VLSI%DEC-MARLBORO@sri-unix.UUCP (04/26/84)
From: John Redford <VLSI at DEC-MARLBORO>
"The Final Reflection" by John M. Ford
Pocket Books, $2.95
There have recently been a whole slew of novels set in the Star Trek
universe. The inside cover of "The Final Reflection" lists fifteen, some of
them by fairly well known authors like Vonda McIntyre and Greg Bear. Counting
the TV short story anthologies, the cartoon series and all the randoms, the
total must come to fifty books by now. Perry Rhodan, watch out! This one
caught my eye because I loved John Ford's first book, "Web of Angels". His
second, "Princes of the Air", got kind of incoherent, but this one is tight and
well-plotted. Working within the constraints of the ST universe must have had
disciplining effect on him.
The book is actually not about Kirk, Spock and McCoy, those well-beloved
characters of our youth, although Spock appears in it as a child. It's
about a Klingon captain, Krenn sur-Rustazh, who winds up being the first
Klingon ambassador to the Federation. He is in fact, the Klingon counterpart
to Kirk, being bold, courageous, and cunning, although since he is a Klingon
he is also a ruthless and cold-blooded killer. There's even a Klingon
counterpart to the Star Trek TV series itself. Every week the Battleship
Vengenance with Captain Koth at the helm captures an enemy ship or enslaves
an enemy planet. Although Krenn is without an established Line, he quickly
rises to being the captain of a frontier naval vessel. When the Federation
starts making peace overtures, he is the one chosen to bring the Federation
ambassador to the Klingon homeworld, since he is expendable. This brings him
in contact with the devious and incomprehensible Humans. Worst of all is
Dr. Emmanuel Tagore, the ambassdor, who is a pacifist. He cannot
understand a being who dislikes war just because it is war, and not because he
might lose.
There are some nice touches in the descriptions of the totally militarist
Klingon culture. They have a passion for chess-like games, of which they have
a number of forms, some with live soldiers battling it out. In the afterlife
they go to sail with the Black Fleet, where they can fight and die laughing a
thousand times. They are baffled by the Human's penchant for going into large
meetings completely unarmed. You don't actually come to sympathize with them,
but they do become more than mere monsters. I would have thought that the
Star Trek universe would have been exhausted long ago, but this book
proves that an inventive author can find an interesting angle on anything.
John Redford (vlsi @ dec-marlboro)
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