Yes, I know I’m astoundingly behind. For some reason, I could never find this one in stores (though I spotted Obsidian Alliances often enough) and had to order it. Also, being a cheap bastard and observing the shift in currency markets, I waited until I had enough of an order to get Amazon.com to pay S&H so I could save by ordering it from an American retailer. Then Amazon took bloody forever to actually ship the thing (one wonders whether the ‘free’ S&H gets some kind of sticker to mark it as low priority) and somehow managed to forget the second volume, which is earmarked for the next take I’ll order from them (hopefully the currencies will keep until then). But, at long last, it’s here, it’s twisted, and I’ve read it.
Overall, I quite enjoyed the volume. I’ll get to more specific comments soon, but taken as a whole, I was particularly impressed with the way the writers managed to pen three very different style of stories within a universe which has a reputation for being unsubtle and two-dimensional. The Age of the Empress is told in a sordid, soap-opera mode, the focus very much on the characters and their villainous, back-stabbing ways. The Sorrows of Empire (see David? I remembered the ‘The’) is a sweeping, epic historical narrative that tackles the Mirror Universe writ large in a homage to Asimov. The Worst of Both Worlds is a pulpy, action-adventure story of underdogs and impending doom. If I may, I’d describe this trio as the “Dallas”, “Foundation” and “Indiana Jones” of the Mirror Universe, respectively. Likewise, although all stories obviously employ these elements, I liked that the stories put greater spotlight on character, milieu and plot as the principle focus of the story, respectively.
Also, like a few others here, I find myself drawn to Star Trek for the essential optimism to Roddenberry’s vision and wondered if I would be able to relate to Mirror Universe characters, who tend to be a rather dastardly lot on the whole. I needn’t have worried: once again, each story has its own particular way of dealing with the characters’ actions. The characters in Empress are just so hilariously hyper-vile that it is impossible to be offended at anything they do; these are not people but archetypes run amok in a universe of Snidely Whiplash wannabes! Sorrows, conversely, takes a deep, sociological approach, justifying the actions therein in terms of the realpolitik of the Mirror Universe, showcasing that, by and large, people are simply the result of the environment that produces them, and the challenges of breaking free from that mould. And in Both Worlds, the characters, by dint of the social order having been reversed, aren’t villainous at all, but are allowed to be good people in bad situations.
Age of the Empress had to carry on where IaMD left oft, and that meant dealing with the fact that some characters were either bunged up or dead. It does so with a jackhammer-like finesse entirely appropriate to the brutality of the setting, orchestrating a shadow theatre of allegiances and betrayals to the complement of battles and bodies. While the puppet masters do show that there are entire species out there suffering at the whims of a handful of violent despots, it’s the perverseness of those characters that takes center stage here, the way they can kill with impunity in one moment and bask in luxury in the next, all the while telling themselves that it’s ultimately for the greater good of all. It’s competition pushed to the extreme, law of the jungle amidst industrialized savages. Still, it manages to avoid being predictable by balancing villainy with treacherousness, such that you never really know whom any given character will support next in their constant pursuit of self-advancement; in particular, one cannot count that the bad guys will always betray their masters, as they recognize that loyalty and even cooperation can sometimes be as pragmatic as a dagger in the back, while the erstwhile ‘good guys’ in the rebel factions show they are (or have become) just as duplicitous and callous as those they fight against. That unpredictability keeps the plot going, since you never know (being in a universe free of continuity’s constraints) who might wind up dead or imprisoned next. In that vein, my one complaint would be bringing back Archer after his rather apparent death at the end of IaMD—I get that it ties into the whole soapish feel of the story, with a dead character popping up at the end like Bobby Ewing stepping out of the shower, but one of the strengths of the Mirror Universe is being able to kill off ‘regular’ characters, and it shouldn’t be undermined with comic book resurrections.
As a fan of truly epic stories, tales of great historical and geographical scope, The Sorrows of Empire felt as though it was written just for me. At once a biography of Mirror Spock post-“Mirror, Mirror” and a chronicle of the fall of the Terran Empire, I appreciate the expansive (if relatively short-lived) cast of known characters, most of which are faithful to their RU counterparts if raised in such an environment, and the ways in which the narrative reflects the received history of the standard universe, familiar people and events like Carol Marcus and Genesis given new twists. Although scattered across time, each scene manages to create its own, self-sustained dramatic impetus, avoiding the pitfalls of ‘filler’ moments in history—which a story of this scope can ill-afford, given how its length must have been staining the ‘novel anthology’ format to begin with. The moral conundrums of Spock acting as an amoral, pragmatism-driven Harry Seldon are also fascinating to consider. Spock and Sarek themselves aren’t overly reflective about their actions, justifying it with cold logic (well demonstrating the potential ethical pitfalls of “logic alone”), but that actually leaves more room for the reader to debate whether Spock’s gamble (and it is a gamble) is justified; whether the possibility of a better future justifies the loss of life and oppression of the century to follow. I can’t help but wonder if a Terran Republic, even if corrupt and militarized, would have been such a bad prospect… generally, give people a little freedom and they’ll want more, so while Spock may have correctly predicted the implosion of the rigid and orthodox Empire, I’m not sure I’m as sanguine about his predictions applying to a dynamic republican system. Still, for better or for worse, the seeds of revolution have been planted, and I look forward to seeing the germination of Memory Omega and the Vulcan underground in future MU tales. My one quibble about the story was the Tantalus Field. Now, I’ve not seen “Mirror, Mirror” so possibly some of this is addressed there, but I thought the use of the field was too much of a crutch for Spock; which is to say, I would have preferred seeing him accomplish his rise to power without recourse to inexplicable, ‘magical’ technology, succeeding on wits alone. The Field itself, for such a central device, gets little attention: what is it, really? Where does it come from? How did Kirk come by it? Is a similar engine of terror waiting to be discovered in our universe? Etc.
After Sorrows, The Worst of Both Worlds seems like a very different story, and not just for the fact that we’re transposed into a very different kind of setting. It’s far shorter and covers only a narrow section of known TNG characters, but it works for the kind of story it is trying to tell: not one of great, sweeping change, but of individual resistance to coercive systems (interesting that an author frequently criticized for ‘continuity porn’ features relatively few characters in a story where he could have thrown many more together; then again, actually answering the question ‘What if the Alliance met the Borg’ might be considered fanboy-ish enough already
). As an action-adventure story, it rollicks well, and I particularly enjoyed the Indiana Jones pastiche as the beginning. In fact, I commend the decision to make Picard into a tomb raider, drawing on his RU’s counterparts known love of archaeology, instead of someone with an occupation more similar to ‘our’ Picard, in a position of authority (whether rebel or collaborator). Similarly, I liked the way that Picard and Vash saw their roles reversed in this upside-down universe while staying true to their characters: in the benevolent Federation, the roguish Vash is a character of ill-repute, while Picard is a respectable figure of authority; in the MU, the rebellious Vash is more clearly one of the good guys, while Picard’s ‘law and order’ tendencies place him in an ethically compromised situation of working with a corrupt system. It certainly couldn’t have been easy to write a story where brutal oppression is seen as the best alternative, but through Soong the story makes the point that slavery of the mind is a greater crime than slavery of the body; that as long as thought is free, all other forms of freedom are possible, however unlikely. And, of course, the Battle of Rura Penthe was just très cool (I am, incidentally, glad to see that some Klingon notion of honoring a worthy foe or unexpected ally survives even in this setting). My biggest beef with this story was probably the sequence with Vash, Selar and the other guy mirroring the same raid by Picard, Crusher and Worf and Madred’s trap – it seemed to go on for a very long time for something that was, at best, only tangentially related to the main point of the story: i.e. Borg. In particular, I don’t get why we spent so much time on that sequence, only to have Vash vanish from the story until Picard spots her as a drone; Vash’s after-the-fact fate makes that incident seem even more like a waste of story space.
But (not to end on a negative note), I’ll say again that I enjoyed all the stories and the anthology as a whole. I’m looking forward to the next volume (whenever I get my hands on it) and the short story anthology coming next summer. And that was just the first of a whole pile of Trek fiction to tear through (yay); gonna tackle the TNG-R next.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Overall, I quite enjoyed the volume. I’ll get to more specific comments soon, but taken as a whole, I was particularly impressed with the way the writers managed to pen three very different style of stories within a universe which has a reputation for being unsubtle and two-dimensional. The Age of the Empress is told in a sordid, soap-opera mode, the focus very much on the characters and their villainous, back-stabbing ways. The Sorrows of Empire (see David? I remembered the ‘The’) is a sweeping, epic historical narrative that tackles the Mirror Universe writ large in a homage to Asimov. The Worst of Both Worlds is a pulpy, action-adventure story of underdogs and impending doom. If I may, I’d describe this trio as the “Dallas”, “Foundation” and “Indiana Jones” of the Mirror Universe, respectively. Likewise, although all stories obviously employ these elements, I liked that the stories put greater spotlight on character, milieu and plot as the principle focus of the story, respectively.
Also, like a few others here, I find myself drawn to Star Trek for the essential optimism to Roddenberry’s vision and wondered if I would be able to relate to Mirror Universe characters, who tend to be a rather dastardly lot on the whole. I needn’t have worried: once again, each story has its own particular way of dealing with the characters’ actions. The characters in Empress are just so hilariously hyper-vile that it is impossible to be offended at anything they do; these are not people but archetypes run amok in a universe of Snidely Whiplash wannabes! Sorrows, conversely, takes a deep, sociological approach, justifying the actions therein in terms of the realpolitik of the Mirror Universe, showcasing that, by and large, people are simply the result of the environment that produces them, and the challenges of breaking free from that mould. And in Both Worlds, the characters, by dint of the social order having been reversed, aren’t villainous at all, but are allowed to be good people in bad situations.
Age of the Empress had to carry on where IaMD left oft, and that meant dealing with the fact that some characters were either bunged up or dead. It does so with a jackhammer-like finesse entirely appropriate to the brutality of the setting, orchestrating a shadow theatre of allegiances and betrayals to the complement of battles and bodies. While the puppet masters do show that there are entire species out there suffering at the whims of a handful of violent despots, it’s the perverseness of those characters that takes center stage here, the way they can kill with impunity in one moment and bask in luxury in the next, all the while telling themselves that it’s ultimately for the greater good of all. It’s competition pushed to the extreme, law of the jungle amidst industrialized savages. Still, it manages to avoid being predictable by balancing villainy with treacherousness, such that you never really know whom any given character will support next in their constant pursuit of self-advancement; in particular, one cannot count that the bad guys will always betray their masters, as they recognize that loyalty and even cooperation can sometimes be as pragmatic as a dagger in the back, while the erstwhile ‘good guys’ in the rebel factions show they are (or have become) just as duplicitous and callous as those they fight against. That unpredictability keeps the plot going, since you never know (being in a universe free of continuity’s constraints) who might wind up dead or imprisoned next. In that vein, my one complaint would be bringing back Archer after his rather apparent death at the end of IaMD—I get that it ties into the whole soapish feel of the story, with a dead character popping up at the end like Bobby Ewing stepping out of the shower, but one of the strengths of the Mirror Universe is being able to kill off ‘regular’ characters, and it shouldn’t be undermined with comic book resurrections.
As a fan of truly epic stories, tales of great historical and geographical scope, The Sorrows of Empire felt as though it was written just for me. At once a biography of Mirror Spock post-“Mirror, Mirror” and a chronicle of the fall of the Terran Empire, I appreciate the expansive (if relatively short-lived) cast of known characters, most of which are faithful to their RU counterparts if raised in such an environment, and the ways in which the narrative reflects the received history of the standard universe, familiar people and events like Carol Marcus and Genesis given new twists. Although scattered across time, each scene manages to create its own, self-sustained dramatic impetus, avoiding the pitfalls of ‘filler’ moments in history—which a story of this scope can ill-afford, given how its length must have been staining the ‘novel anthology’ format to begin with. The moral conundrums of Spock acting as an amoral, pragmatism-driven Harry Seldon are also fascinating to consider. Spock and Sarek themselves aren’t overly reflective about their actions, justifying it with cold logic (well demonstrating the potential ethical pitfalls of “logic alone”), but that actually leaves more room for the reader to debate whether Spock’s gamble (and it is a gamble) is justified; whether the possibility of a better future justifies the loss of life and oppression of the century to follow. I can’t help but wonder if a Terran Republic, even if corrupt and militarized, would have been such a bad prospect… generally, give people a little freedom and they’ll want more, so while Spock may have correctly predicted the implosion of the rigid and orthodox Empire, I’m not sure I’m as sanguine about his predictions applying to a dynamic republican system. Still, for better or for worse, the seeds of revolution have been planted, and I look forward to seeing the germination of Memory Omega and the Vulcan underground in future MU tales. My one quibble about the story was the Tantalus Field. Now, I’ve not seen “Mirror, Mirror” so possibly some of this is addressed there, but I thought the use of the field was too much of a crutch for Spock; which is to say, I would have preferred seeing him accomplish his rise to power without recourse to inexplicable, ‘magical’ technology, succeeding on wits alone. The Field itself, for such a central device, gets little attention: what is it, really? Where does it come from? How did Kirk come by it? Is a similar engine of terror waiting to be discovered in our universe? Etc.
After Sorrows, The Worst of Both Worlds seems like a very different story, and not just for the fact that we’re transposed into a very different kind of setting. It’s far shorter and covers only a narrow section of known TNG characters, but it works for the kind of story it is trying to tell: not one of great, sweeping change, but of individual resistance to coercive systems (interesting that an author frequently criticized for ‘continuity porn’ features relatively few characters in a story where he could have thrown many more together; then again, actually answering the question ‘What if the Alliance met the Borg’ might be considered fanboy-ish enough already
). As an action-adventure story, it rollicks well, and I particularly enjoyed the Indiana Jones pastiche as the beginning. In fact, I commend the decision to make Picard into a tomb raider, drawing on his RU’s counterparts known love of archaeology, instead of someone with an occupation more similar to ‘our’ Picard, in a position of authority (whether rebel or collaborator). Similarly, I liked the way that Picard and Vash saw their roles reversed in this upside-down universe while staying true to their characters: in the benevolent Federation, the roguish Vash is a character of ill-repute, while Picard is a respectable figure of authority; in the MU, the rebellious Vash is more clearly one of the good guys, while Picard’s ‘law and order’ tendencies place him in an ethically compromised situation of working with a corrupt system. It certainly couldn’t have been easy to write a story where brutal oppression is seen as the best alternative, but through Soong the story makes the point that slavery of the mind is a greater crime than slavery of the body; that as long as thought is free, all other forms of freedom are possible, however unlikely. And, of course, the Battle of Rura Penthe was just très cool (I am, incidentally, glad to see that some Klingon notion of honoring a worthy foe or unexpected ally survives even in this setting). My biggest beef with this story was probably the sequence with Vash, Selar and the other guy mirroring the same raid by Picard, Crusher and Worf and Madred’s trap – it seemed to go on for a very long time for something that was, at best, only tangentially related to the main point of the story: i.e. Borg. In particular, I don’t get why we spent so much time on that sequence, only to have Vash vanish from the story until Picard spots her as a drone; Vash’s after-the-fact fate makes that incident seem even more like a waste of story space.But (not to end on a negative note), I’ll say again that I enjoyed all the stories and the anthology as a whole. I’m looking forward to the next volume (whenever I get my hands on it) and the short story anthology coming next summer. And that was just the first of a whole pile of Trek fiction to tear through (yay); gonna tackle the TNG-R next.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Our goal was to help Mike realize his vision for what would happen next after "In a Mirror, Darkly" while capturing the tone of the episode. I'm glad we succeeded for you.
