Sharply penned and sprung from the mind of a man who knows his physics and astronomy, World Without End is without a doubt one of the more poignant and memorable of the early slew of Trek novels. Haldeman paints vivid scenes of his eerily artificial eponymous world, with its detailed society and sound mechanical concepts. The action flows as smooth as ever, and although the plot is essentially a variation on a tried-and-tested sci-fi/fantasy MO - invent a detailed and original setting, then have some characters travel from one side of it to the other - Haldeman's high level of detail and sanguine prose elevate the novel to something considerably more than the sum of its parts.
Characters are given intelligent motivations and dialogue as they traverse Haldeman's sickeningly brutal high-concept setting, and it is extremely gratifying to read an author who is both willing and able to convincingly explore the details of the Star Trek universe that are rarely glimpsed on the show; astrophysical considerations and the immutable laws of physics are well incorporated, and this is no child's book. It's incisive and fascinating, if occasionally plodding, and makes me legitimately bummed he hasn't written any Trek books since.
So yeah, it is my absolute pleasure to report that this particular novel is not a waste of time. It's smart, bloody and sharp; exactly what Star Trek's big screen debut - which was in the works during the period of time in which World Without End was written - should have been, but totally wasn't. As indicators of the directions Trek could have taken at that very uncertain time in its history, they are fascinating to compare, and you may or may not be happy to know that the next book I intend to cover on this blog is in fact Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I think I promised very early on on this blog - the first or second post - that there would be no novelizations on this page, but the aforementioned fascination - coupled with my general interest in films cursed with difficult births - was simply too tempting, so I bought the damn thing on my Kindle a few weeks ago and breezed through it.
So join me next time for a slightly longer and more detailed blog post than you're used to seeing on here, because it'll be about a book I've actually read fairly recently, and can consequently remember almost 80% of it. Sounds like fun, right?
Characters are given intelligent motivations and dialogue as they traverse Haldeman's sickeningly brutal high-concept setting, and it is extremely gratifying to read an author who is both willing and able to convincingly explore the details of the Star Trek universe that are rarely glimpsed on the show; astrophysical considerations and the immutable laws of physics are well incorporated, and this is no child's book. It's incisive and fascinating, if occasionally plodding, and makes me legitimately bummed he hasn't written any Trek books since.
So yeah, it is my absolute pleasure to report that this particular novel is not a waste of time. It's smart, bloody and sharp; exactly what Star Trek's big screen debut - which was in the works during the period of time in which World Without End was written - should have been, but totally wasn't. As indicators of the directions Trek could have taken at that very uncertain time in its history, they are fascinating to compare, and you may or may not be happy to know that the next book I intend to cover on this blog is in fact Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I think I promised very early on on this blog - the first or second post - that there would be no novelizations on this page, but the aforementioned fascination - coupled with my general interest in films cursed with difficult births - was simply too tempting, so I bought the damn thing on my Kindle a few weeks ago and breezed through it.
So join me next time for a slightly longer and more detailed blog post than you're used to seeing on here, because it'll be about a book I've actually read fairly recently, and can consequently remember almost 80% of it. Sounds like fun, right?
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