Review: Poor Yorick by Ryan North

Published: 2013
Acquired: September 2013
Read: October 2020

Poor Yorick by Ryan North

This is a prequel to To Be or Not To Be, North's "chooseable-path adventure" take on Hamlet; it is a short ebook (just 35 pages) that was available to Kickstarter backers. I read it very, very belatedly. You play as Yorick, trying to get a job at Elsinore entertaining Kid Hamlet so you can fulfill your role in his story-- dying so that he can hold your skull during Act V and pontificate on death.

It does not have the sprawling complexity of To Be or Not To Be or Romeo and/or Juliet. Instead, it's very linear; you are consistently presented with three choices, two of which will kill you, one of which will let you keep playing. North is a funny writer, so I was entertained, but I found that even at this brief length, the joke wore thin. Nice to read but I wouldn't rush out to find a copy. (I don't think you can get the ebook version anywhere anymore anyway, but it was reprinted as part of the collection William Shakespeare Punches a Friggin' Shark and/or Other Stories.)

"Comes the morning and the headlights fade away": The Living Daylights

The woman on this poster represents
no actual film character, though.

The Living Daylights brings a new James Bond: my first one in four films. Timothy Dalton would play Bond twice, and for the first time in this marathon, I'll be going through a Bond's films in the order they actually came out. (Though I will watch two other films before getting to License to Kill.) I liked him. My wife said he was very "smiley"; I can't say I noticed that per se, but I did notice that he was more genuinely-- or at least seemingly genuinely-- emotional than Roger Moore's smarmy charm. There were a couple key scenes in this regard for me: one is when he's trying to get Kara Milovy, the villain's girlfriend, to accompany him out of Czechoslovakia. She's a cellist, and insists they need to go back for her cello before leaving the city. Bond forcefully says they don't have the time because the KGB is already on their tail. Smash cut to: Bond loading the cello into the car. I bet Sean Connery wouldn't have done that!

The sequence that really made it stand out to me, though, is one where Bond is accompanying Kara on a day in Vienna. There's a sort of film-romance-style montage of them doing things like going on fun fair rides and Bond winning teddy bears at the shooting gallery and them going on a roller coaster. It's hard for me to imagine any previous Bond doing this, except for George Lazenby. But then Bond's MI6 contact in Vienna is killed-- and he becomes all seriousness and business, snapping at Kara as he tells her what they're doing next. Unlike with some other actors, it's not entirely clear to me which is meant to be the "real" Bond, which I like.

Interestingly, there's really only one "Bond girl" in this one, a far cry from some of the Connery and Moore movies that Bond seemed to sleep his way through. This probably adds to the sense of Dalton's Bond as more genuinely emotional. I liked Maryam d'Abo a lot, as someone out of her depth but game for it all. She sure does ditch her boyfriend for Bond easy, though!

The Living Daylights takes the short story of that title as its jumping-off point. The short story is about Bond facing down a Soviet sniper so he can help a defector cross the Berlin Wall; after a pre-credits sequence, the film opens with a similar set-up, though with a number of changes. While in the story, a KGB sniper uses a cello case to smuggle her sniper rifle, in the film, Kara is a real cellist acting as a sniper in order to trick MI6 into believing a fake defection is real. The film mostly concerns the consequences of that fake defection.

It's decent, a solid mid-tier Bond film. Like the better Roger Moore films, it starts a bit goofy but gets serious as it goes. Near the beginning, there's a chase scene through the snow. I'm a sucker for a Bond ski chase, so at first I was disappointed because there were no skis in sight. But then a bunch of KGB skiers show up... then I was disappointed that Bond wasn't on skis. But then Bond and Kara begin sledding on her cello case while Bond uses the cello itself to steer! Amazing. The later parts of the film, though, get more serious, with Bond helping break up an opium-smuggling operation in Afghanistan. (There are still some moments of levity, though, such as when Bond and Kara use a baggage loader to escape a Soviet airfield.) The progression works well, as does the plot. I called early on that the defection was fake, but it was still enjoyable for Bond to work out the villains' plan and begin to foil it. I especially liked the way Bond actually had to team up with the head of the KGB.

The plot-- as far as these things go-- even feels vaguely plausible. There are no death lasers or space bases. The villains in this one are a Soviet general who wants to become head of the KGB and an American arms dealer. They're okay, and probably the weakest part of the film, but their plans make sense: political aspirations and greed. I did think it was a bit hard to swallow when the film tells us that Bond will feel bad about having to kill the head of the KGB because he doesn't think he's as bad as he's been told! John Rhys-Davies plays General Pushkin, but this development makes more sense when you realize that the part was originally scripted for Walter Gotell as General Gogol, who appeared in seven previous films, and was often portrayed-- most notably in For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy-- as a voice of sanity against those who wanted to escalate the Cold War. (Gotell was sick when The Living Daylights was filmed, and just has a one-scene cameo.)

A lot of Bond films go from place to place seemingly at random, but I felt this one's globe-trotting felt quite natural; Bond gets Kara out of Czechoslovakia to Vienna, then takes her to where her boyfriend is in Tangier, and then both are taken to Afghanistan. It makes things feel big without feeling arbitrary. (In some films it's like, "And the villains is hiding in [rolls dice] a Chinese casino.") Art Malik was good as the Mujahideen leader, though I felt like he was underused.

This is the Wiener Riesenrad, the same Ferris wheel that prominently appears in The Third Man.

The end deflates it a bit: Bond must stop a shipment of opium; initially he plans to blow it up, but then he ends up trapped on the same plane as the opium, so he must defuse the bomb and kill a henchman, and then the plane is crashing, etc.... it all goes on a bit, and then there's a whole second (but smaller) climax, in the style of Octopussy, where Bond then takes down the American arms dealer. I like that the film avoids some of the usual overdramatic Bond perils, but that comes at the cost of a suitably grand climax; once everyone knows the villain plot, it seems like they could really be stopped at Bond's leisure.

But on the whole, like I said, this film was solid, and I enjoyed it. People say License to Kill is Dalton's good one, so I look forward to getting to see it!

Other Notes:

• This is the first pre-Daniel Craig film I've see where someone other than Lois Maxwell plays Moneypenny. (She had finally given up the role of the flirty secretary at the age of 58 after A View to a Kill.) Caroline Bliss debuts as her replacement. Moneypenny was (arguably) the last of the recurring Bond characters to be recast, lasting an astounding fourteen films and twenty-three years with one actress.
• Virginia Hey, of Farscape fame, appears as Rubavitch, Gogol's mistress. I would not have recognized her! A few of the Roger Moore films gave Gogol a mistress and secretary named Rublevitch or Rubelvitch played by Eva Rueber-Staier; presumably this is the same woman.
• John Terry appears as Felix Leiter, the eighth guy I've seen play him in seventeen films. We'll generously dub him "not the worst" but he doesn't make much of an impression as per usual. Give me book Felix any day.
  

 Film Rankings (So Far):

1. Casino Royale
2. Dr. No
3. From Russia with Love
4. For Your Eyes Only 
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
6. Thunderball 
7. The Living Daylights
   
8. Spectre
9. You Only Live Twice
10. Goldfinger
11. The Spy Who Loved Me
12. Moonraker
13. Octopussy
    
14. Never Say Never Again
15. A View to a Kill
16. Live and Let Die 
17. Diamonds Are Forever

Myriad Universes: The Tears of Eridanus Draft History

Back in 2010, Michael Schuster and I co-wrote a short Star Trek novel, published as a three-in-one with two others by David R. George III and Scott Pearson; the volume was called Myriad Universe: Shattered Light. The premise of the Myriad Universes series (of which Shattered Light was the third and final installment) was to depict alternate Star Trek timelines. Ours was set in a universe where Surak, the founder of Vulcan logic, died before he could promulgate his philosophy. As a result, the Vulcans remained a warring, primitive species and never achieved spaceflight, and the Romulans never had a reason to depart and form their own civilization.

This had some knock-on effects two millennia later: there was no Vulcan to make First Contact with Earth, no Romulans to serve as a rival to the Klingon Empire, no Vulcans to be a founding member of the Federation, no Vulcan/Andorian rivalry for Earth to intercede in. By the 23rd century, there is a Federation equivalent, the Interstellar Union with its Interstellar Guard, but it is a descendant of the Andorian Empire and its Imperial Guard in much the same way the Federation and Starfleet derive from Earth in the "Prime Universe." The Andorians dominate, politically and culturally.

The story is set around the time of The Undiscovered Country in the Prime Universe, with Captain Hikaru Sulu commanding the IUES Kumari, an IG warship on the Klingon border. Hikaru's daughter Demora is also an IG officer, posted as security in an anthropological outpost on the primitive planet of "Minshara." (Enterprise established that Star Trek's class "M-class" designation for Earth-like planets derived from the Vulcan term "Minshara class"; we speculated that "Minshara" was an older word for "Vulcan" itself, much as you might call "Earth-like" planets "terrestrial," derived from the Latin name for Earth, Terra.)

We used to have a web site, which contained some supplemental materials to the novel, including a glossary of the Vulcan language Michael worked out, and a timeline of historical events I wrote. That web site was hacked and taken down, and unfortunately, much of the content on it was only stored on the web server, not locally, and is now lost. Every now and again I get a request for those materials on the TrekBBS. I have looked and looked and never found them, perplexingly enough.

I was able to find, with Michael's help, a history we drew up before writing the book. This was intended for our own reference, not public consumption, and some of it was superseded by the actual published book. (You'll see, for example, it calls the IU military the "IU Guard," but in the novel we went with the simpler "Interstellar Guard" or "IG." I am pretty sure Sulu's history shifted as I actually wrote the Kumari sections, too.)

But it is what I have, and I hope it is of interest. Other than some typos I caught, I haven't edited it at all.

---

The Interstellar Union—History

By the middle of the 21st century, the Andorian Empire dominated “Local Space,” with a number of colonies on planets such as P’Jem¹, Weytahn, Regulus, and Deneva. A war with the Tellarites in the 2060s resulted in an Andorian victory, building an Andorian reputation for ruthlessness and warrior prowess. The Andorians never conquered Tellar Prime, however, deeming it not worth the trouble. Andorian influence was strong, with planets such as Axanar, Mazar, and Nausicaa serving as client states. As time went on, Andoria’s domination came to be more economic than military.

In the 2063, humanity discovered warp drive when Zefram Cochrane made his famous historic flight out of Bozeman, Montana. It was uneventful—he merely traveled a few light-minutes and returned—and it would be years before the Earth, still climbing its way out of the postatomic horror, would be able to progress further. Finally in the 2080s, the exploratory vessel S.S. Valiant was launched for Alpha Centauri, only to be swept off course by a magnetic storm. The ship was rescued by an Andorian vessel before it could reach the galactic rim, leading to Earth’s first contact with extraterrestrial life. 

Earth was of little interest to the Andorians, and so their intervention in Earth’s affairs were minimal, leaving the planet to claw its way back to functional levels on its own. But by 2150, the planet had a unified government, and engineers such as Charles Tucker III, George William Jeffries, and Jonathan Archer began development on the Warp-5 Engines. In 2170, the first Warp-5 starship, the NX-01 Enterprise commanded by Bryce Shumar, took to the stars. 

In 2153, Andoria was attacked by a mysterious species known as the Xindi, who originated in the Delphic Expanse. A massive Andorian task force, lead by Commander Shran of the Kumari, retaliated, leading to the collapse of the Delphic Expanse and the subjugation of the Xindi races.²

At the same time, the Andorian Empire was beginning to experience economic troubles, falling behind its neighbors. The Tellarites had finally rebuilt and were actually experiencing something of a technological renaissance. A new massive dilithium deposit had been discovered on Coridan³. And the Earth Cargo Service was spreading far and wide. But all four governments became worried about the growing influence and competition of the Orion Free Traders, whose ruthlessness business practices threatened all four planet’s interstellar trade and economic well-being. To strengthen their position, they entered into an agreement of economic cooperation in 2177—the Interstellar Trade Union, headquartered on Andoria. The first prefect of the Union (largely a ceremonial post) was the Andorian general, Shran. 

Over the next decade, the powers of the ITU rapidly increased, mostly thanks to murmurings of war with the Klingons. The war never came to pass, but that was chalked up to the fact that the four governments consolidated their militaries into the Union Guard—the first Field Marshal of the Guard was Avaranthi sh'Rothress. Under Prefect Lydia Littlejohn, the ITU became the plain-old Interstellar Union, a sovereign nation in its own right, in 2187, and membership began to rapidly expand, bringing in species such as the Denobulans and the Rigellians.⁴

The Interstellar Union—Military 

The Interstellar Union has never been involved in an actual war; indeed, very few all-out battles have been fought by its forces. This is attributed to the Andorian reputation for ruthlessness acquired in their wars against the Tellarites and the Xindi. The Guard serves a primarily defensive purpose, but the fact that one of its constituent parts was the old United Earth Space Probe Agency means that there are some parts devoted to the exploration of space. The flagship of the Union Guard is typically a ship known as the Kumari, after Shran’s old vessel. As of 2292, that ship is the Kumari II, Excelsior-class. 

The IU Guard is headquartered on Andoria, where it is lead by the field marshal (the current one is Thelian⁵). It has historically been dominated by Andorians, with humans, Coridanites, and Tellarites comprising the majority of the rest of the makeup. 

Ranks: 

• Field Marshal
• General
• Commander⁶
• Subcommander
• First Lieutenant
• Second Lieutenant
• Ensign 

The Interstellar Union—Politics

The capital of the Interstellar Union is Andor. It consists of some 100 planets. It is governed by a prefect (the current one is Shiboline M’Ress⁷); the foremost legislative body is the Executive Committee. (Both of those somewhat economic terms remain from the IU’s founding.) Each member elects a representative to the Committee. The core of the Committee is the First Executive, comprised of the representatives of the four founders as well as four other planets on a rotating basis. The First Executive typically deals with situations when promptness is called for, and a full session of the Committee is impractical. Its role remains somewhat controversial among the non-founding members. 

photomanipulation by Michael

Hikaru Sulu

Hikaru Sulu was born in San Francisco in 2237, and he lived there his entire life, despite a longtime desire to travel into space and explore. When he turned eighteen, he joined the IU Guard, training as an astrophysicist at the IU Guard Institute. 

By 2265, he was posted to the Enterprise (AA-1701) under Captain James Kirk, where he served with distinction on the Constitution-class starship’s five-year mission of patrol. As a science officer, however, he found his opportunities for advancement limited in the Guard, and when the mission was over, he signed up to retrain as a flight officer at the White Sands⁸ on Earth. It was during this time that he met Susan Ling in the city of Demora while on leave; the two conceived a daughter (who they named Demora) and were quickly married soon after. Hikaru was devoted to his family, but in 2273, he was quickly summoned to be part of the crew of the Enterprise when Earth came under threat by the V’Ger entity. He signed on with the ship permanently after that. 

In 2276, Susan passed away, leaving Hikaru Demora’s sole guardian. He left the Enterprise to accept a teaching position at the Institute on Andor so as to spend time with his daughter. During his time on Andor, he was heavily involved with work on the Great Experiment to create transwarp drive aboard the I.U.E.S.⁹ Excelsior. Because of this, he was assigned as helm officer for the Excelsior in 2285 for its initial tour of duty, despite his desire to remain with Demora. 

The Great Experiment was a failure, but Sulu distinguished himself well, and by 2288 he had been posted to the Kumari II (Excelsior-class) as executive officer under Captain Thelin. As the flagship of the Guard, the Kumari had a predominantly Andorian crew, and Sulu often had to put up with some good-natured ribbing from his fellow crewmen. In that same year, Demora entered the Guard Institute, following in her father’s footsteps. 

In late 2289, Thelin was killed in an attack by the Klingon terrorist known only as the Albino, putting Sulu in command of the Kumari—the first non-Andorian to ever command a ship of that name. It is still in this position that we find him in 2292, when our story begins… 

Also in 2292, Demora graduated from the Guard Institute and was posted to the security staff of an observation team on 40 Eridani A… 

I.U.E.S. Kumari II

AA-2001¹⁰
Excelsior-class transwarp testbed

• Commanding Officer Commander Hikaru Sulu, human male
• Executive Officer Subcommander Phelana Yudrin¹¹, Andorian shen
• Medical Officer Chirurgeon Jabilo M’Benga, human male
• Flight Controller 2nd Lieutenant Vanda M’Giia¹², Andorian zhen
• Tactical Officer 1st Lieutenant Thirrilan ch’Satheddet¹³, Andorian chan
• Chief of Security 1st Lieutenant Yrrebneddor th’Eneg¹⁴, Andorian thaan
• Engineering Officer 1st Liuetenant Corpek th’Rellvonda¹⁵, Andorian thaan
• Asst. Medical Officer Chirurgeon Tellameer V’Larr¹⁶, Caitian male
• Waste Extraction Crewman Shantherin th’Clane, Andorian thaan 

1. Of course, some of these names are likely different in the new universe.

2. This was a late thought, but my primary idea was that I wanted the Andorian military prowess to be based on something more recent (and more devastating) than the Tellarite War. Presumably the Sphere Builders sent the Xindi after Andor in this universe for the same reason they did Earth in ours—the IU defeats them at Procyon V in the far future. (And if we believe Star Charts, Procyon is the location of Andor, which is a nice bit of irrelevant synchronicity.) 

3. Of course, Coridan never gets devastated by Romulan intervention in this universe. 

4. I just couldn’t find a place to work in Alonis Cobaryn. And even if I could, I doubt he’d actually be mentioned in The Tears of Eridanus. 

5. SOURCE: Enter the Wolves, though he’d be a much younger man at this point. 

6. “Captain” was mentioned in just one episode of ENT. I’m ignoring it. 

7. With Arex as vice president, I think. ;) 

8. I think this is the facility in Traitor Winds. Anyway, Sulu has to go back to Earth in 2270, since Demora is named after the city she was conceived in according to The Captain’s Daughter. 

9. What does “I.U.E.S.” stand for, anyway? 

10. Why AA? I wanted something as seemingly arbitrary as “NCC”, and “A” is for Andorian. No bloody A, B, C, or D, though! 

11. SOURCE: My Brother’s Keeper, where she was a classmate of Kirk’s 

12. SOURCE: Starfleet Academy videogame and novel; she would have graduated in 2290 

13. Back in 2004 or so, I was apparently bored enough to create a BASIC program to generate Andorian names. I went through Ian’s Rogues Gallery and split all the first and last names into two halves and identified all of the prefixes that could go on last names, and then made a program to combine them at random. That’s where I got “Thirrilan”, “Satheddet”, and “Corpek”. 

14. SOURCE: He was a secondary character in Foundation; obviously not the same guy, but I like the name 

15. “Threllvon-da” was the name of an Andorian archaeologist in The Klingon Gambit. He’d be too old to be this man (he was already getting on in 2268), but they could be related. “th’Rellvonda” is presumably simply a more accurate Anglicization of his name. 

16. SOURCE: Chris’s character in our Nimbus III RPG

The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 5)

Collection published: 2012
Contents originally published: 1986
Acquired: December 2020
Read: January 2021

The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two

editorial notes and assistance by James Roberts

Written by Simon Furman (with Barry Kitson), Ian Mennell & Wilf Prigmore, James Hill, and Jamie Delano
Art by Barry Kitson, Will Simpson, Geoff Senior, John Stokes, Tim Perkins, and Jeff Anderson

Additional Inks by Marc Griffiths

Colors by Gina Hart, Stuart Place, Jeff Anderson, Jose Firmin, John Burns, and Tony Jozwiak
Letters by Richard Starkings, Annie Halfacree, and Mike Scott

I continue to alternate volumes of Panini's DWM reprints with volumes of IDW's Transformers UK reprints, and the Transformers UK comics continue to weave in and out of the American stories I read a few years back.* This is kind of a lot to wrap my head around at times, to be honest (my memories of the fine details of Bob Budiansky's Transformers run are foggy at best), but I am enjoying the experience. James Roberts argues in his editorial commentary that this is where Simon Furman's writing on Transformers begins to come into its own, and I agree.

Dinobot pathos.
from The Transformers #50 (script by Simon Furman, art by Barry Kitson)

Like with volume one, what makes this work is the more character-based focused on the UK comic, which I think it kind of had to have, given the big plot events could only transpire in the US comic. In this volume, the big thread is the Dinobots, who come into the spotlight in "The Icarus Theory," "Dinobot Hunt!", "Victory!" and "In the National Interest." We see their hidden desires in "Victory!", we see them break out and undertake action in "In the National Interest." This latter story was probably my favorite in the volume, as it effectively draws together threads from a number of recent US and UK stories in a way that makes it serve as an effective "season finale" for the volume. The Dinobots frustration meets Robot Master meets Triple I meets tv reporter Joy Anderson meets frustrated scientist Professor Morris. A lovestruck Dinobot is a fun concept.

I would not have dreamed she would become a recurring character!
from The Transformers #48 (script by Simon Furman, art by Barry Kitson)

We also get a little plotline involving Buster, the Autobots' human friend, across "Robot Buster!", "Devastation Derby!", and "Second Generation!" Thanks to his time hosting the Creation Matrix, he begins having visions of the future, foreseeing the coming of the Special Teams, those Transformers who can combine into gestalts. Buster, alas, has never done much for me; give me more Sparkplug and Jesse. These stories are no exception, but I did like the way Furman reconciles a plot point Budiansky dropped from the US comic, explaining how Megatron and Shockwave came to share Decepticon leadership. (Continuity-gap plugging becomes a bit of a theme; James Hills's "The Return of the Transformers" indicates why in volume one, Optimus Prime was opposed to creating new, more powerful Transformers while here he initiates development of the Special Teams.)

UK comics Soundwave is pretty awesome, too. (Much better than cartoon-aping Soundwave of late IDW.)
from The Transformers #62 (script by Simon Furman, art by Will Simpson)

The lowlight is definitely "To a Power Unknown!", a daft story of a morality-reversing energy pulse that feels more like the mediocre cartoon than something from the more grounded(!) comic, but the other highlights are two text stories from the 1986 Annual. "State Games" by James Hill is okay as written, but once I read it, I realized how hugely influential it was: this is the origin of the IDW version of Megatron, for example, and many incarnations as well. "The Mission" (by future Hellblazer scribe Jamie Delano) is a neat little standalone tale about Jazz and Hoist on a desperate Arctic mission.

* The stories in this volume mostly overlap with those contained in volume two of the US reprints. I suggest the following order: UK #45-50; US #13-16; UK #59-63, 54, 64-65; US #17-20; UK #74-77. The annual stories, as ever, make things complicated, but "Victory!" works well after UK #50.

This post is the fifth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Voyager. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
   

The Tides of Time (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 4)

Collection published: 2005
Contents originally published: 1980-84
Acquired: 2005
Previously read: December 2005
Reread: December 2020

The Tides of Time: The Complete Fifth Doctor Comic Strips from the Pages of Doctor Who Monthly
by Dave Gibbons, Steve Parkhouse, Mick Austin, Steve Dillon, et al.

This volume represents a new approach to the Doctor Who Magazine strip, one that pretty much comes to dominate it for much of its run. Steve Parkhouse writes what are ostensibly six separate stories, but each one builds on the previous one, and runs into the next-- and that's a series of linkages that even continues on either side of this collection. Its first story follows up the last story of Dragon's Claw; its last story sets up the first story of Voyager. That said, though I like the idea of an ongoing story in principle, and I remember Scott Gray being a strong practitioner of it during the eighth Doctor years, the way it's done here is pretty slipshod at best...

Timeslip, from Doctor Who Weekly #17-18 (Feb. 1980)
plot by Dez Skinn, script & artwork by Paul Neary

This little story wraps up the appearances of the fourth Doctor in these graphic novels (for now, anyway; I think he'll be back during the "multi-Doctor" years). I don't know the circumstances of its creation, but it feels like someone whipped it up real quick when The Star Beast was delayed or something. It's much more continuity-focused than most other DWM strips, actually (albeit barely) explaining where Romana is, and giving a footnote about the randomiser. Most notably, the Doctor degenerates because of an alien influence, quickly passing through Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton again before spending four pages as William Hartnell. Unfortunately for the long-term fan, all of the Hartnell fans are referenced from incredibly common publicity photos, which stops the art (which I would say otherwise looks quite nice, especially its vast cosmic horrors) from having any sense of life.

from Doctor Who Monthly #63

The Tides of Time, from Doctor Who Monthly #61-67 (Feb.-Aug. 1982)
written by Steve Parkhouse, artwork & lettering by Dave Gibbons

This story starts off pretty neat: time disturbances interrupt the Doctor's cricket game, so he goes back to Gallifrey to check out what's going on, only to learn that all reality is at stake. Steve Parkhouse and Dave Gibbons make Gallifrey seem amazing by basically ignoring the way the tv show approached it. Rather than talk to Time Lord officiants, the Doctor goes into the Matrix, ostensibly "home of the Celestial Intervention Agency"-- which I guess is headed by Rassilon and two guys named Morvane and Bedevere (whom the Doctor supposedly already knows), and they all hang out with "High Evolutionaries," which are highly advanced specimens of other races, including Merlin from The Neutron Knights. Like, this is nothing like what we saw on screen, but hey, it gives the whole thing a great sense of grandeur. Gibbon's art for Gallifrey is amazing, looking nothing like how it appeared on screen, but like an epic sci-fi city-- I love it.

The trip to Gallifrey is followed by a surreal visit to another dimension, which Gibbons handles real well... and after this, The Tides of Time totally fizzles out. The Doctor mostly stands around as people deliver exposition and Shayde does all the work. Literally the Doctor's only contribution to this whole big story is to fly Shayde into position. It looks cool, but once the whole thing is over, it seems faintly pointless.

Sir Justin and Shayde are the Doctor's companions for this story. The idea of Sir Justin is fun, but he doesn't have much to do other than stand around and be baffled up until his heroic sacrifice; I found it difficult to summon up much feeling at that point. I don't know if I would count Shayde as a companion at this point, but he does look cool, a Matrix construct with a (detachable!) black globe for a head. We'll be seeing more of him going forward.

from Doctor Who Monthly #69

Stars Fell on Stockbridge, from Doctor Who Monthly #68-69 (Sept.-Oct. 1982)
written by Steve Parkhouse, artwork & lettering by Dave Gibbons

Dave Gibbons's lengthy run on the strip finally comes to an end here with a neat little two-part story. Here we learn that the village from The Tides of Time where the Doctor is hanging out and playing cricket is Stockbridge, and we meet one of its inhabitants, Maxwell Edison. Maxwell is a UFO and conspiracy nut who ends up drawn into an adventure with the Doctor; the Doctor takes him up into a mysterious spaceship orbiting the Earth. It's a foreboding, atmospheric tale, and I enjoyed it a lot. Undoubtedly the best adventure in this volume, with a charming ending.

from Doctor Who Monthly #73

The Stockbridge Horror, from Doctor Who Monthly #70-75 (Nov. 1982–Apr. 1983)
written by Steve Parkhouse; pencils by Steve Parkhouse and Mick Austin; inks by Paul Neary, Steve Parkhouse, and Mick Austin; lettering by Steve Parkhouse, Mick Austin, and Steve Craddock

This story, to me, entirely reads like Steve Parkhouse made it up as he went along. It starts out about mysterious goings-on in Stockbridge, including the TARDIS making its own trip to the Carboniferous Period, but then becomes about the Doctor battling a strange elemental on the TARDIS. Shayde turns up to do the actual defeating of the elemental while the Doctor just watches; then the Doctor's being attacked by the Time Lords, then Rassilon and the other Matrix Lords are putting him on trial for some reason, but he gets off because Shayde destroys the evidence. (Apparently a society of time travellers can't travel back to when the evidence still existed.) It doesn't settle on any one thing long enough to be effective, and despite some cool concepts, the Doctor once again feels like a side character in a story about how cool Shayde is!

Also this story introduces SAG 3, an elite UK military unit who do exactly nothing.

from Doctor Who Monthly #77

Lunar Lagoon, from Doctor Who Monthly #76-77 (May-June 1983)
written by Steve Parkhouse, artwork by Mick Austin, lettering by Steve Craddock

This feels a bit like one of Parkhouse's fourth Doctor tales: a downbeat story of an ineffective Doctor. He's trapped on a Pacific island with a Japanese soldier who's been there for a long time; despite the Doctor's efforts, the soldier dies... partially because of something the Doctor does to defend himself. I'm not sure what I think of it, to be honest. I think it's well done for what it is... I'm just not sure this is what I want Doctor Who to be doing! I didn't care for Fuji's stilted dialogue or the weird proportions Mick Austin gives him, but otherwise he is a pretty well-drawn character.

from Doctor Who Monthly #83

4-Dimensional Vistas, from Doctor Who Monthly #78-83 (July-Dec. 1983)
written by Steve Parkhouse, artwork by Mick Austin, lettering by Steve Craddock and Jerry Paris

Another Steve Parkhouse Time Lord epic, another load of nonsense. Like most of them, it's got some good ideas (the way the Monk and the Ice Warriors work together to make a giant crystal by just waiting is neat), but the overall story is random junk again. The Doctor is joined by Gus, the American pilot who killed Fuji, and realizes he's in an alternate timeline where World War II continued until at least 1963 (though in Lunar Lagoon we're told it's 1983). Trying to figure out what's going on, they discover airplanes are vanishing and the Meddling Monk is there and there are Ice Warriors and SAG 3 is back and... stuff... look, I don't even know how or why.

We also learn the Time Lords sent the Doctor to Stockbridge to figure out the time anomalies resolved in this story. So, 1) why was he always trying to play cricket and/or fish, and 2) why did the Time Lords get mad at the Doctor for hanging out in Stockbridge back in The Stockbridge Horror. Like I said, Parkhouse tries to pull all these tales together, but it's nonsensically done. (The Doctor says that he never went back to the real Earth after leaving it in The Stockbridge Horror, which is plainly not true; he must have been on the real one to see Shayde destroy the evidence of the malfunctioning TARDIS.)

I do like how Mick Austin draws the time vortex.

from The Official Doctor Who Magazine #86

The Moderator, from Doctor Who Monthly #84 / The Official Doctor Who Magazine #86-87 (Jan.-Apr. 1984)
written by Steve Parkhouse, artwork & lettering by Steve Dillon

It's interesting, reading all of these, and realizing for all his weirdnesses as storyteller, Steve Parkhouse got one thing right about the fifth Doctor as a character: he is knocked about by tragedy to a degree not true of previous incarnations, something we saw on screen most prominently in Earthshock, Warriors of the Deep, Resurrection of the Daleks, and The Caves of Androzani. The different between the strip's approach and the show's approach, though, is that the tv fifth Doctor would still get these moments of triumph, either within the stories, or in the other stories, but the comic fifth Doctor rarely feels like he's accomplished anything. This is all brought to its utmost in The Moderator, where Gus is gunned down at the moment the Doctor returns him to his own time as a punishment for the Doctor mouthing off to a reprehensible villain.

Here it worked for me, though. Maybe it's the black comic touch of the titular Moderator himself. Maybe it's the slightly unusual structure Parkhouse employs. (The story bounces back and forth between the Moderator hunting the Doctor and the Doctor and Gus on an adventure, but the Moderator is hunting the Doctor for something the Doctor does at the very end of the adventure.) Maybe it's the delightful despicability of Josiah W. Dogbolter. This story is dark, but it feels meaningful in a way some of Parkhouse's other dark tales (like End of the Line or The Neutron Knights) did not. There's tragedy, but also the Doctor and Gus stand up for something despite it all.

Stray Observations:

• Something I like is that the strip kind of doesn't even care that there's a tv show. Oh, it picks up references to it, obviously (the Doctor is seemingly president of Gallifrey because of the events of The Invasion of Time, or maybe The Deadly Assassin), but this is a continuous run of stories for the fifth Doctor where the first one picks up from a fourth Doctor tale and the last one leads into a sixth Doctor one. Which makes no sense from a continuity standpoint! There's no sense at all that these slot in between tv episodes or even really care about the existence of contemporaneous tv episodes, except that the Doctor's appearance (almost incidentally) changes between installments.
• I like the way that the DWM fifth Doctor is kind of, but not quite, the character played by Peter Davison. He occasionally gets lines you can perfectly imagine Davison delivering (his exasperation at a running-away Max in Stars Fell), but the whole idea that the Doctor really just wants to hang about playing cricket (or fishing) seems much more influenced by the Doctor's costume than anything else! He's also more... morose than the tv fifth Doctor; there's a bit where he almost commits suicide when he thinks he's lost in the wrong dimension! Again, not the tv version, but an interesting incarnation of the Doctor of his own. It's a shame Big Finish's Comic Strip Adaptations line seems to have ended after a single box set; I'd've liked to have heard Peter Davison tackle this slightly different take on his character.
• Apparently Gallifrey's military is normally completely separate from the Time Lords (the Doctor says, "What's a Time-Lord doing slumming around the military? Good heavens...you'll be in politics next!"); that they have a TARDIS and Tubal Cain is assigned to them is depicted as abnormal. The way time torpedoes work here would be used in the audio adventure Neverland.
• Steve Parkhouse seems to think all TARDISes look like police boxes.
• Toby Longworth's performance as Dogbolter in The Maltese Penguin and The Quantum Possibility Engine has indelibly impressed itself upon my mind; I can't not imagine him delivering the lines.
• After inaugurating the DWM strip with a three-year run, Dave Gibbons would go on to do a lot of work for DC on lower-tier superhero comics such as Legion of Super-Heroes, L.E.G.I.O.N., JSA, Rann-Thanagar War, and something called Watchmen.
  

This post is the fourth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
   

Review: Weight by Jeanette Winterson

Originally published: 2005
Read: November 2020

Weight by Jeanette Winterson

This is a retelling of the myth of Atlas and Heracles (a myth I remembered nothing about, even if I remembered the two characters individually) in Winterson's characterstically cheeky, humorous, poetic, and self-referential style. It feels a bit thin for something by her (I feel like surely it's a novella, not a novel), but I laughed at the jokes and found some keen insights into human nature. The ending is weird, but I think it worked. Sometimes it really is that simple! Not as good as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (obviously) or even The Gap of Time, but still highly enjoyable.

Review: Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later Omnibus, Volume 1 by Keith Giffen, Tom & Mary Bierbaum, Al Gordon, et al.

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 1989-93
Acquired: September 2020
Read: February 2021

Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later Omnibus, Volume 1

Plot/Pencils/Layouts: Keith Giffen

Story/Dialogue: Tom & Mary Bierbaum
Inker/Writer: Al Gordon
Pencils: Chris Sprouse, Paris Cullins, Craig Brasfield, Dougie Braithwaite, Brandon Peterson, Dan Jurgens, Jason Pearson, Dusty Abell, Rob Haynes, Ian Montgomery, Joe Phillips, Colleen Doran, Curt Swan, David A. Williams, June Brigman, Stuart Immonen

Inks: Bob Lewis, Doug Hazelwood, Larry Mahlstedt, Carlos Garzon, Brett Breeding, Michael Christian, Brad Vancata, Scott Hanna, Tony Harris, Karl Story, John Dell, Karl Kesel, Bob Smith, Steve Leialoha

Story/Story Assists: Dan Jurgens, Tom McCraw, Jason Pearson

Colors: Tom McCraw, Glenn Whitmore

Letters: Todd Klein, John Workman, Albert De Guzman, Janice Chiang, Coffin N. Coro, Bob Pinaha

I'm always ping-ponging around the Legion timeline, based on what DC has deigned to collect and what I can get hold of. This volume collects the first thirty-nine issues of the so-called "Five Year Later" era (plus assorted annuals and other tie-ins). In terms of publication, it began three months after the previous issue, Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 3 #63, but in terms of story, there was a five-year gap during which the Legion of Super-Heroes had disbanded, Earth had withdrawn from the United Planets and become a Dominator puppet state, and many of the Legionnaires had suffered various dark fates. The series was the brainchild of Keith Giffen, who pencilled and plotted the majority of the early issues-- previously a collaborator of Paul Levitz for much of his run, but now the series's lead creative force. New-to-comics writers but longtime Legion fans Tom & Mary Bierbaum dialogued his issues, and wrote many of their own; most issues were inked by Al Gordon, who also contributed to the plotting and wrote several issues as well.

You could write a book on this book (it is over 1,300 pages), but I will try to limit myself by sticking to one paragraph for each of the major storylines. The first, covering issues #1-12, is simply dubbed Five Years Later, and slowly reveals the situation of this new world. On the one hand, it's very confusing: partially this is because a lot has happened in those five years, and partially this is because the latest-published issue of the Legion I've read is from 1984 (in The Curse), so this is ten story years after what I was familiar with, and partially this is because Giffen's layouts are dense and packed and confusing. He uses the nine-panel grid here, with lots of quick cuts and little exposition, leaving the reader to piece togther events themselves. On the other hand, though, it's incredible: more happens in a single issue of this comic than in entire sixty-issue runs of contemporary comics. Giffen has always been an artistic master, but I feel like this is him at his peak: a very distinctive style and a command of characterization mostly unmatched. I didn't entirely understand everything that happened here... but I wanted to, and this is a story that will richly reward rereading, I suspect. There's lot of great character stuff here: for the first time, I care about Cosmic Boy, the rock upon which the Legion stands even when "powerless"; Cham is put into a new role of authority; new character Kono is an utter delight, a "female chauvinist"; Laurel Gand quickly establishes herself as the kind of strong woman who I love. There are time travel shenanigans and attempted genocides... but best of all is Matter-Eater Lad! Oh my god, I don't think I've laughed so much at a comic book in a long time as I did at #11, where he defends Polar Boy in court. In the midst of all this darkness, we have humor: Giffen and the Bierbaums get it. The one thing I didn't like about this storyline is that it almost seemed too easy to actually reunite the Legion: if so many of them were up for it, why did it take so long since the dissolution for this to happen?

The second is even more simply dubbed The Legion of Super-Heroes, and spans #12-25. It covers a couple different crises the Legion handles: Matter-Eater Lad battling Evillo, a Khund invasion, a Dark Circle infiltration, the Moon exploding, and the return of Darkseid. I found these hit or miss. The Matter-Eater Lad issue was great, of course. The Khund story didn't have the weight it should have; the whole thing seemed to happen so suddenly. The aftermath of the Moon exploding was interesting, but the actual way it happened didn't work for me, a crossover with Superman where Superman and the Legion reminisce about the "pocket universe Superboy," a character earlier issues went through some pain to establish had been removed from history! The Quiet Darkness, the Darkseid story, saw inker Al Gordon take over writing duties, and I found it a strong thriller with a neat take on Darkseid.

The third is Terra Mosaic, #26-36, which focuses on Earth finally rebelling against the Dominators, as well as the emergence of "Batch SW6," clones of the Legion from their young, idealistic days. Giffen switches from pencilling to doing layouts, and it's to the book's detriment. It's just not as dense anymore, it's more straightforward comics. Though some good stories are told about the Batch SW6 Legionnaires (I have mixed thoughts about the trans representation in #31, but it's an emotional triumph), they are a huge number of extra characters in a book already straining to use its cast, and most of the "adult" Legion sits around doing nothing for most of this crisis. The at first straightforward retcons start to get more complicated, too, with the introduction of Kid Quantum. But the Sun Boy story is terrific, the fight between Laurel Gand and B.I.O.N. is one of the best fights in comics, and the climax comes together extraordinarily well.

The last doesn't have an overaching title (but you could probably call it The End), and is just #37-39. #37 is a cute side story about Star Boy being a baseball manager, but then in #38 the Earth is destroyed! I'm not sure what I think about this; it feels gratuitous. It's an ambitious issue, covering lots of ground... but that means you feel rather distanced from its momentous events. #39 reads more like the start of something new; I suspect it's here because Giffen pencils some of it and DC wanted to get all of his "Five Years Later" work in this volume, but it reads more like the beginning of the next storyline.

There's also three annuals included. #1 is great, pulling together a history for Ultra Boy and deploying some clever retcons. Weaving Glorith into the events of the two Superboy and the Legion volumes almost makes what Brainiac did there palatable. I never cared much for Ultra Boy before, but this story made me appreciate him a whole lot. #2 does a lot to clarify Valor's history, though it's one of those stories that sounds better in summary than in actuality; I found its events too compressed to have much impact. #3 is half set-up for the Timber Wolf miniseries, but half a "story" where the Legion just chills out. I really enjoyed it: great character writing, lots of good moments. Plus some great Kono jokes!

And then there's Al Gordon's Timber Wolf miniseries. I appreciate that it is here, but it is quite frankly not very good. Timber Wolf is sent to the 1990s, and it's the most mediocre and generic 1990s superhero comic you've ever read. Full of bland, awful characters doing who knows what, and I didn't think it really felt much like Timber Wolf.

Lastly, the volume collects a sequence of Who's Who entries published during its run. These were helpful in orienting me, though it was hard to know when to read them: some contain spoilers for later issues, so beware! I eventually decided I'd just risk it, and usually I alternated between issues and Who's Who issue (so I wouldn't read them all in one go). There's even a series of postcards Giffen illustrated!

Given how much is in here, it feels churlish to complain about what's not, but by a total coincidence, I read Secret Origins #42 right around the same time I started this volume, and it really should have been included: it's by the Bierbaums, giving an origin for Phantom Girl that introduces some threads picked up on in Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1. When reading that story, I found myself glad I had read the Secret Origins issue. I see from Wikipedia that issues #46, 47, and 49 also featured Legion-related tales, but as I haven't read those, I don't know if they would have made good inclusions here. (Only one is by the Bierbaums.)

This volume cuts off at a pretty logical point, when Keith Giffen left the book, and when the Earth was destroyed. Another big omnibus could collect Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 4 #40-61, the two remaining annuals, the eighteen issues of spin-off Legionnaires, and its one annual, enclosing the entire "Five Years Later" era in two large volumes. DC often starts Legion collections and cuts them off before getting anywhere, but I really really hope they can follow through on this book's "volume 1" and tie up this unique, worthwhile era of comics. I think I only scratched the surface in my reading, and I barely even did that in my write-up. I look forward to revisiting this someday and doing it justice.

I read a Legion of Super-Heroes collection every six months. Next up in sequence: Legion: Secret Origin

Star Trek: The Destiny Era: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice

Published: 2013
Acquired: October 2020
Read: November 2020

Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice

by James Swallow

20 September–12 October 2385
The Fall is back in thriller mode for The Poisoned Chalice-- a mode I knew James Swallow was pretty successful at from his earlier Cast No Shadow. I complained that I found David Mack's attempt at a thriller in A Ceremony of Losses weak; reading The Poisoned Chalice left me better able to understand why. I don't read a lot of governmental thrillers, but I do like those stories where someone has to turn against their own government because it's corrupt. A good thriller is disconcerting, and I think I respond well to that, arguably for the same reason that I like science fiction, and cosmic horror, and mystery stories, and Victorian novels: a good thriller is a story of epistemological crisis. The world does not work the way you thought it did. In A Ceremony of Losses, it was all too clear how the world worked: Bashir was good and Ishan was evil. The Poisoned Chalice is more complicated. Our protagonists-- Riker, Vale, and Tuvok most prominent among them-- don't just not know who to trust, they don't really even know what they should be trying to do because they don't have enough context.

Will Riker is promoted to admiral here. I have a feeling that this is going to mean the Titan series once again is dragged away from its original remit of exploration, but I also have a feeling that a good writer can do something with this, and Swallow does here, as Riker tries to figure out what kind of actions he can take on Fleet Admiral Akaar's behalf to save the heart of Starfleet. It's engaging stuff, though how much Akaar kept Riker in the dark ultimately turned out to be kind of contrived, as once Riker tracks Akaar down, Akaar just tells him what's going on and doesn't really have a clear reason to not have told him earlier. This leaves the disconcerting nature of the earlier parts ringing a little hollow, even as they were engaging as I read them. I did like the subplot about Troi and the Andorians; the Titan series made Deanna chief diplomatic officer, and The Poisoned Chalice shows her putting her empathy (like, normal empathy, not space-talent empathy) to good diplomatic use.

I think the Tuvok plot also suffers a little in retrospect even if it's engaging while you read it. Tuvok, Nog, and Tom Riker are among those assigned to a secret unit of both Starfleet and non-Starfleet personnel trying to track down the killers of President Bacco. This is more action-y than the Riker subplot, and Nog especially gets to show off a bit (which is good, given how David George's Deep Space Nine novels have sidelined him), and I always like a bit of Tuvok. Swallow does a good job with Tom Riker, too, balancing the line of making you believe this is someone Will Riker could have been-- or rather that he is Will Riker, just one who lived a different life. But what doesn't quite work for me is the end of the story reveals why Tuvok and Nog were chosen for this mission: the assembler of the group thought they were both the kind of people who might put ends about means and be willing to countenance extreme measures in bringing down Bacco's assassins. This actually makes sense; the novel highlights Tuvok's time as a spy in the Maquis (where I feel certain he must have done some morally dubious things), but I kept thinking of "Prime Factors," where Tuvok is the one who breaks Janeway's orders in an effort to bring Voyager home. Nog has a pragmatic edge thanks to his Ferengi upbringing (seen in, for example, "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River"). But there's never a point where you think Tuvok or Nog might actually do something ethically dubious, and I wish there had been; I think it would sell the themes of both the book and the whole series better.

Vale's subplot-- she's made brevet captain of a medical transport as an excuse to get her near the prison where Bashir is being held-- is the least complicated of these, but it works well enough. Like Tuvok and Nog, the book mentions the idea that she's actually sympathetic to the Ishan/Velk political axis. There's a lot of characters in this book who are, and unlike in A Ceremony of Losses, they're not all obviously evil. Much moreso than in the last book, I understood how Ishan could have had some actual political success... though I do think The Fall would have benefited if previous books had laid this groundwork more.

My favorite part of the book, though, is really nothing to do with the thriller elements. There's a bit where the Titan crew discover a piece of sensitive information has been transmitted as an encoded holo-matrix. If you know the right code, it will tell you want you need to know; give the wrong one, or try to de-compile it, and it will delete itself. (Shar actually used a similar method of contacting Bashir in Ceremony.) The Titan crew has the most delightfully Star Trekkian solution to this dilemma: if they uplift the program to sentience, they can reason it into giving them the information they need! It's so out there I love it.

Continuity Notes:

• Like in Cast No Shadow, Swallow references some very old-school continuity elements: the Triangle from FASA and the Mann class from the Spaceflight Chronology. Vale's first officer, Commander Atia, is from 892-IV of "Bread and Circuses" fame; The Poisoned Chalice draws on the 1980s Next Generation novel The Captains' Honor in its references, including calling the planet "Magna Roma."
• The book has to clarify that Tom Riker is not dead; I think Titan: Fallen Gods was the first book to indicate that he was. I skimmed back through Fallen Gods; it was done in a passing reference when the Titan's transporter officer is thinking about transporter duplicates (p. 321), so it's easily retconned by having Riker say everyone was just misinformed. The Poisoned Chalice also brings up the fact that Tom Riker had been having sex with Sela in Peter David's Triangle: Imzadi II, a thing I would have been happy to not recall.

Other Notes:

• "The Poisoned Chalice" is an expression from Macbeth. I guess technically Macbeth is a work of literature in the Star Trek universe, but this does rather break the pattern of the titles of the first couple The Fall installments for sure.
• Vale frets that she wants to be helping investigate Bacco's death, but "she knew that the best investigative minds in the UFP were already finding answers" (21). You're wrong, Vale; they assigned Jefferson Blackmer instead.
• The book uses the adjective "Magna Romanii" when referring to Atia. No, just... no. Latin might be a dead language, but Swallow murders it all over again ever time he uses that.
  
• There are currently 58 books in my Destiny-era reading list; The Poisoned Chalice is #29, meaning I am now exactly halfway! I read #1, The Original Series: From History's Shadow, in June 2017, meaning I might hope to read #58, The Next Generation: Collateral Damage in March 2024! (Though later in 2021, three more will come out, extending this journey even further.)
  

I read Destiny-era Star Trek books in batches of five every few months. Next up in sequence: The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms by Dayton Ward

Star Trek: The Destiny Era: The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses

Published: 2013
Acquired: October 2020
Read: November 2020

Star Trek: The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses

by David Mack

31 August–19 September 2385
Clearly it works for other people, but I find David Mack as a writer least interesting in thriller mode. I will admit that I had a number of issues with the Cold Equations trilogy, but I did think that the "Noonien" section of book I, as well as book III, were trying to do something more interesting than his more thriller-y books, like Zero Sum Game and book II of Cold Equations and this one.

As I read, I struggled to isolate why this might be. If someone described A Ceremony of Losses to me, I think it would sound quite good. One of the things I like most about Bashir is that moral crusader spirit he has, where his ideals outrun his practical limits; "The Quickening" is one of my favorite Deep Space Nine episodes, and Warchild one of my favorite novels. This book, then, put that to the ultimate test: Bashir wants to cure the Andorian reproductive crisis, but in doing so must draw on classified information that puts his career and even life at risk. What will he do, especially when he has to go up against his friends and colleagues?

But in the execution it's just not that, well, thrilling, and I'm not sure why. I think partly because Bashir honestly doesn't come across as very tested or conflicted by it all; he sets out on his course of action, and that is that. I didn't feel like he was very often making difficult choices. When Bashir makes his big decision to initiate the whole thing, it's because of a weird vision he has of being judged by Anubis, which feels like a writing crutch, as opposed to his decision being motivated by his Bashir-ness.

In fact, something that bugged me is that it seems like Bashir makes very few choices on the whole. We have the promise of a genetically engineered genius really stretching his limits... but Sarina sets up most of his plan, and he just sits there; when events converge over Andor at the novel's climax, he doesn't do anything particularly smart or impressive. Captain Dax on the Aventine is tasked with hunting him down because she (paraphrasing) "knows how he thinks," but he scarcely does any thinking at all, he's just along for the ride. (And Dax's galaxy-brain move in catching Bashir is to realize the guy who works on Deep Space 9 is probably on a ship that came from Deep Space 9.) I wanted a thrilling book of Bashir pushing his abilities to the limits, but this is mostly limited to him being rude at colleagues.

I said in my review of Brinkmanship that in most novels, I struggle to see Ezri Dax in the character called Captain Ezri Dax, and that was true in this book, where Ezri is rulebound in a way that doesn't ring true. Where's the playful Dax who does what's right? In fact, it ends up being lampshaded when Ezri actually asks Bowers why is she so rulebound all of a sudden! Plus the Ezri/Julian thing is back to immature arguments... I would really be glad to never read about an Ezri/Julian argument in a Star Trek book ever again, thank you.

I think Mack's characters in general don't have strong voices. Lense is here, but she didn't remind me of the Lense I remembered from S.C.E. She's not not Lense, she's just kind of a person who's there. The same goes for Shar; I remember him being one of my favorite DS9 relaunch characters, but I don't see why that would be based on this. And Andor doesn't feel like a real place in the way it did in previous novels like Heather Jarman's Paradigm.

The other thing that bother me is that Mack's Star Trek universe doesn't really feel like the Star Trek universe I know from screen. Almost everyone is mean and selfish-- some people have ideals, but those who are opposed to Bashir are entirely venal and self-interested. Andorian politics are a total shitshow of self-interest; one would hope that the Andorian secessionists at least believed they were doing the right thing, but here they are deliberately encouraging self-extinction to hold onto political power. But this seems to be everywhere: this is our first real look at Ishan, the president pro tem of the Federation, and he's a nasty piece of work, willing to let the Andorians die to beef up his election chances. Really!? Even the characters call out that he's so nasty as to be unrealistic. How did this guy even get elected? As villains go, both he and the Andorian secessionists veer too much into the one note. I would say that they read as implausible, but 2016-20 gave me a real-life leader who is arguably worse... but reality doesn't have to be plausible, you know! Ishan doesn't seem like a very good politician-- he just antagonizes everyone even though he's in a very precarious position! It's been pointed out to me that so did President Trump, but unlike Trump, Ishan supposedly had a long and successful political career before ending up president. I am not sure you could become president pro tem with an attitude like his, and if you can cover it up enough to become president pro tem, surely you could cover it up for an extra sixty days to win an election!

I think in some ways this book and this series is meant to show how proto-fascism can take root even in the Federation, and that could make sense if you think about the extent of the crises the Federation has endured, between the Dominion War and Destiny, but the book itself doesn't really lay that groundwork. The other Starfleet captains are pretty rotten (one sits around thinking about how great it is that he doesn't have any friends). All of this reduces the ostensible dilemma of the novel: there's no meaningful counterargument put forth, no real sense that Bashir could ever be doing anything wrong. Seeing even just one principled character endorsing Ishan's way of doing things would make a big difference.

I don't think the Federation has to be a utopia, but I do think it ought to be aspirational. To be honest, Cardassia seemed like a more idealistic place in The Crimson Shadow than the Federation does here. At the end, Bashir is locked up without trial on a dark penal asteroid! Like, c'mon, I don't read Star Trek books to read about how nasty people can be. I guess I will see what we learn about him in the last two Fall books.

As I was wrapping up this review, I looked at some others. Over at Tor.com, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro says, "Its construction around a poignant ethical dilemma with far-reaching consequences—do you follow lawful orders, even when those orders will lead to the extinction of a recently allied sentient species that you could possibly save?—makes it quintessential Trek..." I mean, I agree that this should be interesting (though orders versus genocide isn't much of a dilemma, to be honest), but I struggle to recognize the novel Zinos-Amaro describes in the one I read.

Continuity Notes:

• Aha, this is the book where we finally find out what happened to those Andorian transporter duplicates... no? okay...

Other Notes:

• This book introduces zh'Tarash, who states her intention to run for Federation president once Andor is readmitted to the Federation. I know from the Prometheus audiobooks that she does indeed win, but this doesn't seem very plausible to me, and I'm not even sure why she wants to run. I guess I will see how this is handled in the next two Fall books.
• The first two Fall books were named after in-universe works of literature, a Bajoran religious text and a Cardassian speculative fiction story, respectively. This is not quite true for A Ceremony of Losses, where in-universe "a ceremony of losses" is a phrase from the Andorian religion: "Though she [zh'Tarash] was not a religious person, she found herself reflecting upon an oft-quoted line from The Liturgy of the Temple of Uzaveh: 'The Path of Light can be found only by those who brave the Road of Storms and weather its ceremony of losses'" (69). Out of universe, though, "a ceremony of losses" is a quotation from a 2012 essay about old age by U.S. poet laureate Donald Hall: "I feel the circles grow smaller, and old age is a ceremony of losses, which is on the whole preferable to dying at forty-seven or fifty-two" ("Out the Window"). I'm not sure I see the relevance.

I read Destiny-era Star Trek books in batches of five every few months. Next up in sequence: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow