Another week, another novel focusing on a new and never-before-seen character. Jean Czerny, an agricultural scientist, is captured by Klingons and forcibly recruited to solve their famine crisis. It’s the job she was born and bread for, but she can’t afford to loaf around. Will she ac-wheat-esce to the Klingons’ demands or go against the grain? This week, it’s Pawns and Symbols, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Klingons.
Normally, I insert a “read more” tag after the intro paragraph of a review to generate some suspense and keep from filling the main page with walls of text, but this is the first time it’s actually serving a third purpose of hiding some most likely NSFW material. Buckle up, banditos, because we’re about to go behind the velvet curtain in the back of the video store, and you’re going to find out what happens when an author commits the 80s literary equivalent of getting horny on main.
Occasionally, it happens that someone who is otherwise a perfectly decent and talented writer just can’t nail down that Star Trek vibe. We’ve seen it before. For someone who only wrote one Star Trek novel, Laurence Yep has exceptional pedigree: he’s won a Newbery Medal and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, among other accolades, and he’s written a ton of highly praised books and series for children that are steeped in Chinese lore. But that doesn’t necessarily guarantee adequate characterizations and interesting stories in other universes.
This week, we’re looking at Uhura’s Song, in which Uhura’s professional football career is derailed by a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Wait, no, sorry, that’s Brian’s Song. My apologies.
In last week’s adventure, the Enterprise crew temporarily set aside their differences with the Romulans to put a stop to some evil people and achieve something for the greater good. This week, the Enterprise crew temporarily sets aside their differences with the Klingons to put a stop to some evil people and achieve something for the greater good. Totally different!
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