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| Mass market paperback, 352 pages Published 2012 Acquired November 2012 Read January 2019 |
by Christopher L. Bennett
2266-75 / 2383
My complaint about the first Department of Temporal Investigations novel was that despite a strong beginning and a strong ending, the middle of the book became bogged down in the format of "DTI turns up the aftereffects of a Next Generation episode; exposition is delivered to massage the details into the novel's Unified Theory of Star Trek Time Travel," without a strong story of its own. At first blush, you might think Forgotten History was going to do the same thing, just with episodes of the original series, and though it does swerve into this on occasion (I'm not convinced the retcon of "Whom Gods Destroy" added much to the book), on the whole it's much more focused and much more of a story.
The reason for this is Commodore Antonio Delgado, first mentioned in this readthrough in From History's Shadow. An flag officer in Starfleet's Science Ops, Delgado sees the possibilities of time travel when presented to him after the events of "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," and so he keeps tabs on the Enterprise's various temporal shenanigans as he attempts to make time travel a viable avenue for Starfleet, sometimes working against the fledgling Department of Temporal Investigations, sometimes with it. Delgado is a surprisingly interesting "villain," and I wish we'd seen more of him. It would be easy to make him a hypocrite or out for personal gain, but he's genuinely principled, believing that perfecting time travel is for the greater good of the Federation, and not willing to use it for personal reasons. He's sometimes quite reckless, but often thoughtful, such as when he realizes sending his Federation timeships into the futures of parallel timelines is the safest option, as it means the Federation can gain technological and even political knowledge from the future, without endangering its own future with paradoxes. Delgado's ongoing attempts to use the Enterprise's adventures to develop time travel give the otherwise unconnected incidents of the original series a throughline that the first book largely lacked; with each episode, you the reader wonder how this will contribute to his machinations. (Incorporated episodes include "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," "The City on the Edge of Forever," "Assignment: Earth," and "Yesteryear.")
The only thing I didn't like was his attitude toward women, which just seems to be in the novel to make us boo and hiss at him, like when a bad guy in a movie kicks a puppy, just so you know he's the bad guy.
The other thing that makes this novel work is that is allows the 24th-century Department of Temporal Investigations to come face-to-face with their long-standing boogeyman, James T. Kirk. While the first three-quarters of the novel has Dulmur and Lucsly in a frame story reading about the original Enterprise's temporal shenanigans, in the last quarter, the Enterprise crew and the DTI characters all end up in the same time and place, a temporal confluence between past and future. The result of this is that Dulmur and Lucsly-- especially Lucsly-- actually have to interact with Captain Kirk, and this part of the book is just delightful, Lucsly's indignation at what is unfolding oozing off the page in hilarious fashion. Like in the first DTI book, the temporal shenanigans got a tad convoluted for me to follow, but I enjoyed it anyway, mostly thanks to the role Lucsly and Dulmur end up playing in Kirk's history of temporal interference.
On the other hand, I don't think Meijan Gray was sufficiently built up as a paragon of temporal noninterference to make the revelations about her at the climax really stick like they ought to have.
The one part of the novel that didn't really fit for me was the long section where the refit Enterprise travels to an alternate timeline, one where Earth vanished in the 20th century (this is where the book posits the duplicate Earth of "Miri" originated), and so the Vulcans remained more militaristic (because no NX-01 means no Kir'Shara rediscovery), in a galaxy where they're opposed by a Klingon/Andorian alliance. A little bit of this would have been fine, and it does set up some elements of the story that become significant at the climax, but it goes on longer than is interesting, and its relevance isn't altogether clear for most of it. Part of the issue, I think, is that the one-particular-species-is-missing-from-22nd-century-politics concept was also done in two Myriad Universe stories, and this permutation doesn't feel a whole lot different from those.
But on the whole, this is an engaging, interesting novel-- I zipped through it in about two days-- and shows the promise of the Department of Temporal Investigations premise better than does its predecessor. I look forward to seeing the series further developed in the transition to e-novellas.
- This novel actually slots between parts 1 and 2 of Indistinguishable from Magic (one of the DTI characters leaves partway through to go debrief the Challenger crew on the events involving the Split Infinite, which happens at the climax of part 1). I guess I could have read the book then... but no. (I reserve insanity like that for rereads only.)
- I liked the touch that when novel depicts the slingshot maneuver that preceded "Assignment: Earth," Kirk hears snatches of dialogue from the episode in reverse chronological order, as was he also did during the slingshot in The Voyage Home.
- I also liked the incorporation of a number of elements of the 1970s cartoon. "Yesteryear" is expanded and rearticulated, and one of its minor characters turns out to be a DTI founder, but also the mysterious Vedala from "The Jihad" play a significant role in the novel's proceedings, and some of the cartoon's Enterprise crew reappear as well.
- There are some very slight references to The Rings of Time here, which is the whole reason I read Rings of Time at the beginning of this. Blink and you'd miss them, though.
- I don't think the details surrounding Kirk's promotion to admiral here quite line up with what we saw in Allegiance in Exile.
- I liked the joke about how "chronal" wasn't even a real word. I don't think Star Trek has ever used this on screen, but it has appeared in a few of the tie-ins.
- Bennett writes a pretty good "Kirk speech" when Kirk speaks in defense of his supposed violations of the Prime Directive at the end of the five-year mission. Actually, the whole mission to Pelos is a pretty good pastiche of an original series episode.
- Bennett might know more about real temporal science and Star Trek time travel than anyone else alive, but he still doesn't know the correct usage of the word "table" in parliamentary procedure (see p. 69). Meijan should have made a motion to postpone indefinitely.
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