Star Trek: Enterprise The First Adventure by Vonda McIntyre

[Damian]

I read this book when it first came out in 1986. I haven't read it since and decided to read it again. I remember being a bit disappointed when it first came out but I figured I'd give it another try since now I've been a Trekkie for years now and a lot has been added to the Star Trek universe since 1986. But unfortunately if anything I care for it even less. IMO it's just not a very good book.

Now I do understand first of all the novel was written even before TNG came out, so I had no expectations that it would conform to the current Star Trek continuity. And I also understand that she wanted to tell a story of The First Adventure incorporating the familiar crew from the series proper, and largely ignoring character placements in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". However, at the same time Gary Mitchell is seen briefly in the book, and Dr Piper is mentioned at one point. However Lee Kelso and Lt. Alden do not appear at all. Now while I understand that, it's hard to treat this book as a true first adventure since we know Sulu was not at the helm in the early going, Dr McCoy was not yet on the Enterprise, nor was Lt. Uhura. And Ensign Chekov makes an appearance as well which is stretching things quite a bit (though she does have him on board on the overnight watch).

But that's not the only thing I found disappointing about E:TFA. If that was all, I could overlook the various continuity errors. But the overall story just isn't all that good. The story is a bit meandering. First focusing on the change of command and the difficulty Spock has in adjusting to a captain who is far different than Captain Pike, and Scotty is almost insubordinate toward Kirk. And there is very little interaction between Kirk and Pike. Then Kirk is ordered to take a group of vaudevillians on a roaming tour and Kirk is obviously put off by that. He wants a real mission. But he develops almost a school boy crush on the leader of the vaudevillian group, who incidentally has a flying horse. Then they take on a 'renegade' Vulcan, Stephen, who wants to explore his emotions (similar to Sybok in TFF) and the group leader, Lindy, falls in love with him, much to Kirk's chagrin. Then they encounter an advanced alien species who are from a huge world ship, they try to communicate with them and are only able to after Spock engages one of them in a mind meld causing him brain damage....then there is a renegade Klingon leader, from a Klingon sect the Rumaiy, and then some oligarchy of the Klingon empire tries to hunt her down....then, well, need I go on. It's just a meandering story that threads in and out.

The worldship is probably the most interesting part of the story. I found I really didn't care about the Klingon elements of the story. In some ways the Kirk depicted in the novel reminds me a bit of Chris Pine's Kirk in Star Trek (2009) and STID, which I guess is fitting. But she does share his thoughts and elements of Shatner's Kirk from the original series are best seen in those parts. Kirk and crew go through some growing pains as well, which is too be expected.

But overall I just didn't find it very satisfying. I do like some of McIntyre's Star Trek books, but this one is just a miss in my book. The primary issue I had was the plot, but the continuity issues bother me as well. It just doesn't feel like a first adventure to me.

 

[Christopher]

However Lee Kelso and Lt. Alden do not appear at all. Now while I understand that, it's hard to treat this book as a true first adventure since we know Sulu was not at the helm in the early going, Dr McCoy was not yet on the Enterprise, nor was Lt. Uhura.

I don't really see that as a problem, given that TOS didn't consistently feature Sulu and Uhura in every episode. There were plenty of episodes where they were just absent without explanation. Even McCoy isn't in every first-season episode. So a character not appearing onscreen during the events of "Where No Man" doesn't prove they weren't on the ship yet.

The story is a bit meandering. First focusing on the change of command and the difficulty Spock has in adjusting to a captain who is far different than Captain Pike

That seems odd to me in retrospect. I realized a while back that Kirk as written in season 1 is essentially just Pike with the name changed. His character description in the series bible is mostly cut and pasted from Pike's. They were written as the same character, differentiated only by their actors' performance styles, until later on when writers began tailoring Kirk to Shatner's personality and strengths (and giving in to network pressure to make him more of a conventional two-fisted womanizer).

....then there is a renegade Klingon leader, from a Klingon sect the Rumaiy, and then some oligarchy of the Klingon empire tries to hunt her down...

I keep forgetting that this is the book where McIntyre introduced her Kumburan and Rumaiy Klingon subcultures. I keep thinking it was her Search for Spock adaptation. I always took them as implicit labels for the smooth and ridged Klingons, though I'm not sure if that was the intent or just my attempt to merge the ideas.

I found McIntyre's portrayal of the Klingons a bit... condescending? She portrayed them as kind of unintelligent, being astounded by the hack actor's butchered "rewrite" of Shakespeare -- which doesn't mesh with what TUC later established about Klingons' Shakespearean literacy.

 

[Relayer1]

IMO it's just not a very good book.

I know this may appear flippant but this is the crux of it. There's not much more to say.

 

[Reanok]

I read this book years ago and never really liked the way Kirk came off as a bully towards Spock in this book.

 

[Damian]

So a character not appearing onscreen during the events of "Where No Man" doesn't prove they weren't on the ship yet.

Well maybe. It's just taken all together, McCoy, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu at the helm WITH no Kelso, Alden or Piper (though he is mentioned). Again, I get the reason behind it, and if that was the only thing I didn't like, I would have gotten over it. But it was just one of many things I didn't care for.

I keep forgetting that this is the book where McIntyre introduced her Kumburan and Rumaiy Klingon subcultures.

I'm trying to recall, but do the Rumaiy also appear in Diane Carey's duology "Dreadnought" and "Battlestations!"

And I didn't really care for the Klingons there either. I was having a hard time following that part of the book. Is the oligarchy the equivalent of the Klingon High Council we see today, or head of the military, or some different element of Klingon culture? The novel does mention the Klingon/Rumaiy renegade had ridges, she even painted them (I guess like women use nail polish). But there didn't seem much point for their inclusion. It was never really clear why she even was a renegade and what she was taking revenge for.

The worldship was the most interesting part of the book. It was the only part I really started getting into. Though I didn't care for Kirk's quickly getting frustrated with them, and others. He berates Scotty (though Scotty was almost insubordinate and probably had it coming to him) and it seems Scotty wants to say something but Kirk never gives him the chance. Then all of a sudden his transfer is rescinded, we are told it was worked out but that does not appear in the book. Did Kirk and Scotty have a heart to heart? I don't know because we never see it.

It was just for a novel that was billed as the first giant novel, it was very disappointing.

 

[Damian]

I read this book years ago and never really liked the way Kirk came off as a bully towards Spock in this book.

And Scotty too, though Scotty did have some of it coming to him. And it seems a bit out of character for Scotty to be so dismissive of Kirk before he ever met him.

And the whole Sulu wanted another posting thing. Now he had a change of heart, but again, like Scotty's transfer being rescinded, we never have a scene that establishes that. It was noted Sulu eventually realized Kirk was a captain he can respect, but was that what changed his mind about transferring? Was it his work on the mission? Was it the Enterprise? I don't know because it wasn't established. You kind of have to figure it out for yourself I guess.

 

[Desert Kris]

I'm trying to recall, but do the Rumaiy also appear in Diane Carey's duology "Dreadnought" and "Battlestations!"

After I'm finished with the book I'm currently reading, E:TFA is the next TOS book up to bat. And then Battlestations will follow after whatever other books I read in between. I don't recall seeing anything about these subcultures in Dreadnought!, but I'll keep an eye out for it when I get to Battlestations!

Rumaiy is mentioned in the wikipedia article for Klingon Language, which talks about Saavik using the wrong dialect when trying to speak with Maltz. The novelization for TSFS doesn't name the different dialects, from what I recall. And Memory Beta doesn't seem to have registered the word at all.

 

[Damian]

After I'm finished with the book I'm currently reading, E:TFA is the next TOS book up to bat. And then Battlestations will follow after whatever other books I read in between. I don't recall seeing anything about these subcultures in Dreadnought!, but I'll keep an eye out for it when I get to Battlestations!

Rumaiy is mentioned in the wikipedia article for Klingon Language, which talks about Saavik using the wrong dialect when trying to speak with Maltz. The novelization for TSFS doesn't name the different dialects, from what I recall. And Memory Beta doesn't seem to have registered the word at all.

Something about Rumaiy rings a bell with Battlestations! in particular. There are a couple alien groups Diane Carey mentioned in that novel and for some reason Rumaiy comes to mind. But it may have been another alien group with a similar spelling. In E:TFA the Rumaiy are a group in the Klingon Empire. I wonder where the WIkipedia article got the info about Rumaiy dialects for TSFS if it wasn't in the novelization though. Nothing like that was in the movie.

It'd be interesting to see if Diane Carey borrowed a name created by Vonda McIntyre. Back in the 80's authors weren't as likely to throw a nod to another authors work as they are today. (or at least it seemed that way, I don't recall to many times when one author referenced another's work)

 

[Christopher]

It'd be interesting to see if Diane Carey borrowed a name created by Vonda McIntyre. Back in the 80's authors weren't as likely to throw a nod to another authors work as they are today. (or at least it seemed that way, I don't recall to many times when one author referenced another's work)

By the later '80s, the editor was encouraging more continuity between books. That's how we got the loose '80s continuity discussed elsewhere in this forum.

Of course, once Richard Arnold took over approval of the tie-ins toward the end of the decade, that was decisively cracked down on. I've always wondered... Michael Jan Friedman's Faces of Fire features a pair of Klingon factions similar to McIntyre's, but named the Kamorh'dag and Gevish'rae instead of Kumburan and Rumaiy. I always wondered if they were meant to be the same but Mike was required to change the names due to the ban on inter-novel continuity in those days.

 

[Damian]

By the later '80s, the editor was encouraging more continuity between books. That's how we got the loose '80s continuity discussed elsewhere in this forum.

Of course, once Richard Arnold took over approval of the tie-ins toward the end of the decade, that was decisively cracked down on. I've always wondered... Michael Jan Friedman's Faces of Fire features a pair of Klingon factions similar to McIntyre's, but named the Kamorh'dag and Gevish'rae instead of Kumburan and Rumaiy. I always wondered if they were meant to be the same but Mike was required to change the names due to the ban on inter-novel continuity in those days.

Could be. I just noticed in the 80's novels more continuity within author's works (Diane Duane's novels for instance had a loose internal continuity). I don't recall it as much between different authors--though it certainly doesn't mean it didn't happen. From what I recall of Battlestations! if it was the Rumaiy that was mentioned, it was only peripheral. I seem to remember that they were one of a number of groups involved in an incident (I forget the details). At most it would have just been a nod, or cameo appearance.

 

[Damian]

BTW, why was this Richard Arnold such a creep anyway. What'd he have against tie-ins? If there was a little bit of continuity why would that be a problem for him?

I guess he'd love the relaunch novels if he were around today. His head would probably explode if he disliked tie-in continuity

 

[BillJ]

Not a very good book from what I remember. But not every at-bat is a home run.

 

[Damian]

Not a very good book from what I remember. But not every at-bat is a home run.

I remember not being overly impressed the first go around way back in 1986. But I thought I'd give it another chance since back then I was just a nubie fan and now I've been a fan for 30+ years. I thought maybe I'd see it in a different light.

But no. It was still disappointing (actually a bit more because I know a lot more about Star Trek now then I did then).

I'm almost glad Christopher said he didn't really throw this novel any nods in his upcoming novel. There's really not much worth saving here, I mean, unless he just wanted to name drop something from the novel.

And she did have some good novels back in the day. This was just a miss--probably a bit more noticeable because it was billed as basically an epic novel...and it was supposed to be Kirk's first mission. A bad time to have a miss.

 

[Christopher]

BTW, why was this Richard Arnold such a creep anyway. What'd he have against tie-ins? If there was a little bit of continuity why would that be a problem for him?

To all accounts, he was very loyal to Gene Roddenberry and what he saw as GR's "pure vision" of Star Trek. Roddenberry at that stage in his life was insecure about competing creators' versions of Trek overshadowing his own, so he and Arnold wanted to crack down on any continuing characters or concepts (like Duane's Rihannsu) that could compete with the ones from Roddenberry's canon (never mind the fact that much of that canon was created by other writers to begin with, e.g. Paul Schneider creating the Romulans and Gene Coon the Klingons).

And he was basically a control freak about it. Once he got control over tie-in approval, he wielded a heavy hand to impose his narrow vision of what "true" Trek was -- even to the point of taking books away from their authors and having them rewritten by others, something that's commonplace in film and TV but unheard of in prose. And to hear Peter David tell it, Arnold could be personally vindictive about it, particularly toward Peter.

 

[Damian]

To all accounts, he was very loyal to Gene Roddenberry and what he saw as GR's "pure vision" of Star Trek. Roddenberry at that stage in his life was insecure about competing creators' versions of Trek overshadowing his own, so he and Arnold wanted to crack down on any continuing characters or concepts (like Duane's Rihannsu) that could compete with the ones from Roddenberry's canon (never mind the fact that much of that canon was created by other writers to begin with, e.g. Paul Schneider creating the Romulans and Gene Coon the Klingons).

And he was basically a control freak about it. Once he got control over tie-in approval, he wielded a heavy hand to impose his narrow vision of what "true" Trek was -- even to the point of taking books away from their authors and having them rewritten by others, something that's commonplace in film and TV but unheard of in prose. And to hear Peter David tell it, Arnold could be personally vindictive about it, particularly toward Peter.

Hmm. I think I remember reading something about that. I wonder why he had to be so mean about it. I can understand having some control, or parameters might be a better word, over tie ins. But it sounds like he took it to extremes. It's one thing to make sure books don't contradict canon. But if there is no canon story on a topic then what's the big deal. And if a story builds on a previous story so what. It's good times have changed.

Was he involved with that whole debacle with Probe also?

 

[Christopher]

Hmm. I think I remember reading something about that. I wonder why he had to be so mean about it. I can understand having some control, or parameters might be a better word, over tie ins. But it sounds like he took it to extremes. It's one thing to make sure books don't contradict canon. But if there is no canon story on a topic then what's the big deal.

Like I said, he saw himself as defending Roddenberry's pure vision of Star Trek, and we know that Roddenberry at that point in his life didn't much like the parts of Trek that weren't his own. The story is that GR was upset when someone called Diane Duane "the creator of the Rihannsu," so he didn't want the books creating anything that could compete with his characters and ideas for popularity. So everything had to be one-and-done, nothing recurring or taking on a life of its own.

Was he involved with that whole debacle with Probe also?

Yeah, it was only under Arnold that books were taken from their original authors.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I read this book when it first came out in 1986. I haven't read it since and decided to read it again. I remember being a bit disappointed when it first came out.

Until this first "giant" novel, DC Comics and Pocket Books had been doing a little cross-pollination, but for the 20th anniversary, DC's Annual #1 ("All Those Years Ago", which I loved), and Pocket's "Enterprise: The First Adventure" completely ignored each other. So Uhura arrives brand new in Annual #1, and was already there in E:TFA. Among many other inconsistencies.

Paramount insisted that Chekov had to be aboard for the novel. Vonda putting him below decks, tying-in to his connection with Marla McGivers in her ST II novelization, was a nice touch.

The timeslip anomaly with Janice Rand's chronological age, prior to TOS, is confusing. I thought Vonda was trying to explain how Grace Lee Whitney was seemingly so much older than Yeoman Rand, but it doesn't seem to work that way.

I really didn't like the First Contact aspect of E:TFA but those scenes (and the circus performance) work quite well in the abridged Audioworks.

BTW, why was this Richard Arnold such a creep anyway. What'd he have against tie-ins? If there was a little bit of continuity why would that be a problem for him?

Richard is really no different to those fans who protest "That's not canon!" when something new comes along. (There are lots of Trek fans who hate the idea of licensed tie-ins; less than 2% of the fanbase read them avidly.) He didn't like TAS when it started airing, so it was no surprise that when he started vetting the tie-ins for Roddenberry's Star Trek Office, all TAS references would be ousted (from early 1989 till Roddenberry's passing). RA seemingly disliked any original novels/comics/RPGs inventing new characters/events for Trek.

If you read Vonda's ST IV novelization, you can almost find the section where she stopped caring (when RA started vetting the manuscripts?), stopped adding new bits and just finished it to meet a deadline. Her interview in "Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion" (2006) by Jeff Ayers is quite telling.

Roddenberry had had a bad reaction to a convention flier which called Diane Duane "the creator of the Rihannsu" - it made him really angry - and RA became very enthusiastic about protecting "Gene's vision".

My feeling was if "the novels and comics don't count, what harm were a few Easter eggs, or continuing original characters?", but RA didn't see it that way.

 

[Damian]

The timeslip anomaly with Janice Rand's chronological age, prior to TOS, is confusing. I thought Vonda was trying to explain how Grace Lee Whitney was so seemingly much older than Yeoman Rand, but it doesn't seem to work that way.

The whole Rand storyline was just bad all around.

Like I said, he saw himself as defending Roddenberry's pure vision of Star Trek, and we know that Roddenberry at that point in his life didn't much like the parts of Trek that weren't his own. The story is that GR was upset when someone called Diane Duane "the creator of the Rihannsu," so he didn't want the books creating anything that could compete with his characters and ideas for popularity.

Roddenberry had had a bad reaction to a convention flier which called Diane Duane "the creator of the Rihannsu" - it made him really angry - and RA became very enthusiastic about protecting "Gene's vision".

It's a shame Roddenberry got like that in later years. If anything, all that added to what he created. It's sad he saw it as taking something away. He should have been gratified that something he created grew as it did. Any creator should want their successors to build on what they created, not keep it stagnated.

Whatever his faults, he did have a great idea in Star Trek. Reading "The Making of Star Trek" was very enlightening about how much work Roddenberry did to get the show on the air and in an intelligent way. Eventually others steps up to make it a reality as well, but that took nothing away from a great idea that he originated.

Richard is really no different to those fans who protest "That's not canon!" when something new comes along.

The biggest difference is that he was able to do something about it, that is affect what was put out. Fans that might complain about canon don't really have any power (except maybe the power of the purse, but since we Trekkies hardly agree on anything it'd be unlikely we'd ever cooperate in a mass boycott ).

Arnold however had the power to stop things he felt violated Roddenberry's vision.

Thankfully other people are in charge nowadays, people with a more open mind.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Thankfully other people are in charge nowadays, people with a more open mind.

Ah, but the fan uproars continue.

 

[Christopher]

Until this first "giant" novel, DC Comics and Pocket Books had been doing a little cross-pollination, but for the 20th anniversary, DC's Annual #1 ("All Those Years Ago", which I loved), and Pocket's "Enterprise: The First Adventure" completely ignored each other. So Uhura arrives brand new in Annual #1, and was already there in E:TFA. Among many other inconsistencies.

I wouldn't say they "ignored each other," because the DC Annual came out a year earlier, so they wouldn't have been aware of the book's contents anyway. Being unaware is different from ignoring. For that matter, McIntyre probably wouldn't have been aware of the comic's contents until after she'd gotten her outline approved anyway, unless there'd been deliberate editorial coordination.

The timeslip anomaly with Janice Rand's chronological age, prior to TOS, is confusing. I thought Vonda was trying to explain how Grace Lee Whitney was seemingly so much older than Yeoman Rand, but it doesn't seem to work that way.

That doesn't make sense, though, because "Charlie X" made it clear that Janice was way too mature for the 17-year-old Charlie Evans (at a time when McIntyre's version of Rand would've been physiologically no more than 18-20, and chronologically only 2 years older than that, IIRC). The show's Rand was clearly meant to be around Kirk's age, and thus around Whitney's age.