I had forgotten what a really good book this was.
This novel came up in discussion in a thread about TMP, as part of the narrative takes place well after the events of the first movie. I remembered it fondly and since I still own a copy, I decided to pull it out and read it again.
In the 38 years since Strangers was published, the history of events prior to TOS has been filled in by TNG and everything else that came after it. But in 1987, with only the original show and four movies, there was little to form the basis of that history. Using a couple of key events from the excellent Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology by Fred and Stan Goldstein as anchor points for the story, Bonanno created a speculative and very thought-provoking tale that examined the first contact that happened between humans and Vulcans - two decades before the ‘official’ historically recorded encounter occurred.
And wouldn’t you know it, Kirk and Company inadvertently become involved with those events.
Despite the fact that two of the key historical events cited from the Goldstein book are no longer valid, the rest of the tale holds up remarkably well within the context of current Trek canon (back then, first contact with Vulcans was not connected to Cochrane’s FTL flight). For me, I felt the characterization was very well done, both with the Enterprise crew and the new characters introduced. The novel is divided into two main sections; the first part centers mainly on Kirk, Spock & McCoy, but the second part takes place at the very beginning of the five year mission - and we get to know the characters of Gary Mitchell, Elizabeth Dehner and Lee Kelso far better than we did in the single episode that introduced them.
To anyone who hasn’t already read this remarkably well-crafted novel, I heartily recommend it. It stands well on its own merit, as well as demonstrating just how much the Star Trek universe has grown since its publication.
This novel came up in discussion in a thread about TMP, as part of the narrative takes place well after the events of the first movie. I remembered it fondly and since I still own a copy, I decided to pull it out and read it again.
In the 38 years since Strangers was published, the history of events prior to TOS has been filled in by TNG and everything else that came after it. But in 1987, with only the original show and four movies, there was little to form the basis of that history. Using a couple of key events from the excellent Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology by Fred and Stan Goldstein as anchor points for the story, Bonanno created a speculative and very thought-provoking tale that examined the first contact that happened between humans and Vulcans - two decades before the ‘official’ historically recorded encounter occurred.
And wouldn’t you know it, Kirk and Company inadvertently become involved with those events.
Despite the fact that two of the key historical events cited from the Goldstein book are no longer valid, the rest of the tale holds up remarkably well within the context of current Trek canon (back then, first contact with Vulcans was not connected to Cochrane’s FTL flight). For me, I felt the characterization was very well done, both with the Enterprise crew and the new characters introduced. The novel is divided into two main sections; the first part centers mainly on Kirk, Spock & McCoy, but the second part takes place at the very beginning of the five year mission - and we get to know the characters of Gary Mitchell, Elizabeth Dehner and Lee Kelso far better than we did in the single episode that introduced them.
To anyone who hasn’t already read this remarkably well-crafted novel, I heartily recommend it. It stands well on its own merit, as well as demonstrating just how much the Star Trek universe has grown since its publication.
