This week, the Enterprise finds a recording marker from a long-lost ship, but when they seek information from the authorities of a nearby planet where works of fiction and acts of imagination are capital offenses, they get a bunch of run-around from a dude with a big gnarly scar. Soon, Picard gets his brain wiped, Geordi is in charge of protecting the ship from a horde of floating sentries, and Troi falls in with a band of cosplaying rebels while fending off some hellacious nightmares. Will Data’s poetry catch on? What is Worf keeping so tightly under wraps? And where can I get a copy of The Riker & Timoshenko Sessions? It’s the book that’s doin’ a little thing we call three-toed minty fresh logo tissue.
Author: jess Page 49 of 69
This week, our favorite Romuvulcan (Vulcomulan?) gets a turn in the spotlight, which, unfortunately, she has to share with an extremely irritating CGI mascot. Spock rescues her from a literal kid-eat-kid existence on the aptly named Hellguard, but when a set of complimentary gift boxes proves deadly, they’ll have to sneak back into Romulan territory and work together to bring down the Amazon warehouse that’s shipping out the faulty orders. Who will save the day? The stoic Vulcan and his volatile protégé? The captain trapped in the doomsday bunker? Or the infuriating tiny ocean man? Place your bets! It’s the book that, sadly, never gets around to taking you out to the ballgame.
Shore Leave is the non-Trek culture arm of the Deep Space Spines website, posted every other Tuesday and made possible by donations to the site’s Patreon.
PRECIOUS
Way back in the very first Shore Leave, I talked about borrowing my brother’s Switch. Well, since then, things have conspired in my favor, and as of a little over a week ago, I finally have one of my own. Of course, times being what they are, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was a mandatory pickup. Since I bought Golf Story through my Nintendo account, I was able to re-download it to my own Switch without paying for it again. And I also picked up Octopath Traveler more or less totally blind, simply out of sheer curiosity and the fact that it looks like it culls from a lot of classic Square RPGs. Just at a first glance, I notice elements of Chrono Trigger, Live a Live, and Seiken Densetsu 3, so I think (hope) I’m in for a good time.
The video game train doesn’t quite end there either. I’ve also started watching Hi Score Girl on Netflix. I’d been anticipating it, but only realized it had actually dropped after my best friend texted me gushing about this love letter to video games (specifically, early 90s arcade games—Street Fighter II and Final Fight figure heavily into the first episode). I’m not totally sold on the relationship between Haruo and Akira yet, but then, I’ve only watched the first episode so far. Mostly, I’m curious to see what other direction the series’ love for video games expands in; the synopsis for episode two promises some PC-Engine action, so I’m excited to see how deep they dig.
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An away team’s survey becomes a one-man test of will when the planet’s “gods” decide to fire up the PS3 and stick Data in a game of Journey. Data completes the Quest and is granted his fondest dream: to become a Real Boy™. Now he has to learn how to do human things like pick dinner and swim and look things up on the internet because he doesn’t have Wikipedia in his head anymore. This week, it’s Next Generation‘s first major event novel, Metamorphosis, or, Androids Prefer Blondes.
This week, we’re checking out Rules of Engagement, the little sitcom that could. Starring Patrick Warburton, Megyn Price, and David Spade, the show followed a group of friends in various stages of relationships: two of them newlyweds, two a veteran married couple, and one a swinging single. It lasted seven seasons, an impressive feat given its unremarkable ratings and several brushes with cancellation, and is widely considered solid, if far from innovative. Most notably, it stands as one of Sony’s few successes in syndication; although barely accruing enough episodes to qualify, it nevertheless managed, thus ensuring long-term profitability for—
Wait a minute. This is supposed to be about the Star Trek novel Rules of Engagement. My bad.