|
-
News
- Features
- Blogs
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Google Toolbar scifi
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
-
Hivemind
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Star Trek: Crucible Spock: The Fire And The Rose by David R. George III
01/10/2007 . Source: Eamonn Murphy 
pub: Simon and Schuster. 388 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK), $ 7.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7434-9169-3. Buy Star Trek: Crucible Spock: The Fire And The Rose in the USA - or Buy Star Trek: Crucible Spock: The Fire And The Rose in the UK  check out website: www.simonsays.co.uk
This book is the second of a trilogy featuring McCoy, Spock and Kirk and centring on the original series television episode 'City On The Edge Of Forever' by Harlan Ellison. In that episode, an accidentally drug-crazed McCoy travelled back in time and changed history by saving Edith Keeler from becoming road kill. Kirk and Spock followed and stopped him to let Edith Keeler die. This was traumatic for Kirk as he had fallen in love with the woman.
The series title 'Crucible' implies that this was a central character forming experience for all three. The first book focused on McCoy and I gave it an unenthusiastic review. This one is better, probably because Spock, with his dual heritage, is more interesting. His perennial dilemma of emotion versus logic is one we all face, to a certain extent, in our daily lives. In customer service, for example, one's emotional reaction is to tell the customer to take a running jump, but logically one needs to keep the job.
The first book followed McCoy's alternative life path had Kirk and Spock not rescued him from the past, alternating between the Star Trek universe and 1930s America. Happily this one is set entirely in Trek land. It alternates between the Edith Keeler story, with later time travel incidents mentioned, and the Vulcan's life story after the death of Captain Kirk. This bereavement produces strong feelings in Spock so he abandons both his burgeoning ambassadorial career and a developing relationship with a human woman to go back to his home planet and study for Kolinahr - complete mastery of his emotions. Mom Amanda is against this course of action and so, rather surprisingly, is Pa Sarek but Spock goes ahead.
The Kolinahr training involves a lot of self-examination and thinking about the past. David R. George picks up on the fact that although Spock let Edith Keeler die to maintain a timeline - correct behaviour according to his own ethics - he later used whales from the past to save Earth, effectively using time travel to change the planet's destiny. The animated episode where he went back in time to save himself as a child is mentioned because he feels guilty about that, too. He can fiddle with the past when it suits him but sticking to his ethics resulted in terrible emotional pain for Captain Kirk. Spock's own turmoil about all this is his reason for seeking Kolinahr.
The author is clearly well-versed in the live television series, the animated television series and the films. He takes these sources as being 'canon' and ignores other people's novels, which is pretty standard procedure in Trek written fiction. Like the McCoy book, this is not action-packed but I've sort of got used to that idea now. It's about character not plot. It's about reflection on events with which we are already familiar.
I enjoyed this book. Spock is such an archetype that he is easy to write good stories about him, hence the large quantity of Trek novels featuring Vulcan themes. Given stronger subject matter, David R. George III seemed to write better, even poetically at times, and I had less sense of a book padded with tiny details. After the disappointing McCoy first volume, I approached this one with some trepidation and was pleasantly surprised. I now move on to the final 'Crucible: Kirk' story with higher hopes.
Eamonn Murphy
|
|
