empire of Silence feels like, experiencing a trilogy of stories about the developing life of Hadrian Marlowe and his road to hell.

 

While there is no certainty that The Sun Eater is going to turn out with Hadrian as a villain, Empire of Silence is full of Hadrian’s personal struggle with morality in a monarchist, imperialist, intergalactic system.  Hadrian begins the novel in a position of great privilege, and Ruocchio’s plot follows a structure of seeing him essentially having his own wants.  Those wants are initially in line with his privileged position, wishing to be declared the heir of his father, but his father is a ruthless tyrant.  While Hadrian’s father and brother both view him as soft and weak, Hadrian is still clearly the product of privilege.  This is evident when what spurs him to change is not some genuine sense of morality, but because he was slighted by his family.  Hadrian acts out and blusters on his own, something that gets him severely injured and his estimations in his father’s eyes plummeted to the worst.  His wish to become essentially a scholar instead of a priest as his father predestines is not really for a love of knowledge but to go against his father.  He gets this incredibly rude awakening when he is injured by people on the streets, his first real interaction outside of the aristocracy.  Yet, his rejection of the aristocracy and secret plans to become a scholar, plans that in the second act of the novel (or second leg of the trilogy if you wish to view it like that) go wrong and put Hadrian among the lower classes for a number of years.  Throughout these sequences the reader gets this true sense that Hadrian as a person is still the aristocrat, still blinded by his own privilege stripped from him.  Ruocchio manages to fully encapsulate a selfish protagonist and links that selfishness clearly with his previous high class at the top of his mind.  There is a middle segment of the novel that is essentially a tribute to films like Gladiator and Spartacus.

 

Tempering the selfish aspects of Hadrian as a character is a genuine thirsting for knowledge.  There are multiple romantic relationships included in the novel and they highlight these aspects, Hadrian while suffering romantic loss throughout the novel, these losses deconstruct the selfishness, especially the first which is with a woman who falls ill and dies because she doesn’t have the eugenicist genetics of the aristocracy.  This is the romance that feels the closest to a traditional and genuine romance, Hadrian isn’t really using her but her death is used to further blindside Hadrian to the injustices in the universe.  Humanity has been at war with the alien Cielcin, a hermaphrodite race whose individuals use “it” pronouns.  While the Earth is a planet of the distant path and humanity has built through a new religious order that is largely believed to be false, the Cielcin essentially provide a scapegoat for the enemy that imperialist empires like the Earth empire needs.  They are not actually a major element until the final third of the novel when Hadrian actually takes an interest with their language and culture.  This leads to the ending of the novel as a completely tragic affair which feels as if Ruocchio needed to really show Hadrian the horrors of imperialism and empire; that is without the possibility of rationalizing that horror through his life.  There is a Cielcin prisoner whose perspective is what doesn’t so much as break a life of pro-human propaganda but allow Hadrian to question it.

 

Overall, Empire of Silence is an incredibly interesting blend of science fiction and fantasy.  This review honestly feels as if I’m only scratching the surface of what Christopher Ruocchio is doing with his novel.  Hadrian Marlowe is the central figure of the novel that clearly deserves the amount of time this review dedicated to him, but the novel’s worldbuilding is equally vivid and an exploration of the imperialist system that can create a person like Hadrian Marlowe.  There’s so much in this tome that it feels as if I’ve only scratched the surface of what Ruocchio can do as an author.  9/10.

The Tholian Web by: Judy Burns and Chet Richards and directed by: Herb Wallerstein

 

“The Tholian Web” is written by: Judy Burns and Chet Richards and is directed by: Herb Wallerstein.  It was filmed under production code 64, was the 9^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 64^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on November 15, 1968.

 

These reviews of Star Trek have been largely positive in terms of analyzing the performance of William Shatner as Captain Kirk.  “The Tholian Web”, however, is an interesting episode because it is perhaps the first episode of the series where Kirk is not the main character.  The premise is that the USS Defiant, sister ship to the Enterprise, has drifted into a portion of space and needs to be rescued by Kirk and company.  Something has caused the ship to phase in between universes and Captain Kirk becomes trapped on the Defiant with the rest of the Enterprise crew infected with a virus causing insanity and paranoia.  Kirk being trapped means that he gets little focus in the episode, giving Spock and McCoy their first real chance to fully lead the show and it’s that aspect of the episode that really pushes it among some of the best for the series.  As an episode, we are once again confined to the two ships, redressing Enterprise sets for the Defiant and turning down the lights.  Herb Wallerstein is responsible for directing the episode and his direction is incredibly tense, largely focusing on enhancing the actors’ performances through tighter shots and the many dialogue scenes.  The illness plotline adds to the threat of the Tholians, a group of aliens who control this area of space and are trapping the Enterprise in a literal web.  Their portrayal is fascinating, they are reasonable and give the Enterprise time before they continue their attacks so the chance is there to leave.  Obviously, Spock won’t leave without rescuing Kirk so the Enterprise is damaged in the attacks while the web is weaved around the ship as a countdown to being fully trapped.

 

Judy Burns and Chet Richards contribute their only episode to the series, another of the episodes written by fans who sold scripts to the series and despite the multiple plotlines, “The Tholian Web” is one of those episodes that juggle them particularly well.  Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are the pair that have the most to do and give the best performances, much of the real drama of the episode coming from the clash in personalities of Spock and McCoy.  This also goes to show why Kirk as a character works as a mediator between the pair.  Spock’s logic means he is quick to retaliate against the Tholians because it would buy them more time to get Kirk, trapping them in the web to begin with, while McCoy is more concerned with the fact that the crew is becoming ill.  Perhaps the best moment of the episode for the pair are their reactions to Kirk’s final wishes, recorded and shown in the event of his death, Kirk showing that he understands both men and trusts them implicitly to captain the ship on in its mission.  What’s also setting “The Tholian Web” apart is that Burns and Richards have also written this as a science fiction ghost story: using the different dimensions allows apparitions of Kirk as a ghost like figure throughout the episode.  Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, not immediately affected by the illness, sees the apparition and gets some wonderful moments of believing herself mad as the episode adds these haunted house aspects to enrich the script.  James Doohan and Walter Koenig also get particular moments to shine, Doohan in the resolution where the cure to the illness does involve drinking alcohol and Koenig’s initial breakdown being a particularly physical performance from the young actor.

 

Overall, “The Tholian Web” is quite surprising in how well it stacks up, showing that even under the great stressful conditions and reduced budget of the third season Star Trek can do brilliant looks into the characters.  It’s a particular shame that it took this long to do an episode largely without Kirk, though Shatner still has his moments, allowing the rest of the cast some of their best moments in the series.  Burns and Richards’ only contribution to the series is honestly fantastic and a contender for the best of the season and top 10 of the series overall.  9/10.

For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky by: Hendrik Vollaerts and directed by: Tony Leader

 

“For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” is written by: Hendrik Vollaerts and is directed by: Tony Leader.  It was filmed under production code 65, was the 8^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 63^rd episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on November 8, 1968.

 

Sometimes you get an episode of Star Trek where the title is exactly what the episode is going to be about.  “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” is an episode that is literally about a hollow asteroid spaceship with people living inside it as their own world run by an oracle (another Star Trek staple of a mad computer holding these people under its own authoritarian regime).  The asteroid spaceship is an early example of a space ark in science fiction, something that was actually quite a popular idea in this particular era of sci-fi, Doctor Who had done one two years prior and authors like Robert Heinlein were using the idea as well.  Now what is interesting about space ark stories are generally the insular societies they create and the ability to explore said society.  Sadly, it seems author Hendrik Vollaerts is not interested in doing this, the society really only has two members who get any time, a nameless old man with a single scene before he dies played by Jon Lormer and a priestess to the oracle, Natira played by Kate Woodville.  The actual plot of this episode is honestly the same structure and plot beats of “The Paradise Syndrome” with a senior member of the Enterprise trio falling in love with one of the natives in this society while the other two deal with the rogue asteroid situation.  Yes, the asteroid and society are in the same setting so there is much less of the characters being split up, but it’s the same story.  While “The Paradise Syndrome” had its own set of problems in portraying the society as Native Americans, “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” has the almost opposite problem of just not strongly characterizing the society nor the supercomputer running everything.  Natira as a character has the basic romance plot for Star Trek at this time and Kate Woodville’s performance is sadly quite wooden as well, though she does end the episode alive and ready to meet her lover in a year’s time when the asteroid finds its way to its new planet.

 

The B-plot of stopping the asteroid is given to Kirk and Spock, who are also charged with unraveling the mystery of this society while McCoy is the one given the romantic A-plot of the episode.  William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are as always fun to watch, but the B-plot is actually quite thin.  Because this is a story about the Enterprise crew, it’s in the pre-credits that the reveal of the asteroid as housing a society is given as inciting incident instead of being a realization from someone inside the society.  The old man character is meant to be the person the title refers to, having climbed the mountains (really an elevator) to the surface and seen the outer space, but he gets one scene before dying so the viewer already knows the twist of this society.  The reveal of oracle as computer could also have served as a potential twist, albeit a predictable one, but Vollaerts reveals that almost immediately when explaining who Natira is.  This leaves the romance A-plot as really the only thing pushing “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” forward.  Now DeForest Kelley actually gives an incredibly strong performance, elevating some of the weaker romantic material with this added idea that Bones has contracted an incurable disease that will kill him in a year.  This added subplot, especially in the early portions of the episode, is genuinely an amazing idea for the episode to explore and it’s clear that Kelley is grasping it with both hands.  There is this flash of anger at Nurse Chapel allowing Majel Barrett some nice moments and this secrecy towards Spock who finds out when Kirk has to explain why the computer’s power is affecting McCoy harder then the pair.  It’s kind of a shame that Star Trek isn’t interested in really maintaining continuity between episodes because it could also be the basis for a nice little multi-episode story arc of McCoy finding a cure.  Because this is a wholly episodic show, it means that the plot is solved in the climax with the alien society that built the asteroid ship actually had found a cure to this illness so everything is wrapped up almost too nicely.  It’s also a plotline that is almost dropped in the final act until this reveal, which is a shame because it provides fascinating motivation for McCoy’s character.

 

Overall, “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” suffers from largely being a rehash of a story that the series literally did just a few weeks ago.  The more unique ideas in the episode sadly don’t have enough time to really come to fruition while much of the enjoyment is coming from the sheer talent and charisma of the main trio.  It’s an episode whose most interesting attribute is its title, something that honestly would be more well suited outside of the format of Star Trek, taking out much of its potential because of adherence to the format and characters.  4/10.

Tales from Alagaesia Volume 1: The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm by: Christopher and Angela Paolini

 

The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm is a book that I honestly wasn’t going to read.  The Inheritance Cycle was a series that held some nostalgic value, reading the first two books as a kid and revisiting the entire cycle in 2022 made me realize just how little of the series I liked, largely staying at an average rating.  Christopher Paolini has written more and found fans in both fantasy and science fiction, returning to the world after seven years away with essentially two short stories, a framing story, and fractions of a novel presented as a short story from his sister Angela Paolini.  The afterword from Paolini is interesting as the original idea became the third story “The Worm of Kulkaras”, the first coming next, and the second being an opportunity given to Angela just to fill out what could be reasonably published, and still the published hardcover is almost pocket sized, is under 300 pages, and is formatted so there are less words on the page.  The frame story is the point of view of Eragon as he is shown or told three separate stories about other characters and cultures approximately a year after the events of Inheritance finished the story.

 

Eragon’s perspective has clearly grown since Paolini wrote Inheritance, certainly since writing Eragon.  The boy has grown up into a confident, wise adult existing in a challenge that he must overcome, one that he is honestly not quite suited for.  Eragon’s character archetype fits the epic hero since so much of The Inheritance Cycle drew on the monomyth and Star Wars’ interpretation specifically, so his fate at the end of Inheritance while fitting the monomyth means Paolini has to develop him for what comes next.  Paolini makes it clear that there is more for the character to do even if it’s quite clear he will not be the protagonist.  The interlude sequences are, however, where The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm really fall apart.  The bookends that open and close the book are great and clearly have a story to tell, but the connecting tissue of the in between segments feel almost entirely like an afterthought, just there because there needed to be something there.  Between the stories there are also these small time jumps that feel as if there are details completely absent that would have been present had this been a full-length novel.  It’s also kind of a problem, but kind of the point with Angela Paolini’s “On the Nature of Stars”.  It’s an interesting little short story, but also one that’s clearly meant to be read on its own and within the context of the character Angela, it’s dealing with truth, magic, and science after all, but it’s also perhaps the weakest of the three short stories because it doesn’t actually have much to say.  It’s a short story that thinks it’s being largely clever about saying nothing, though it’s at least well written, even if it isn’t Paolini.

 

“A Fork in the Road” actually showed a lot of promise as a short story as well, being actually written by Christopher Paolini.  “A Fork in the Road” is largely interested in showing some of the world after the tyranny of Galbatorix, something that Paolini actually excels at.  There is still evil in the world, not a central authoritarian evil, but almost normal, everyday nastiness of people from the simple bullying of a child to the adult extortion of others.  It’s a simple story, one that has a twist as to who the central character is (it’s Murtagh which is incredibly obvious in hindsight), but the simplicity is something that Paolini almost needed to show that he could do interesting things with the world.  Because it is the opening story, it’s the first thing that the reader has to immerse themselves back into this world so the simplicity actually works.  It allows the closing story, “The Worm of Kulkaras” to work even better as an exploration of Urgal culture and history.  The Urgals were clearly the stand-in for Tolkien’s orcs throughout The Inheritance Cycle and it wasn’t until the final installment Inheritance where they actually were given a fully deeper purpose.  This short story expands that and honestly allows Paolini to flex his more bardic side, as this is a story told through the mouth of a bard.  It’s a tale of slaying an evil dragon that feasts on Urgals, the titular worm, though shifts nicely into a tale about knowing when to retreat and accept ones own limits without feeling as if you are giving up.  Thematically it is also relevant to Eragon’s own task of healing the dragons in the Eldunari and the hatching of a new generation of dragons, the book ending with Eragon being informed of the first dragon hatching.

 

Overall, The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm shows that Christopher Paolini’s growth as an author is something that has continued since 2011’s Inheritance.  The two stories he pens are genuinely great, although the struggle with the interludes and the middle story being more baffling than anything hold this one back.  There is a fifth installment in the series set after Inheritance released in 2023, something that I am definitely now checking out because it’s clear that Paolini’s growth will transfer to novel writing, but The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm is still a bit rocky.  It is at least a quick and easy read with enough charm to push it slightly above mediocrity.  6/10.

Star Wars: The High Republic: Out of the Shadows by: Justina Ireland

 

Perhaps it is because it is young adult, but Out of the Shadows continues to be an installment in Star Wars: The High Republic which just grabs me and keeps me interested more than the adult books.  Maybe it is because this line of books in general has simpler stories that don’t attempt to overcomplicate things, perhaps it is because these feel the most easy to someone who isn’t really a part of the Star Wars fandom, or maybe they’re just that good.  Out of the Shadows is essentially the follow up to Into the Dark, though from a different author.  Justina Ireland writes this one, her first book for the franchise but far from her first novel, and while the characters and plot threads Claudia Gray introduced are here and contribute to the plot, they take more of a backseat.  It is quite nice to see Reath from the perspective of other characters who call out his suspicious actions near the climax dealing with the Nihil threat of the novel, largely how Ireland follows up on Into the Dark with the Nihil moving into the open and no longer being an isolated threat.  Nan is the one of the other major characters from Into the Dark to reappear and have a major role in the novel, Ireland being clearly interested in exploring the Nihil and their inner workings.  Ireland doesn’t actually talk down to the younger audience, there’s a lot of internal bickering and bureaucracy as well as espionage.  Their technology is quite advanced and dangerous, and the structured nature of their society allows for Nan to have this innate desire to be seen and succeed.  There is an interesting idea of advancement in Nihil society that is driving Nan and the reader can tell it’s going to be self-destructive, she ends the book in a very different place than she started with a completely different faction as intergalactic tensions are largely heating up.

 

Ireland’s protagonists for Out of the Shadows are pilot Sylvestri “Syl” Yarrow and Jedi Knight Vernestra “Vern” Rwoh.  This pair are essentially the alternating point of view characters for the entire novel.  Syl is an interesting character since her journey is essentially a mafia story dealing with a mafia family that are not the Hutts and slowly falling in love with someone in a lovely piece of LGBT representation from a young adult novel published by Disney that couldn’t easily be removed for certain international editions.  She has a dead mother who may actually be alive, a scholarly streak, and is a pretty fun character to follow.  Vern on the other hand is perhaps the standout star of the novel, at least for me.  Like Reath in Into the Dark, Vern is a character with some uniqueness to her, mainly because she is only 16 and is already a Jedi Knight, leading to a fascinating internal monologue of being an outsider from her peers who are all still Padawans.  She’s perhaps a bit too cocky as a Jedi for her own good, but there is the clear talent there.  Perhaps my favorite portion in the novel is this moment where Vern and Reath duel each other as a way to relieve stress and learn from each other, because these characters really do shine together in such an interesting way.  It’s especially apparent since the middle of the novel does suffer from largely dragging.  The plot threads converge pretty easily and by the end everything comes out, but it does feel as if Ireland has gone through several drafts and the editing process on the novel was a little rough on the novel.

 

Overall, Out of the Shadows continues what has been a pretty solid streak of Star Wars novels for me.  The High Republic continues to be the period of the franchise that is allowing the most interesting creative opportunities, and several authors being in charge means that each installment has this nice risk and reward quality to it.  Justina Ireland is also great when it comes to character work and worldbuilding, allowing it to overcome some of the major issues that the plot of the novel had.  This is a book that is such a fun and breezy read that I can’t help but enjoy it even if there are problems to be acknowledged.  7/10.