No Shore Leave this fortnight, as I did not experience anything new or noteworthy in the past two weeks, and lately it’s been all I can do to keep up with the regular reviews. I’ve just been bingeing the crap out of Mad Men (mentioned briefly in this edition—just made it to season 6). I should have some stuff by the next one, so it will return on its next scheduled appearance, October 9.
Author: jess Page 56 of 68
This week, when Geordi and Data poke around a derelict station, they wind up with a one-way ticket to a zero-G peace resort halfway across the galaxy. But even though the guy running the joint destroyed the entire nuclear arsenal of the planet below fifty years ago, discord continues to flourish. Meanwhile, Picard browbeats everyone in sight for answers, but Riker and Tasha end up taking the same joyride not much later. Could Geordi pretty much do Troi’s job? How is Worf’s first day of improv classes? Will Ensign Carpelli hole up in his quarters and cry it out with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s after his duty shift is over? It’s the book that dares to ask, “What about the Prime Directive?”
This week, Vulcan considers pulling out of the Federation upon feeling like they’re not benefiting much from the deal, and Kirk, Spock, and Bones are summoned to testify in favor of Vulcan sticking around. As they prepare their remarks, anonymous internet trolls post their two cents, lasagna is served, and the Enterprise mixer rages on. Along the way, the history of Vulcan unfolds through tales of some of its less noble moments. How do they store fresh coffee on the Enterprise? How would a Vulcan work out the logic in becoming addicted to video games? Is this Duane!McCoy’s biggest mic drop yet? It’s the book where we learn how Amanda really feels about Sarek.
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.
This fortnight’s big non-Trek read was Severance by Ling Ma, which infuses the apocalypse with a significant helping of millennial weltschmerz. In an alternate-continuity 2011, a dangerous fungal infection makes its way across the continents, causing nearly the entire world’s population to fall ill. The infected victims, known as the “fevered”, seem to perform mundane tasks over and over. Candace Chen, a young woman who works for a print supplier arranging printings of specialty Bibles, never becomes fevered, and just kind of hangs out in New York City continuing her routine until doing so becomes entirely untenable. I’ll grant this is a pretty reductive take, but it’s kind of like The Road, except if that book had gradually turned into The Handmaid’s Tale, and also had a lot to say about capitalism.
This week, an adjacent universe has been opened up by some aliens who got hit with the ugly stick, as well as the smelly stick, the loud stick, the yucky stick, and the no-touchy stick. But while their reign of terror and their slick new ship both seem pretty scary, the tables turn in the Enterprise crew’s favor when it becomes apparent that the babies are running the orphanage. Will Uhura overcome her fear of fire as suddenly as we learned she had it? Can one truly become desensitized to anything? And where I can get a billion CCs of that dream-DVR drug? It’s The Three-Minute Universe, the book where it’s all over but the puking.