Surak's Soul is a Star Trek novel set in the Enterprise timeline.
***Warning: Spoilers Ahead***
I found this story entertaining and engaging, featuring characters that are familiar to viewers of the Enterprise television show. This is a fast and easy read at 240 pages and is full of action and suspense to keep the reader involved in the story.
The Enterprise, NX-01, encounters a beautiful Earthlike planet with a small population. Capt. Archer is eager to make first contact with the people, so he and an away team take a shuttle pod and land. What they find is a dying civilization that goes extinct before their eyes. T'Pol, Enterprise's Vulcan first officer, believing a member of the landing party is about to be attacked, fires a phase pistol on the stun setting which kills one of the aliens. T'Pol is disturbed by what has transpired and informs Archer she will no longer use violence to defend the ship.
Back on board the ship, Dr. Phlox studies two of the corpses, while Hoshi works to interpret the planet's medical records to discover the reason for their extinction.
They discover an entity made up of energy claiming to know what happened on the planet. The entity, known only as "Wanderer," is brought aboard Enterprise and the crew finds themselves fighting for their own survival.
I found all the characters of the Enterprise crew were familiar, as written by Dillard. She showed a good familiarity with them as well as their indosyncracies. I had no trouble recognizing their voice in the prose and felt as though I were there observing them.
The entity called Wanderer is a twist on a familiar Star Trek trope. Wanderer can travel through space without a ship; it has no form, but can change form at will, and can only communicate with T'Pol through telepathy.
When the crew first encounters Wanderer, it would seem to be a benevolent being, ready to help the crew answer questions. As time goes on, a misunderstanding of philosophies and the definition of sentience place the crew, except for T'Pol, in danger. According to its own philosophical point of view, it is not a malicious being, but is only behaving according to its nature.
I didn't identify a favorite plot point in this story. It was simply a fun romp in the Enterprise timeline moving at a brisk pace.
Surak of Vulcan put forth the philosophical point of view that violence is illogical under all circumstances. Even when one's own life is in danger, the use of violence is not an option. T'Pol found herself in a situation where a fellow crew member was being threatened. She reacted by drawing her phase pistol and firing on the offending being. Even though the weapon was set to stun, the alien's health was so poor, her action resulted in the death of another. Upon reflection, T'Pol found her action in conflict with her adopted philosophy and decided she would no longer resort to violence in any form for any reason. When she informed her commander of this, he worried that her choice would endanger the Enterprise and her crew.
My takeaway from this story is never say never about anything. While Surak's philosophy is admirable, in the Star Trek universe, it is also impractical. We have seen numerous times over the years where a race of aliens live for violence. T'Pol's reaffirmation of Surak's teachings are illogical when one thinks about it. Even Spock realized this when faced with his own mortality on many occasions.
J.M. Dillard packed a lot into a few pages and came up with a complete fun little story that follows the practice that everything is back to normal at the end of a book. It is a fast-paced, action packed tale of the folly of Capt. Archer's often times foolhardy desire to make first contact with nearly every alien race Enterprise encounters.
I recommend this for readers who enjoy a decent Trek novel with familiar characters set in a challenging situation.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
J.M. Dillard is the pseudonym under which Jeanne Kalogridis publishes her Star Trek novels. SHe is a writer of of historical, science fiction and horror fiction. She was born in Florida and studied at the University of South Florida, earning first a BA in Russian and then an MA in Linguistics.
Well, there it is...
Qapla!
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