markk

To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to reading Kathleen Sky's book. The reviews on Goodreads are almost uniformly negative, dismissing it as a Mary Sue novel with a lousy plot and poor characterizations of the central crew. And after reading it for myself, I found that the criticisms are largely well founded, especially when compared to the many other works written since that do so much better of a job of crafting a story that is true to the elements of the original series. The plot is premised on a ridiculous notion that the border of the Neutral Zone between the Federation and the Romulans that can shift under the influence of space storms, which is an implausible concept that is refuted by the very episode that introduced the Romulans and the Neutral Zone to begin with. The characterizations are indeed poor, with Spock less controlled and logical than he should have been, and McCoy almost predatorial in his romantic aspirations. Worst of all, though is the central character of Katalya Tremain, who comes across as far too petulant and unprofessional for someone who is ostensibly a member of a professional organization like Starfleet.

And yet in spite of all that I found myself enjoying the novel much more than I expected I would. While the premise of a shifting border may be ridiculous, the mission itself to establish whether a species on a key world is sentient or not was an interesting concept that is surprisingly underutilized in the franchise. And for all of the flaws in the characterization of the central crew and her key creation, Sky does provide an interesting examination of crew dynamics that is surprisingly nuanced, addressing it in a way that is far truer to life than Roddenberry's overly-idealized premise of numerous species all working happily together and as later works would demonstrate would prove a fruitful source of storytelling. Perhaps it was a case of having my expectations lowered to a point where I could appreciate the book despite its flaws, but whatever the reason it resulted in the end in a better reading experience and a more nuanced assessment of what Sky's book has to offer.