Customer Reviews

The Abode of Life (Star Trek)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book tries hard to cover alot of hard issues. The prime directive, the safty of the Enterprise and crew as well as the beliefs and how to deal with an alien culture. But in the end it doesn't really cover any in deapth. That doesn't mean it was a bad book. I have quite enjoyed reading it. The characters are good and the story always moves, never really dragging along. If you are a big fan of the show then you should enjoy this book.

I got the impression that this novel was written more at the female Star Trek audience. There is something more tender in tone, or wtiting style that makes this novel more homoginized than the few previous or 100's of later Star Trek novels.

If you are looking for a less action filled, or techno-babble laden Star Trek novel, this could be the one you want.

A "nice to pass the time" type of book, with am interesting preposition. A planet so remote that at night the sky is only black. No other planets, no moon, no stars. And the star of the system itself flares up every now and then with lethal radiation, thus forming a society in which those who can predict these Ordeals are powerfull, especially since they can grand and deny access to the Keeps where it is save during these periods. A few nice finds like the use of transporters as means of transport on the planet: no roads, no role for "distance" in their fysics. But the plot is a bit predictable, and the society with three groups gets a lot of attention in the book, but is perhaps a bit to well known nowadays. And I really missed some of the usually so entertaining interactions between Kirk, Spock and Bones.

The Abode of Life by Lee Correy (Star Trek #6, 1982)

Released a few months before the Wrath of Khan movie, Star Trek's second cinema outing, this novel postulates an interesting scientific situation. What if there was a civilization so remote, it couldn't even conceive of other life in the universe? When the Enterprise comes in contact with such a civilization, the impact is likely to be devastating.

While mapping in an unexplored sector of the galaxy's Orion Arm, the Enterprise begins encountering gravitational anomalies. After a few bumps and shifts, the ship contacts a gravity well strong enough to throw them well off course, and into the gap between the Orion Arm and the Sagittarius Arm, in an interstellar space with very little matter at all. The dilithium crystals have been greatly drained by this jump, and can manage only Warp Factor 2, which would require 75 years to get back to the nearest starbase for repairs. (Shades of Star Trek: Voyager) With little else to do, they set off back toward the known galaxy. Shortly, they encounter a single star, orbited by a single planet. Orbiting the planet will help facilitate some repairs, so Kirk orders an approach. Scans discover that the world is inhabited, and even has advanced technology: there seems to be a large amount of transporter traffic.

The world Mercan is so remote, they can see the galaxy near them only as a "Ribbon of Light." (The Milky Way galaxy looks much the same from here. Go out on a dark night, with no lights around, such as on top of a remote hill. Look up in the sky for what appears to be a thin cloud, stretching across the sky overhead from horizon to horizon. This is the major part of the Milky Way, as visible from Earth.) With no reason to believe that these are suns like their own, the population has never imagined space travel, and has instead developed technology with only a planetary focus.

Kirk determines that a culture with such a level of technology must be able to help, or at least provide materials, to repair the warp engines. Kirk, Scott, McCoy and Rand beam down to the planet to make contact with the inhabitants. The visit soon becomes a threat to Mercan society, especially when the variable star Mercaniad begins an active cycle, which the Enterprise shield cannot fully block. Spock must devise a way to prevent the loss of all hands on the ship.

Correy is an experienced science fiction writer, so it is somewhat surprising that his writing here is so stiff. He never seems to quite get the feel to the characters, who never advance beyond two-dimensional. Even his own creations, the natives of Mercan, do not leap off the page to life. The plot is quite interesting, but Kirk is too quick to ignore the Prime Directive and contaminate the culture of the planet. It is also disturbing that none of the crew, even Spock, objects to this effort. This is certainly the fault of the writer, who could have written a more interesting and more suspenseful novel by simply paying more attention to this simple law of Starfleet, often observed more in the abeyance than the obeying.

The book is simply not involving. It is hard to believe in these characters, even though the situation is intriguing. It is a good science fiction idea, poorly realized. It's not a bad book, but it is not well-written. This plot would have been better served with another writer's words.

In my reviews of Classic Star Trek novels, it must be understood that I adhere to the original canon
as invisioned by Gene Roddenberry, and not the "Star Trek" universe accepted by Rick Berman and company.

I generally rate a classic novel thus:

Adherence to Canon -- does this novel adhere to the vision of the original Star Trek?

4 stars -- yes, this novel tries to explore the philosophy behind the "Prime Directive" in a unique setting.

Believability (within the confines of 23rd century Star Trek viability) -- is this novel well-plotted and well
written? Can I picture this novel or imagine myself in it?

3.5 stars -- to a certain extent. The premise is fascinating, but there are certain inconsistencies.

Coherence and Consistency -- does this novel internally consistent? Is it consistent with other Star Trek
novels by the same author? Is it consistent with what is known of the CLASSIC Star Trek universe?

2 stars -- the science is truly bad -- even when considering this is a Star Trek novel. I don't find it particularly consistent with the understood Canon of the classic series either.

Mitigating Factors -- pluses or minuses which dramatically affect the enjoyment of this book

A fairly well written story. I truly enjoyed this book. It just doesn't quite come up to scratch.

3+ stars.

This is a good novel dealing with the Prime Directive, and the many challenges and pitfalls one encounters while trying to walk the tightrope called General Order #1. There is a far off race, the Enterprise being hurtled thousands of light years off course, and the dilemma of fixing the broken star ship by the only means possible - directly interfering with a culture's development.

A good novel, but the character are a bit hard to follow at times. There are different classes of people on the new world, and each has a set of people that the story revolves around (which causes confusion at times).

The book seems to be constructed rather than written. Although competently put together, at best the characters are walking clichés and at worst they have the most uncharacteristic dialogue. Kirk's log's sound as if they have been written by someone in human resources rather than a starship captain. To be honest it's largely unreadable but not in the Joycean way. The dialogue is mainly expositional, trusting absolutely nothing to the intelligence of the reader. Every detail is explained as it unfolds without using dialogue to show instead of telling as it does. A story should unfold before a reader to involve them in the journey. Reading this book is very boring unless you like wading through long infinite passages of explanations as to how this and that happened peppered with painful gobbledygook science and technical jargon. Russell T Davis once said something to the effect of - people don't need to know how things like the proton shift accelerator works... just that it works. Star Trek is like that. It's really just a bit of outer space magic and Horatio Hornblower mixed together. There was no story here just someone describing a story - not the same. I can't say I would recommend reading this unless you a fan of Lee Correy (aka G Harry Stine). The sad thing is Harry was a great man in his field, fantastic engineer and pioneer but this book is not of the highest quality in terms of the structure of the narrative. This leads me to say probably about the most unpleasant thing possible about this type of book. Fictional literature should be left to those who have studied literature and not engineering. One thing he did get right was on the last page about CGI technology on the Enterprise viewer. Sad epitaph for a great engineer and golden age pulp writer.

Hey...this stuff isn't going to win a Pullitzer/Nobel, but it's good reading if you're a Trek fan.

In Abode of Life, the enterprise discovers a lone star outside of the galactic arm. The novel is an interesting account of the crew of the enterprise dealing with a society who assumed they were all alone in the universe.

"Abode"may be a little lighter on action than the average star trek novel, but I thought the book was a good account of finding a "new civilization" and I could totally picture it as a classic star trek episode.