In today’s episode, foraging for veggies makes B’Elanna and Harry partners in danger yet again. Meanwhile, Kes tries to convince a new guest that the best revenge is a life fully vaccinated. Why did everyone in the 90s think sushi was so gross? Which Discovery character makes an appearance 20 years before the show even aired? And which episode did part of this book end up weirdly being an antidote to? All this and more in Her Klingon Soul, the gray cube that’s chock full of nutrients!

Her Klingon Soul
Author: Michael Jan Friedman
Pages: 270
Published: October 1997
Timeline: Placed in season two between “Threshold” (2×15) and “Meld” (2×16), though it feels more like a season-one joint
Prerequisites: None

Lieutenant Torres isn’t a fan of the Day of Honor, though surprisingly, not for heritage reasons. It just seems to be that bad luck finds her on that day. This one is no exception: while searching a cave on a supposedly uninhabited world for edible vegetation, she and Ensign Kim are ambushed by the Kazon and captured. But then the Kazon walk into an ambush as well, and everyone winds up prisoners of the Nograkh, who are always looking for fresh meat to mine an asteroid belt for them, even among their own people. The Nograkh have to always be looking for slaves because the minerals are radioactive, which makes the prospects of an escape look doubly grim, since most of their prisoners waste away to nothing before they can even begin to think about taking such an action.

Meanwhile, in their increasingly futile quest to track down a juicy ion trail that will lead them to their friends, Voyager finds a derelict ship with one life sign, which they beam over. Her name is Pacria Ertinia, and she has some kind of virus that the doctor can easily cure—but Pacria refuses, because the vaccine he finds is the work of the Zendak’aa, a former empire whose medical scientists performed grossly unethical tests on Pacria’s people, the Emmonac, only to hoard the resulting vaccine for themselves. Kes has a hard time wrapping her head around what she perceives as Pacria throwing away her life, since as an Ocampan, her lifespan is so brutally short that she would jump at any chance to extend it and experience more of the universe. The lack of understanding makes her determined to get Pacria to change her mind.

One of the Nograkh prisoners, Tolga, seems as surly as everyone else they’re stuck in the clink with, and is even seen cold-bloodedly murdering some folks, but when he lays a dude out for unfairly picking a fight with the much smaller Harry, B’Elanna realizes the Nograkh must have at least some sort of vaguely defined commitment to honor, which makes him maybe not so different from a good Klingon after all. With that common thread binding them, escape plans start to come together, and something like a movement begins to take shape. What’s shocking is not only how many bodies go down in this escape attempt, but how violently. B’Elanna and Harry are very lucky in this one, just so happening to share prison space with rough-and-tumble dudes with hearts of gold who would nobly sacrifice themselves to make sure people they’ve never met before and will never see again get back to Voyager okay.

Bring a big jug of water with you for this one, because it’s about as dry as Star Trek novels get. Michael Jan Friedman works sometimes suffer from this; Requiem, you may recall, was another one that was almost completely devoid of any side flavor or any but the most perfunctory, although that one’s intriguing crossover premise helped it turn out somewhat better. Some of his less professional peccadilloes also stand out a little more against the backdrop of this sere, utilitarian effort, like his tendency to throw in phrases like “That’s when…” and “What’s more…”, which advance the narrative in the clunkiest way imaginable and could be replaced with something better with only a few seconds of thought.1“It was then that…” and “Moreover…” would get tiresome too if they were repeated as often as those other phrases are, but their stronger literary sound would make them take much longer to start grating. My ultimate guess is that the lack of experience writing for Voyager hurt this one. Whatever it was, it made for a very hard time dredging up enough interest to pick it back up after having to put it down.

There is also a metric ton of extremely basic series exposition padding this one out. This was published in October 1997, when Voyager was beginning its fourth season. Jennifer Lien was leaving the show when this book came out, and yet it reads like it came out the day after the series premiere. Long passages that sound like they could have come straight out of the series bible span several pages. On some level this is mildly understandable, as it’s never a good idea to assume the reader’s familiarity, but it’s truly excessive in this case. And it throws into sharp relief just how little meat is on these bones.

I would have bet a fair sum against a Kes B-plot being more interesting than the main story, but in this case, I would have gone home broke. Not to say it’s generally interesting, mind, just comparatively. But it still comprises the best parts of the book, the only ones that made me want to keep reading. It’s too bad that this thread is held hostage in a miniseries that so far hasn’t managed to clear the “meh” hump. It was a pleasant little surprise. That said, it couldn’t hold up a whole novel on its own, so relegation to B-status is about the best one could hope for for it. I took what I could get with this one, though.

All Friedman has to say about this one in Voyages of Imagination is that he didn’t feel like this one was his best work, and while it’s good to know he has some self-awareness, that might be the understatement of the century. Star Trek novels never feel like a “product” so much as when Friedman is in extremely straightforward workmanlike mode. It’s not like, say, Diane Carey, where a lack of deep knowledge and/or interest will cause it to curdle into something far more unsavory. But if a good Trek book can be compared to a nicely seared medium-rare ribeye, then this would be like a gray nutrient cube. Edible, but few or no complimentary adjectives beyond that.

MVP & LVP

• This book’s MVP is Kes. I think one thing Friedman got really right is her kindness. She’s very determined, but never in a way where she’s rude or out of line or risks an intergalactic incident. I just passed “Fury” in my all-the-Treks watch and was appalled by the steaming dump it took all over her lovely and impactful exit, but it’s nice that it at least coincided with a read that reminded me of the character at her best.
• LVP is Ordagher, the overseer of the Nograkh mining prison, though more for what the writing did to him than any of his actual qualities. There was a good chance to set up sort of some bad blood between him and Tolga, but he’s merely generically evil in a not-very-interesting sort of way and therefore goes wasted.

Stray Bits

• I hate the title of this book. It sounds like a brand of white cotton underwear you could buy at Klingon Walmart. Klingon Her Way.
• The Kazon second maj Voyager communicates with is named Lorca. A coincidence that wouldn’t have been funny before five or six years ago, but nonetheless!
• “Even Chakotay knew that Klingon delicacies were generally served raw—and whenever possible, still alive. Not up my alley, he thought. Even sushi made him a little queasy.” — What was the deal with hating sushi in the 90s? Did someone get it mixed up with sashimi (the actually raw one) and a lot of people never figured out where things had gone wrong? Because I’m no fan of sashimi, but cooked sushi is almost always great no matter what’s in it. Whatever the case, it’s one of those weird stigmas I largely associate with the 90s, like the baffling bee in the bonnet against therapy. (p. 5)

Final Assessment

Bad. Often you will see critics differentiate between an F and a D or D-minus as the former being a massive train wreck and the latter being too bland to be worth future consideration. The train wreck will at least be remembered for giving us a spectacle, but nothing about the bland one has any kind of distinguishing trait that will allow it to endure in memory. That’s the kind of situation in which Her Klingon Soul finds itself. And wouldn’t you know, we have exactly the kind of instructive example I was talking about sitting right next to this one. Ship of the Line may have been the hottest of garbage, but I’ll still remember it a year from now. I can’t say the same for this one. The Day of Honor line continues to disappoint.

NEXT TIME: We get the Day of Honor’s origin story in Treaty’s Law