Star Trek: Discovery: Fear Itself By James Swallow - A Great Story Featuring Saru Learning To Deal With Fear

Star Trek: Discovery: Fear Itself by James Swallow

With a new Star Trek series will also come new books set in and around the new series. Several Trek regular authors are up to the task of telling some fascinating stories, mostly surrounding the characters we (at least those of us who watch) see on the show. So far, Fear Itself is the third installment of the new Discovery novels, and it focuses on a character that, up until now, I have not really cared for, namely the Kelpien officer, Saru. So before I get any feathers ruffled and generate a bunch of hate mail, or whatever kind of trolling anyone has in mind, just let me say that I personally did not like the character. That is not to say that Saru is not well written, or that the actor, Doug Jones, doesn’t do a great job portraying him, but Saru just makes me nervous.

The events of Fear Itself take place about four years before the premier of Discovery. Philippa Georgiou is the captain of the U.S.S. Shenzhou, and Saru is a lieutenant aboard that ship, along with Michael Burnham, also a lieutenant.

When the Shenzhou detects a damaged ship in a sector that is between space claimed by the Tholians and the Peliar, they send hails to see if the damaged vessel is in need of assistance. When there is no response, Captain Georgiou takes it upon herself to lead the Shenzhou on a mission to offer aid, if needed. An away team is formed that includes Saru. After the Peliar ship is stabilized, Saru discovers that the cargo hold of the ship contains many Gorlans that are living in primitive conditions. When Saru makes contact with the Gorlans, they tell him that they are living as they choose and the Peliar also try to convince him that they are only refugees and are being relocated to another planet. Saru senses that what he is hearing from both parties may not be completely true and begins to investigate. What Saru finds is that things are not all what they seem, nor what he has been told. When the commander of his away mission is incapacitated, he is forced to take command of the away team aboard the Peliar ship and he finds himself forced into making several very difficult decisions. Will he be up to the task or will his natural tendency toward caution get in the way?

As mentioned before, Saru is a Kelpien, a race of humanoids from a planet that has a binary food-chain system, in other words, the inhabitants are predators or prey. Kelpiens are the latter, they are the prey on their planet, and nearly every other species are predators. Saru tells about his race even being hunted, bred, and farmed as livestock. According to Saru, Kelpiens live in a constant state of danger beginning at birth. It is their nature to avoid situations that are risky or dangerous which has earned them the reputation of being cowardly. Kelipens have threat-ganglia that present themselves when danger is perceived. When a Kelpien is faced with a new situation, they automatically assume it is dangerous and that they are under attack until they are not. They would seem not to have the fight-or-flight response to dangerous situations, rather, it is their nature to take flight in any case.

In this story, it would seem that Saru is very concerned with trying to learn how to conquer his fear, but not having a great deal of success. He has a holographic device in his quarters that projects threats to him in different forms and he tries to cope with them. Like many of us who are fearful of things, Saru works to conquer that fears. A person who is afraid of flying might go to therapy, take some sort of medication, or perhaps just force themselves to get on a plane and deal with it. Or one might just take the bus or drive instead and not ever get near a plane. Saru has many fears to deal with in Fear Itself. There is the fear of going into an unknown situation full of unknown people. He also fears that everything he is trying to do might go wrong and someone he cares about, or a crewmate might be hurt or killed. Keep in mind that fear is part of the character’s nature.

It is difficult for one to go against one’s nature. We all have certain propensities that, no matter how hard we try, we just cannot seem to change. In the case of Saru, he temporarily loses the confidence of the away team when the leader is incapacitated and Saru, being the most senior officer, finds himself in command. While there are several themes running through the book, Saru’s fear and how he deals with it is the strongest theme. Most of the way through the book he is constantly trying to conquer his fear and behave as a Starfleet officer should, or at least how he sees most of them behave as they perform their duties. Just when it looks like everything is going to go to pieces, a young female Gorlan tells Saru that instead of trying to deny fear, that he should embrace it and use it to help him solve the problems. This is a huge turning point in the story for the main Character. By taking that advice and using his fear as an advantage, he is able to get things under control and carry forward to the eventual resolution of numerous problems. Bravo to the author for this plot point instead of taking the easy way out and making Saru temporarily fearless.

It is pretty plain to me that James Swallow had to give a lot of thought to this story and it’s telling. Thanks to him, I have a better understanding of the character from the television series and a better appreciation of the behaviors and attitudes that Saru displays on the television show.

Now the question is whether I like Saru any better than I did before I read the book? Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not going to answer that. However I will say that I liked the growth of the character in this book which made it a fun read. I recommend this book along with the other character studies that have been penned in this new Discovery line of novels.

Well, there it is…

Qapla’!

Empty Space Comics by Michael Jan Friedman - Boosting The Signal

Empty Space #1 by Michael Jan Friedman, Illustrated by Ciao Cacau and Lettered by James Campbell

There is a new comic series available and the price is extremely reasonable! For those of you familiar with the work of Mike Friedman, there is no need to tell you that this is going to be good. Mike is the author of numerous novels both in and out of the Star Trek universe. Recently he has published a collection of his own short stories that I reviewed on this blog. That was called Cabal and Other Invocations of the Muse. At any rate, I am writing to help get the word out about this new series of comics by one of my favorite authors, and a good friend.

Normally, I try to get in on the funding of Mike's projects, but for some reason, I missed this one. Unfortunately, I don't know a great deal about the comic itself, but you can read what it is about on Mike's Kickstarter for Empty Space #1.

If you don't have time to see that, here is what is on the promo for the book...

"Empty Space #1: The Awakening

 "Captain Robinson Dark wakes up on a ship similar to his own but eerily different. He knows he can get to the bottom of the mystery if he can find this ship's captain and crew. But where are they?"

If you are intrigued, as I am, you may purchase the first installment of this story at Mike's ComiXology page.

Now, you are going to have to excuse me, I have to go an order a comic!

Well, there it is...

Qapla'!

The Fall Of Hyperion by Dan Simmons - Stories Are Resolved, But There Are More Questions

The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

After reading Hyperion, there was no doubt in my mind that I would be reading the rest of the novels in the series. I enjoyed the first novel so much that I grabbed the second novel and started reading even knowing that there were other things I should be reading for the book podcasts I am on.

In Hyperion, the first novel in the series, seven pilgrims are sent to the planet Hyperion, an out of the way planet on the edge of Hegemony space. The pilgrims are to seek out the Shrike, a creature of mythical proportions. The shrike is known for causing much pain and suffering to its victims. While traveling to a place on Hyperion known as the Time Tombs, the characters decide that they will tell each other their stories of encounters with the Shrike. The journey to the Tombs is long and it is thought that the stories will help the pilgrims get to know each other, understand why they were chosen to make the trip, and for entertainment purposes. Along with the pilgrim’s stories, there is war on the way with a race known as the Ousters, who are planning to conquer Hyperion.

One thing that is certain as far as I am concerned, is that The Fall Of Hyperion is a very complicated book and I am finding it difficult to summarize, but I will try. So, as they say, here goes nothin’...

It would seem that there are three distinct stories going on in this book. That of the pilgrims as they move in and around the Time Tombs, but sometimes it is told as a communication from Brawne Lamia (one of the pilgrims) to Joseph Severn, the second of a pair of “cybrid” reincarnations of the poet John Keats. Lamia has been fitted with a subcutaneous device that allows her to transmit the experiences of the pilgrims to Severn. Severn receives these transmission in the form of dreams that he can remember. He reports his dreams to the leader of the Hegemony of Man, CEO Meina Gladstone. For a good portion of the story, we see what is happening to the pilgrims through the dreams related by Severn.

Along with the exploits of the pilgrims, there is a war that is raging in space between the Hegemony and the invading Ousters. At the beginning of the story, CEO Gladstone is being advised by a few high-ranking officers of the FORCE, or the Hegemony military. The commanders have analyzed the Ousters numbers and their attack on Hyperion and report that the Hegemony forces will, in short time, easily defeat the Ousters. This proves to be a gross overstatement and the war quickly gets out of hand as the Ousters overrun the Hegemony forces and begin attacking Hegemony occupied worlds. There are billions of lives at stake, even though the Ousters do not travel by Farcaster (a type of transportation that allows one to travel from place to place instantaneously; it also connects all of the worlds in the Hegemony). Instead, the Ousters use what is known as Hawking Drive which is much slower, but that doesn’t matter because the Ousters seem relentless.

When CEO Gladstone learns that the Ousters are not flesh and blood beings, but rather are TechnoCore androids, she hatches a plot to destroy the Farcaster network where the TechnoCore (much like our internet, but far, far more sophisticated) resides.

The most compelling part of the story is the fate of the pilgrims themselves. They are:

• Martin Silenus - Poet who is hoping to finish an epic poem called the Hyperion Cantos.
• The Consul - A diplomat who is bitter toward the Hegemony, and has also been an agent of the Ousters.
• Brawne Lamia - A private detective who had/has a relationship with Joseph Severn.
• Sol Weintraub - A scholar who is bringing his infant daughter to the Time Tombs to reverse an infliction that is causing her to age backward toward her birth. Rachel, Sol’s daughter became ill when touched by the Shrike as an adult archaeologist studying the Time Tombs.
• Fedmahn Kassad - A former FORCE officer who seeks to destroy the Shrike and kill Moneta, the Shrike’s keeper and Kassad’s former lover.
• Lenar Hoyt - A Catholic priest who is hoping to die so his mentor Father Paul Dure can live again. He wears a thing called the Cruciform that allows him to be resurrected as Dure upon his death.

All of their stories are compelling and if you want to learn more about them, you’ll just have to read the book. If I summarize much more, I will be giving some major spoilers, even beyond the ones I have already given.  Let just suffice to say that The Fall of Hyperion is a complicated story that is very involved and engaging. There are many facets to this story and they all seem to be interwoven in such a way that makes is hard for me to summarize in just a short space without telling the story.

As in the previous volume, I loved the way that the story unfolds and how Simmons writes it. He changes voice numerous times as he moves from one character to another, but the descriptions of what things look, feel, and smell like are quite poetic. The use of language in this book is beautiful. His descriptions of people, places and things are just fun to read as well as providing a complete picture that I was able to visualize as I read. The places he talks about in this book are places that are colorful and interesting and I would love to visit them myself. As for the people, they become entities that one cares about and are engaging; even the not-so-nice characters are living, breathing people while one reads.

The main motivation I had for reading this second book in the Hyperion series was to find out the fate of Sol Weintraub and his daughter Rachel. This was the most compelling story for me and I was not disappointed in the outcome. I could feel Sol’s pain as he had to make decisions, very difficult decisions, and finally came to the conclusion that he was going to have to trust the Shrike to grant his wish to restore Rachel to normal. Along with Sol’s story, the other pilgrims stories were just as appealing and interesting in their resolutions, but for some reason, I latched onto that one character, who, to me, was the one that had suffered the most. I do think that whoever reads The Fall of Hyperion, may find that while they sympathize with all of the pilgrims, as well as many of the other characters, that each reader may be able to identify more with one than the others.

I found this series when I searched for science fiction to read that would be something new and different. In looking back over what I read, while it may be classified as Sci-Fi, it is also a story that might appeal to Fantasy fans as well. I think that putting this book, and the one before it into a single category might limit who would enjoy these books. It is very much a work of fantasy; there are some very ‘magical’ things happening in this story that makes me think it is a Sci-Fi and fantasy story. There is the Shrike that would cause nightmares in many people, there is the quest of one individual character to take the Shrike down, and there is even a ‘magic’ carpet that carries one character across the planet to return with help.

In any case, the Hyperion Cantos books are well worth looking at whether you are a fan of one genre or the other. In my estimation, they are entertaining, engaging, and fascinating stories that are well written. But reader be warned, they are also very complex in their content and, should you decide to give the series a look, you will need to pay attention.

Well, there it is…

Qapla’!