It’s been a long road…finding any Enterprise books…
It’s been a long time…that I’ve been searchin’, now they’re here!
And I hope it’s as good as the show that I dig, cause I’ve got fai…all right, fuck that shit.
That’s right, gang, we are taking our first steps into the Enterprise era of novels, and I couldn’t be any more excited!
I love the show and I’ve been itching to get me grubby little peter pullers on them, and the time has finally come.
How will this stack up against the actual episode?
Let’s find out!
This is your ever present ***SPOILER ALERT***
As the Vulcans continue to hover over, and hold back, humanity’s progress out into the broader universe, the universe comes to Earth.
In Oklahoma, a 6 foot plus tall Klingot…uh, Klingon, is shot by a farmer in the town of Broken Bow.
This incident causes some friction between Starfleet’s top brass and the Vulcan delegation on Earth, eventually accelerating the maiden voyage of the first Warp 5 ship.
In just 3 days, Captain Jonathan Archer assembles his crew and heads out to the Klingon home world, Q’onoS, to deliver the wounded alien back to his people.
But when a genetically modified race of beings called the Suliban shut down the ship and kidnap the Klingon, the mission gets far more complicated than the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise ever could have imagined.
I wanna start off by saying that I’ve seen every Star Trek pilot except for Strange New Worlds and, with the exception of the super horny decon scene, I think I can easily say this is my favorite.
I know it was filled with controversy – again you have the sexy decon scene, but also it’s a prequel, and there were those pissy/antagonistic Vulcans – but I think the closer connection to modern day leads to vastly more empathy and familiarity for this crew and their potentially rocky outlook on the universe at large.
Now, this adaptation is kind of legendary, but not for the best of reasons.
I’ve long heard that Carey spent the entirety of it running down the story and calling it stupid through internal monologue, that she made it more than clear that she hated this script with every fiber of her being.
To say I started this book bracing for impact would be an incredible understatement.
Maybe I’m a bit slow, but I really didn’t see much, if any, of that.
I actually think that she did a pretty damn good job of expanding what was on the page/screen and extrapolating it into a slightly more robust version of the story.
One scene that’s always pointed to as being her clear hatred for this script features T’Pol & Trip.
T’Pol says something about Vulcan children playing with toys that are more advanced than some of the equipment on the NX-01, and Trip’s internal monologue has him think something like “we both know that it’s true, why would she say that?”.
Again, maybe I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt, but I took that more as Trip being like “oh, this pointy eared shithead is fuckin’ with me!” than some meta-commentary on what a pile of dogshit the core story was.
My only major complaint would be something that could mostly be a product of the lack of inflection in print, but Archer comes off a little overly hostile to the point that he’s bordering on unlikeable.
While his anger and frustration with the Vulcans is justified, in this it almost feels like it runs deeper.
Thankfully he confronts and moves past that in the end, but goddamn did it walk the razor’s edge of almost coming off hate tanky.
A fun and interesting feature in this book is that there’s nearly 40 pages of of behind the scenes info written by Paul Ruditis.
Featuring interviews with Berman & Braga, and though it’s a bit short, it covers everything from the development to the designs of the ship and uniforms.
It’s a great bit of insight into how this great show came to be.
To put a fine point on it, I dig it.
It’s not flawless, but it takes the start of my favorite Trek series and improves it, even if only a little.
But most importantly it’s good to spend an extra chunky amount of time with a solid group of characters.
It kicks off what I hope is going to be a great series of novels with these characters that will expand my view of them and make me dig them and the series even more.
Bring on the next one!
Special thanks to @ACFerrell1976 for her continued editorial assistance.
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And finally, given the state of the world, do what you can to leave it a little bit better than you found it.
As difficult as that may be currently, it can have an impact far greater than you know.
Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.
