In today’s episode, even Spock would rather play than do work, but first the Enterprise crew has to eat their vegetables and face the music. When they’re all done, they can finally go chase the shiny thing, but it’s going to take a little more than some Dramamine to get to the bottom of its mysteries. Will Kirk stay committed to Starfleet service with a smile? Do schoolchildren take biology on Tyrtaeus II? And what’s so fearsome about this “northern continent”? All this and more in Heart of the Sun, the book that has the facts and is voting Yes.
Heart of the Sun
Authors: Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski
Pages: 242
Published: November 1997
Timeline: Shortly after “Court Martial” (1×20)
Prerequisites: None
Spock is mega-jonesing to check out an unusual object detected in an asteroid field, the heat signature of which is “increasing too precisely for a natural source.” Kirk sympathizes with his curiosity, but unfortunately there’s other work to be done first. The Enterprise has to go to boring Tyrtaeus II to help some boring people recover their boring database that contains their entire boring culture—and as a fun bonus, they get to get yelled at while they’re doing it, because it’s some Federation scientists’ fault for accidentally triggering the virus that deleted everything, and most Tyrtaeans already dislike the Federation to begin with because they left Earth to get away from it in the first place. They’re most akin to the ancient Greeks known as Stoics, and they reject the codependency they feel the Federation breeds in favor of looking out for their best interests on their own.
That work ends quickly and to the Tyrtaeans’ satisfaction, allowing the Enterprise to turn its full attention to that object Spock was so fascinated with, which at this point has left the asteroid field and embarked upon a course that will take it directly into the system’s sun. But since the collision could potentially have a severe negative impact on Tyrtaeus II, one of the Tyrtaean leaders, Aristocles Marcelli, insists that Starfleet takes a couple observers along to offer input on what to do about the thing—and further, that those observers be Myra Coles and Wellesley Warren, the two Tyrtaeans who can actually get along with outsiders. Myra Coles is Marcelli’s co-leader and philosophical sort-of-opposite, while her aide Wellesley Warren is a plucky young spitfire who regularly commits grievous Tyrtaean social faux pas such as smiling and being nice. Myra faces some serious personal stakes, as support for the establishment of an even more fringe colony is gaining traction, and her success or failure here may determine whether she loses the next election or perhaps even faces exile.
The crew tries everything they can to divert the mobile, from impulse boosters to tractor beams to firing directly on it, but nothing sways it from its target—in fact, everything they try only seems to cause it to accelerate. An expedition inside the object only results in everyone in the away team feeling nausea and disorientation due to the discordant, non-Euclidian design of the interior. But when all else fails, Spock, who was the least affected among those who went in the first time, goes in for a second look. This time, he finds the control panel he was looking for originally, and once he gets his hands on it, things start to get really trippy as he meets the inhabitants of the mobile and learns the ultimate purpose of their actions.
Sargent and Zebrowski’s previous Trek effort, A Fury Scorned, made such a non-impression on me that I had to reread my own review to remember what it was about and what happened in it. This one, I’m happy to report, is significantly better. It does share the one really good thing about that TNG story, namely some very strong nonwhite representation in the lower decks. Ensigns Ali Massoud and Cathe Tekakwitha reside comfortably in the top echelon of junior officers, and they’re as respected and valued as any of Kirk’s top confidants. More broadly, Sargent and Zebrowski feel much more in their element here among both this crew and the sci-fi mores of the 1960s that the original Star Trek was one of the best mainstream representations of on television. You can tell TOS was the one that first activated them; their prose is far more natural this time, and even shows an excellent grasp of who was on the ship at the exact time certain details indicate it takes place.1
Their character portrayals are also all on point, especially that of Spock. Outside of event novels, I think Heart of the Sun has one of the more fun portrayals of Spock I’ve encountered to date. His excitement about the mobile, though couched in the usual Vulcan restraint, is nevertheless both evident and infectious. He even shows occasional lapses in professionalism when he gets lost in his reverie, particularly when exploring the interior of the mobile by himself. This is as close as Spock gets to cutting loose without being under the influence of some kind of external agent, and I think they straddle the line between curiosity and duty really well, as well as acknowledging both his Vulcanness and his humanity without getting too histrionic one way or the other.
The dynamic between Aristocles Marcelli and Myra Coles is surprisingly close to that between modern Republicans and Democrats, respectively. As with those two parties, however, it’s naive and simplistic to think they represent opposite interests. They’re both interested in maintaining the status quo on their world, with Myra being slightly more willing to entertain new ideas than Aristocles. Aristocles is true to present-day conservative form in several ways. He fills his diaper and goes full mask-off astoundingly quickly, argues the mobile is only useful for how it can be exploited or destroyed, always openly seeks the fulfillment of his own interest before anyone else’s, weighs literally everything Myra says to see how it can be twisted to his benefit, always tries to catch her in some kind of rhetorical gotcha, and is embarrassingly easy to hoist by his own legalistic petard.
That said, however, Myra is generally little better, especially as the threat posed by the mobile appears to grow worse. All it takes is one small hurdle and she instantly turns into a neoliberal warhawk, railing incessantly for the mobile’s destruction instead of trusting Kirk to do his thing. I thought Wellesley would prove to be more adventurous in ways beyond making comments outside Myra’s comfort zone, but it makes more narrative sense that Sargent and Zebrowski gave him a restraint that properly reflects him ultimately being a product of his circumstances. Often the change in a character’s or people’s outlook over the course of a Trek novel can feel pat and unconvincing, but in this instance, it’s a little easier to see how liberal hearts and minds can be changed without the comforting crutch of the free market to lean on.
If it’s abstract, talky Trek you want, you’ll more than get your fill here. The aliens they eventually meet aren’t even given a name, and their choice of lifestyle promotes a lot of fascinating (if somewhat directionless) philosophical quandary after the fact. But there’s also a lot of cool communication between the aliens and Spock, and the logic of what the aliens fear will happen now that they have been discovered and the reassurances they demand make for a reasonably compelling conflict. Admittedly, it does take kind of a longish time to get to that point, even though this one is shorter than average (and yet, the database repair at the beginning still somehow feels like padding). Once you do, though, it’s as solid an example of old-school Trek as any. It’s got truly alien aliens, the power of friendship, and those classic high-minded Federation ideals, the three most important ingredients of the TOS stew. Much easier to recommend than Sargent and Zebrowski’s last.
MVP & LVP
- It seems like a copout to give it to the captain, but Kirk just takes it that easily this time. I really liked his style in this one. Though there is some cursory acknowledgment of Myra’s natural beauty, her severity and impatience prevent any extended fawning, and I think he (and by extension Sargent and Zebrowski) hit the right note in his handling of her, bowing up when he needs to while also allowing her plenty of space to offer her input as long as it doesn’t interfere with bridge operations (which it never does). Spock runs a very close second for all the information he’s able to deduce and provide about the mobile through his research and for his aforementioned barely contained curiosity, though his logic can’t close the deal with the aliens all by itself, needing Kirk’s emotional counterpoint to put it over the top.
- It’s just as easy to pick an LVP for this one, and it’s Aristocles Marcelli in a walk. Just a total slime. A satisfying one to see get taken down a peg or two.
Stray Bits
- The title of this book inevitably makes me think of “Heart of the Sunrise” by Yes, and about one out of every five times I think of it, it also makes me want to listen to it. So in case you want to as well (and especially if you never have), here you go.
- The away team suspects the inside of the asteroid may be built to suit not humanoid life, but rather insects, to which Wellesley responds, “I hope it’s not spiders.” No, of course it wouldn’t be, Wellesley, you dope—because spiders are arachnids, not insects! What’s even weirder is that Sulu is thrown by the comment not because of the inaccuracy, but because he finds it difficult to shake an old childhood assumption that tall people can’t be afraid of things. While it’s a cute moment of vulnerability for Sulu, I really needed Spock to step in with a laser-guided “Well, actually” to make this bitter pill go down easier and was mildly gutted when it never happened. (p. 79)
- For much of the book, Myra is worried about being exiled to the vaguely described “northern continent” if something happens on her watch that does active harm to Tyrtaean society. At the end of the book, the Enterprise crew takes some shore leave on Tyrtaeus II. Obviously it wouldn’t be very Starfleet of them to do, but I thought it would have been funny if they’d taken shore leave on this alleged northern continent. “Ha ha! Your punishment is our pleasure cruise!”
Final Assessment
Good. Heart of the Sun is a solid outing that showcases many of Star Trek‘s best qualities, including its diversity, its commitment to finding peaceful solutions no matter the odds, and the power of the friendship among the core trio—all in a way that’s well-tailored to a small-scale, lower-stakes adventure. It takes a little bit of forced pushing to get to the good stuff, but once you’re there, it’s smooth sailing to the end. It’s easy to see that this crew is who they feel most at home with. All of their remaining collaborations are set in TOS, so I hope they maintain and exceed this book’s level of quality.2
NEXT TIME: Quark’s business dealings embroil the station in a Trial by Error
Adam Goss
I’m happy to hear it was good but I think I’d still avoid this one. It’s bad enough putting up with people like Marcelli in real life with the hellscape America has become, I don’t need the intrusion of their like into my escape fiction. Granted this was written long before it became so damn exacerbated, but, still.