A Dyson sphere is a wonderful concept, one worthy of a billion aweXome sci-fi stories, but somehow, the scope and grandeur of the basic idea has to some degree eluded the writers who've utilized them; in Star Trek, they've served mostly as just-another-weird-alien-planetoid, with no special attention paid to the inherent unorthodoxy and potential that such a structure has to offer.
Gordon Eklund's eponymous Starless World feels particularly disappointing, as if it had been inserted last-minute into his otherwise largely unimaginative meat-and-potatoes Trek novel. The subject of religion is also broached, a creative decision I salute wholeheartedly, given Trek's general agnostic aversion to the subject, but little headway is made, philosophically speaking; The Starless World is unapologetically an adventure novel, with very little time spent on intellectual considerations.
The Dyson sphere's vast size is definitely alluded to, however, and although Kirk and friends find only a handful of primitives and the token Klingon troublemakers within the sphere, the idea of such an eerie setting - an incomprehensibly massive structure with almost no one living in it - is enough to lend the novel a foreboding air.
Another point of interest in The Starless World is its geographical setting: the Galactic Core. One of the many inconsistencies found within Trek as a franchise is the Core's accessibility to Federation ships, and although it is logical to assume - as many Trek writers did - that the level of technology at the Federation's disposal would indicate that the twenty-six thousand light years that separate Earth from the Galactic Center should be easily traversable by a powerful and well-stocked ship, Rick Berman and the powers-that-be seem to have decided by the 90s that some sort of practical restrictions have to be put in place in order to make the Star Trek galaxy a bit more nuanced and geographically divided.
The end result of this apparent reversal is that that although the original Enterprise visits the Galactic Center in The Animated Series (to find Satan), and the Enterprise-A returns there in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (to find God) in trips that take no more than a few months at the absolute most, the far more advanced USS Voyager is projected to take seventy years to travel from one side of the Galaxy to the other, meaning that a journey to the Core and back would take roughly the same amount of time. While this was later retconned by stating that the Federation was experimenting with "trans-warp" technology at the time of the Enterprise's visits to the Core, a technology that was later abandoned due to its unstable nature, it doesn't alter the fact that Original Series-era ships zip and zoom across mind-boggling distances, but somehow do not encounter the Borg or the Dominion, both of whom possess technology superior to that of the Federation, and "should" therefore have made some sort of contact by then.
This seems to fall in line with a general trend throughout sci-fi: its depiction of technology generally becomes more pessimistic over time, which I suppose is due to a gradually rising demand for realism or 'modernism' among audiences; gone are the days of silvery smooth rocket ships zipping effortlessly from galaxy to galaxy, leaving modern sci-fi to go into often painstaking detail and effort explaining just how spaceships - today, usually boxy, worn and practical-looking things - get from one planet to another. It's an often-quoted lament among sci-fi enthusiasts that film and TV has long had to lag behind the far-flung concepts found in sci-fi literature when it comes to the intellectualism of its content, with the visual medium of course far more reliant on merchandising and accessibility, but it seems as if film and TV have made strides to catch up in recent decades, a fact easily attributed to landmarks such as Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey pushing the envelope on what modern audiences are smart enough to grasp, especially as advances in real-life science and space exploration help to better inform the public.
Star Trek novels fit into this dichotomy in an interesting way: since they are books based on a show that tried to bring the spirit of sci-fi books to the TV screen, does the author stay close to the source material and write an action-adventure tale, go to the source of the source material and inject a more literary spirit into the work, or position themselves somewhere on the sliding scale between the two? So far, I have read Star Trek books that run the gamut, and I've barely scratched the surface; it's a source of variety that makes the reading experience that much more fascinating.
One thing I sometimes worry about is that as I read on chronologically into the 80s, 90s and beyond (and this theory is based mostly on my experience reading Star Wars books), the books will likely become more standardized, something that will probably make the quality of individual works far more reliable, but will cause the random 'oddball' novels and more bizarre ideas to fade away over time; a loss, to be sure, although I am certain there are still a great many 'oddities' left to uncover in the world of Star Trek novels.
Stephen Goldin's 1979 novel Trek To Madworld was certainly one of the sillier entries, but nevertheless, I will bravely attempt to scrape some sense out of it in my next blog post. In the meantime: is The Starless World a waste of time? Yeah, kinda. It reaches big, and I appreciate that, but the plot falls flat in the end, leaving only the very slightest of impressions. However, we are almost at the end of the 70s on this chronologically-structured blog, and almost at the point where Pocket Books fully takes over the publishing of all Trek novels, leading to a slight increase in their average quality. Bear with me people; we'll get to the good stuff real soon.
Gordon Eklund's eponymous Starless World feels particularly disappointing, as if it had been inserted last-minute into his otherwise largely unimaginative meat-and-potatoes Trek novel. The subject of religion is also broached, a creative decision I salute wholeheartedly, given Trek's general agnostic aversion to the subject, but little headway is made, philosophically speaking; The Starless World is unapologetically an adventure novel, with very little time spent on intellectual considerations.
The Dyson sphere's vast size is definitely alluded to, however, and although Kirk and friends find only a handful of primitives and the token Klingon troublemakers within the sphere, the idea of such an eerie setting - an incomprehensibly massive structure with almost no one living in it - is enough to lend the novel a foreboding air.
Another point of interest in The Starless World is its geographical setting: the Galactic Core. One of the many inconsistencies found within Trek as a franchise is the Core's accessibility to Federation ships, and although it is logical to assume - as many Trek writers did - that the level of technology at the Federation's disposal would indicate that the twenty-six thousand light years that separate Earth from the Galactic Center should be easily traversable by a powerful and well-stocked ship, Rick Berman and the powers-that-be seem to have decided by the 90s that some sort of practical restrictions have to be put in place in order to make the Star Trek galaxy a bit more nuanced and geographically divided.
The end result of this apparent reversal is that that although the original Enterprise visits the Galactic Center in The Animated Series (to find Satan), and the Enterprise-A returns there in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (to find God) in trips that take no more than a few months at the absolute most, the far more advanced USS Voyager is projected to take seventy years to travel from one side of the Galaxy to the other, meaning that a journey to the Core and back would take roughly the same amount of time. While this was later retconned by stating that the Federation was experimenting with "trans-warp" technology at the time of the Enterprise's visits to the Core, a technology that was later abandoned due to its unstable nature, it doesn't alter the fact that Original Series-era ships zip and zoom across mind-boggling distances, but somehow do not encounter the Borg or the Dominion, both of whom possess technology superior to that of the Federation, and "should" therefore have made some sort of contact by then.
This seems to fall in line with a general trend throughout sci-fi: its depiction of technology generally becomes more pessimistic over time, which I suppose is due to a gradually rising demand for realism or 'modernism' among audiences; gone are the days of silvery smooth rocket ships zipping effortlessly from galaxy to galaxy, leaving modern sci-fi to go into often painstaking detail and effort explaining just how spaceships - today, usually boxy, worn and practical-looking things - get from one planet to another. It's an often-quoted lament among sci-fi enthusiasts that film and TV has long had to lag behind the far-flung concepts found in sci-fi literature when it comes to the intellectualism of its content, with the visual medium of course far more reliant on merchandising and accessibility, but it seems as if film and TV have made strides to catch up in recent decades, a fact easily attributed to landmarks such as Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey pushing the envelope on what modern audiences are smart enough to grasp, especially as advances in real-life science and space exploration help to better inform the public.
Star Trek novels fit into this dichotomy in an interesting way: since they are books based on a show that tried to bring the spirit of sci-fi books to the TV screen, does the author stay close to the source material and write an action-adventure tale, go to the source of the source material and inject a more literary spirit into the work, or position themselves somewhere on the sliding scale between the two? So far, I have read Star Trek books that run the gamut, and I've barely scratched the surface; it's a source of variety that makes the reading experience that much more fascinating.
One thing I sometimes worry about is that as I read on chronologically into the 80s, 90s and beyond (and this theory is based mostly on my experience reading Star Wars books), the books will likely become more standardized, something that will probably make the quality of individual works far more reliable, but will cause the random 'oddball' novels and more bizarre ideas to fade away over time; a loss, to be sure, although I am certain there are still a great many 'oddities' left to uncover in the world of Star Trek novels.
Stephen Goldin's 1979 novel Trek To Madworld was certainly one of the sillier entries, but nevertheless, I will bravely attempt to scrape some sense out of it in my next blog post. In the meantime: is The Starless World a waste of time? Yeah, kinda. It reaches big, and I appreciate that, but the plot falls flat in the end, leaving only the very slightest of impressions. However, we are almost at the end of the 70s on this chronologically-structured blog, and almost at the point where Pocket Books fully takes over the publishing of all Trek novels, leading to a slight increase in their average quality. Bear with me people; we'll get to the good stuff real soon.
This was an interesting read. As an ex-Navy guy, I have a closer connection to Star Trek than Star Wars, mainly because the Enterprise and its organizational structure feels somewhat relatable to me. It's my sincere belief that almost any Navy story could also be rendered into a decent Star Trek novel.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point about sci-fi becoming more pessimistic over time. I think that reflects society's changing attitudes towards technology and progress over the past few decades. I think that back in the '50s and '60s there was still an this underlying belief that technology and science would solve all our problems and lead us to a shiny new utopia, despite the recent experiences of WWII and the budding nuclear arms race with the Soviets. In recent years, we seem to have become more focused on the problems accompanying progress and development, such as environmental degradation and human alienation. Sci-fi has become more dystopian as a result.
I noticed you haven't posted anything for a few months--do you intend to keep up this blog? I've enjoyed reading your posts. They make me want to hit my local used book store and catch up on some sci-fi reading!