Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Ring of Fire
Author: David Mack
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books
Release date: October 7
“That is the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard.”
Scott wondered whether Pelia had meant to sound quite so brusque with the captain. “With respect, Commander, isn’t that a bit extreme?”
“Depends,” Pelia said with a sardonic shrug. “Captain, have you hit your head recently? Because this is insane.”
Pike’s exuberance seemed well on the way to becoming vexation. “Pelia, I’m open to constructive criticism, but as your commanding officer, I demand at least a modicum of respect.”
“Sorry, Captain. Respectfully, sir, your plan is insane.”
“That’s more like it.”
David Mack’s new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds tie-in novel, Ring of Fire, takes readers on a harrowing journey to a crumbling space station on the edge of one of the most dangerous phenomena in the universe, as Captain Pike and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise attempt to capture a saboteur bent on destroying a “super-duper top secret” experiment. The front half of the book is a sometimes-numbing ongoing argument about keeping secrets, while the back half is a slam-bang adventure filled with explosions and suspense. The crew of the Enterprise is rendered with care and character, while the station crew are mostly ciphers. The novel is set between episodes 6 (“The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail”) and 7 (“What Is Starfleet?”) of season 3, and the whole package matches the breezy, casual, and amusing tone of the show’s dialogue perfectly… including the frustrations for those who like their Starfleet personnel to be a bit more professional.
Anson Mount as Capt. Pike and Rebecca Romijn as Una in season 3 , Episode 6 of Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)
[SPOILERS below]
It took me a while to warm to Ring of Fire, as the novel does a few things early on that hinder the reader’s engagement. Paramount among these decisions is the fact that the most prominent original character in the book is hiding something, a secret she is keeping for reasons both personal and due to top-secret classification of the experiment. Secrets can be intriguing, but for almost the first half of the book, the main tension comes from Enterprise characters arguing with the space station characters that they need to know the nature of this experiment if they are to successfully assist the station personnel in catching a saboteur, and the station people responding that no, they cannot reveal this secret because it’s classified. And back and forth. And back and forth. The saboteur blows something else up, we have another iteration of the argument. It goes nowhere, until halfway through the book, the director of the station agrees to reveal the nature of the experiment. And from there, the book starts cooking.
Again, secrets can be intriguing, but even though the opening chapter is told from the station director’s point of view, we are given very little insight into her inner life – or even her outer life. She is described, for example, as having pointed ears, and there are a number of bits of description that hint that she is likely a Vulcan. But she behaves in very un-Vulcan ways throughout the book, and there is no inquiry or insight into why this might be. Partly, this is because her true identity needs to be kept a secret from the reader till near the end. But overall, it flattens her character out, and makes her less interesting. By the end of the book, we need to like her character and root for her to succeed, but her impediment prevents the characters we already like from doing their jobs. This kind of mystery box storytelling doesn’t create intrigue and instead creates a large hurdle for the first half of the book.
Thankfully, our familiar characters are given loving treatment. Mack deftly weaves this story right into the heart of season 3 of the series, with characters making mention of events from the first half of the season, while clearly not knowing what’s to come. Spock and La’an’s dating relationship is growing, Chapel misses a Roger Korby who has left the ship for a few weeks, and everyone knows that Ortegas’ brother Beto will be coming soon to shoot a documentary. Captain Batel’s Gorn infestation seems to be under control, but Pike is worried for her still.
Ethan Peck as Spock, Jess Bush as Chapel and Melanie Scrofano as Batel in season 3 , Episode 3 of Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)
The characters sound like themselves, especially Spock as we can hear his dialogue clearly the voice of Ethan Peck’s version of the classic character. The writing captures the casual style of interaction that the show displays between members of the Enterprise crew. Pelia makes a joke about Pike’s hair. Characters seem less professional than their counterparts on The Original Series or The Next Generation, but that is quite true to the tone of a modern Trek show. One key station character is presented as incompetent at his job, holding it only through nepotism, and it’s frustrating to see him constantly fail, even though it showcases the comparative skills of our Enterprise crew.
And as frustrating as the secrecy argument might be in the early parts of the story, once the main secret is out and everyone starts working together, the action in the book becomes quite intense, and it becomes a page turner. Mack has layered threat upon threat upon threat during the buildup phase of the novel, and once things start hitting, they keep on hitting, harder and harder. Characters are in genuine peril, and the Enterprise faces obstacles that seem impossible to overcome. But the solutions have been prepared with equal skill, and make sense when they arrive.
There are nods throughout to things established in other Star Trek shows – “percussive maintenance” from Star Trek: Prodigy gets prominent mention, and races and references abound from Enterprise, Discovery, The Next Generation, and more. Mack knows his canon, and sprinkles it throughout the book in a fun and organic way. He also captures the idea, prominent in The Original Series but mostly gone by the time of The Next Generation, that a starship captain was largely out on his or her own. Starfleet headquarters was hundreds of light-years away, and when decisions had to be made quickly, a captain needed to make them on their own.
In the end, it’s a difficult book to review. The first half was frustrating and at times dull, but the second half was exciting and gripping. Some of the things I didn’t enjoy about the book reflect the critiques I have of Strange New Worlds as a show, which while problematic from my point of view, demonstrates that Mack has successfully captured the feel of a Strange New Worlds season 3 adventure. I think overall, I am glad I read the novel. The second half was really quite entertaining. But if you’re frustrated with some of the decisions the showrunners made in the third season of the show, you will likely be frustrated with some aspects of the novel, as I was.
Cover for Ring of Fire
And one more thing: they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, however, it didn’t help that this novel is wrapped in another in what has been a string of uninspired photo collage covers that gives the reader very little idea of what the book itself will be like. In a week when the genre community lost a giant like illustrator Drew Struzan, Ring of Fire’s cover stands as a monument to lackadaisical book design. Simon and Schuster, you can do better. Look back on the painted covers of Struzan, Keith Birdsong, Boris Vallejo, and so many others that have graced Star Trek novels of the past. This cover gives us differently-sized cameos of five members of the Enterprise crew, artfully blurred at the sternum, set against a generic black hole image. And while these characters do show up in the book, and it is set near a black hole, the cover tells us nothing more than that, and does nothing to tantalize the prospective reader. It’s generic and bland, and not worthy of the art that went into the writing of the novel itself.
Available now
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Ring of Fire was released Tuesday, October 7. You can pick it up now in hardcover at Amazon for $28.70. or Kindle/eBook for $14.99.
It is also available as an audiobook narrated by Robert Petkoff, on Audible (click to hear a sample).
Find more news and reviews of Star Trek books at TrekMovie.com
source: trekmovie.com