Customer Reviews

Memory Prime (Star Trek, Book 42)

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

 

 

"Memory Prime" is one of those unusual Star Trek novels with a truly fresh concept--self-aware computers with their own agendas. The book is not without its flaws--Commodore Morgan's views towards the Enterprise and her crew are harsh and unrealistic--but on the whole this is a novel concept, well executed and believable.

Four stars is a little high for this book, but three would definitely have been too low. The plot is interesting, if somewhat implausible; the characters are reasonably well-handled (except for Commodore Wolfe, whose handling was not particularly consistent), the writing was generally good if not spectacular. Perhaps my biggest objection is in an anachronism within the Star Trek universe: if the Federation had had to deal with the question of self-aware AIs as early as this, certainly the Next Generation episode "The Measure of the Man" would never have happened; Data would automatically have been accepted as more than a machine, without the need for a trial. Of course, this book came out at about the same time as that episode, probably a bit earlier, so one can hardly blame the authors for that fact; still, "Next Gen" was already a year into its run when this book was published, and clearly ALL of the questions raised by Data's existence (to say nothing of Voyager's EMH, who WASN'T part of the canon yet, but who even more poorly fits into a timeline in which this book is placed) would have long since been answered were this book to be considered canonical. So clearly, it must be considered one of the many Star Trek novels to exist in some nearly-parallel universe, rather than the "real" Trek universe.

Memory Prime is one of the better Star Trek novels. Even if you're not a Star Trek enthusiast, you'll still like the tense, well-written plot, supported by character development that stands on its own and enough background for someone unfamiliar with the series but not too much for a die-hard fan. If this book didn't have the Star Trek name behind it, it would still be a worthwhile sci-fi read. The only flaw is that the plot development is at times aggravatingly slow, although there is plenty of action and excitement to balance this out. Memory Prime will appeal to most sci-fi fans; it's definitely worth reading. Other Star Trek readers: if you liked The Vulcan Academy Murders or The IDIC Empidemic, this is the book for you.

Memory Prime is a "prime" example of why Judith and Gar Reeves Stevens were among the most popular Trek writers in the late '80s. The novel succeeds on nearly every basic level. The moves briskly, striking a fine balance between action, mystery, and dialogue. The characters all seem true to the television series, with some particularly good Spock/McCoy interplay. The story, involving the threatened assassination of most of the Federation's top scientists, is, perhaps, not exceptional but it gets the job done. There are a few issues that prevent the book from receiving four stars, however. For one, the ending - like almost every Trek book - is too contrived, too pat. For another, the novel is graced with a very intriguing cover - a cover that bears no resemblance to any plot point whatsoever. Still, Memory Prime is a good read and worth the time of any Trek fan.

I love Memory Prime actually I'm never dissipointed with any of there work. I think it's wonderful because I'm a fan of Scott and it was great to see him be reunited with Mira Romaine and some of the things that happen in the book are amazing just the thought of some of them. There also is some down parts like a bunch of parts detacated to pure tecnobabble and those parts were boring but besides that I loved this book so much!!!!!!

Synopsis

Memory Prime is something of a sequel to the classic Star Trek episode "The Light of Zetar."

The premise is that after the incident at Memory Alpha in the episode, the Federation set up a new facility called Memory Prime where twelve artificial intelligent computers called "pathfinders" have been installed. Mira Romaine from the episode is now the chief technician at the facility. The Enterprise, meanwhile has been ordered to ferry a delegation of Federation scientist to the facility for the awarding of the Z'Magnese and Nobel peace prizes

Amidst all of this is a plot to assassinate someone at the conference. With an officious commodore coming on board to make sure that doesn't happen, the crew of the enterprise finds Spock arrested for being the potential assassin. Spock escapes to figure out who the real culprit is. Things get more out of hand when the Commodore orders her troops to kill Spock. Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and others try to find the real assassin and clear Spock's name before the Commodore can kill him.

Meanwhile, the Pathfinders are up to their own devices.

Review:

While I've seen almost all of the original series episodes, "The lights of Zetar" is of the few I've missed, so going into the novel I didn't actually know the back story of that episode and though the novel was fairly good at filling in the reader, it probably would have helped to be familiar with the episode first.

Overall, Memory Prime is a fun read. The plot holds together fairly well and the characters are fairly true to their personalities on the television show.

I rather enjoyed the Pathfinder machines. They helped to spice up the novel and exploring their novel way of perceiving the universe made the end of the novel more enjoyable.

I do have the feeling though, that the author ran afoul of an editor who cut out a fair bit from the novel, probably for space. This isn't as obvious near the beginning, but the end really feels like it was chopped. It wraps up rather too quickly with little resolution on some of the main threads that wind through the novel. The Pathfinders are built up in the novel quite a bit, even to introducing them as characters, and then at the end when everything comes to a climax, we never hear from them again, even though they play a key role in the plot.

Likewise with a fairly important character development for Mira Romaine. Suddenly she has this ability with little explanation, or for that matter, little reason either. And the commodore is just begging for some sort of comeuppance to come her way, but the audience is left with her not even getting a "I told you so!"

Editors have their uses, but this book feels like it should have been a chapter or two longer. And given the pace and the decent writing, it could have been and not been hurt by it at all. Ah well.

Either way, this is a decent read and better than many of the Trek novels I've read.

"The Lights of Zetar", one of the original tv episodes introduced the character of Mira Romaine and the 'fact' that the Federation had an entire library planet. In that episode the original library planet, Memory Alpha had been nearly destroyed and Mira attacked by an alien force.

The Federation has learned from this experience and is now constructing a series of Memory planets that were coordinated through Memory Prime, which is headed by Mira Romaine. The Enterprise has been pulled from deep space duty to transport many of the recipients of the Nobel and Z. Magneese prizes to the awards ceremony. The Enterprise crew was looking forward to an eventful trip, one that would afford them the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with some of the greatest minds in the Federation but then, things began to go wrong. There was a near catostrophic engineering accident, Spock was charged with sabotage, Kirk was relieved of command by a particularly incompetant Admiral who soon had the crew contemplating mutiny and communications with Star Fleet was sporatic at best. Once arriving at Memory Prime they discovered that conditions there were in a similiar state. In the end though the Enterprise crew triumphs, once again saving the Federation from a diabolical plot.

The premise of this novel is quite good, it draws on the earlier tv episode quite effectively dealing with what took place after the Enterprise left. The relationship between Scotty and Mira in particular is handled well. The problems that this novel introduced, (which won't be mentioned in depth here since it would give away too much of the plot) are interesting, as is their resolution. Unfortunately this book is just over three hundred pages long, at least one hundred of which is devoted to technobable and just far too much information. It would be a much better two hundred page book. Four stars is a bit generous, plan on skimming through quite a bit but the overall concept is so good that any lower rating is just too harsh.

In one of the Original Series episodes, there was an intergalactic library -- sort of like a Library of Congress for the galaxy. That library was destroyed in TOS. In Memory Prime, the library is rebuilt, using artificially-intelligent (AI) computers to store the info. These AIs interact with the human librarians through electronic implants. Problem is, the AIs get bored easily with their super-fast processing brains -- and therein lies the plot.

Now, this MIGHT have been a really good book if the author had not gotten bogged down with so much technobabble -- pages and pages of it. Yes, the AIs are bored and they play super-fast games among themselves -- that's all I need to know to understand the plot. I do not need endless descriptions of how many nanoseconds this or that game takes to play or whatever. Far more interesting would have been to find out something about all the fascinating cultural info stored at Memory Prime (which is what I thought the book was going to be about.). Maybe it's because I'm a teacher, not a computer hack, but this book was very disappointing.

A nice, slow burn with genuine surprises, strong original characters, non-contrived humor and some romantic angst for Scotty that is not over-the-top. The technobabble makes me feel dumber than the characters instead of smarter, which is nice. This is for readers who like suspense and attention to detail, not nonstop explosions.

WOW! This is THE BEST book I have EVER read (and I read 8 books a day on average)! It deals a lot with the bond between Kirk and Spock. LOTS of adventure!