Review: I need to make it clear why I read and am reviewing a little-known book first published over a hundred years ago. It all starts in an unlikely place: “The History of the Hobbit” by John D. Rateliff. I should point out that I am a big fan of “The Hobbit” (even more than its sequel), so the two-volume history of its creation was a must-have for me. But I found that work to be far too opinionated and simple-minded for my taste. Among other issues, Rateliff had a tendency to denigrate any author he did not feel worthy of association with Tolkien. One such author was S. R. Crockett and his novel, “The Black Douglas”.

According to Rateliff’s notes, Tolkien had said that the scene in “The Hobbit” where the party is trapped in a tree by wolves was inspired by a similar scene in “The Black Douglas”. First, I was taken aback by the way Rateliff referred to the older book, calling it “a now justly forgotten novel”. (I’m not going to go into great depth as to why this is an utterly contemptible thing to say. It will be enough for me to say that I would not even refer to Rateliff’s work as “justly forgotten”.) Rateliff goes on to insist that “The Black Douglas” couldn’t have inspired “The Hobbit” because the scenes are not the same. (Apparently, in his mind, unless a scene is identical, it can’t “inspire” another.) He then goes on to describe the scene in “The Black Douglas”, referring to the Scot’s “idiotic bravado”, concluding that “The only points in common are a wolf-attack in a forest clearing, the uncanny fire (magical but real in Tolkien’s case, merely illumination from distant lightning in Crockett’s), and the idea that the wolves are a lesser evil in service or allegiance to the real enemy.”

Well, insulting comments about a book and its characters, followed up by three clear connections between two scenes he had identified as unconnected. Given Rateliff’s obvious lack of scholarship, I had to read “The Black Douglas”. If this guy thought it was “justly forgotten”, it was probably pretty good. And it is.

Now, of course, there’s a reason it has been pretty much forgotten. For one thing, it was what would now be referred to as “popular fiction”. You know, the stuff scholars don’t want to talk about, but people actually want to read. Crockett was a popular and successful (“Author of ‘The Raiders,’ ‘The Stickit Minister,’ etc.”, says the title page), but his works, like so many others, failed to live on as tastes changed. Within fifty years, of course, it was a different world. His works would have no doubt been filmed or turned into television serials and he may yet be remembered. Based on “The Black Douglas”, it would seem that Crockett was a solid storyteller who knew how to spin a good yarn and never let the facts of history get in the way of a good story. This last point is important because the novel, in fact, tells of real people and a real political struggle. It just throws vampires and werewolves into the mix.

The “Black Douglas” of the title is William, Earl of Douglas, who is beguiled by a beautiful French noblewoman. He falls into the hands of Gilles de Retz, a French ambassador with ties to the occult. Much of the second half of the novel concerns the repercussions of his being overpowered by the French, particularly the activities of Douglas’ loyal soldier, Sholto and Sholto’s fractious relationship with the maiden, Maud Lindesay.

It’s all very melodramatic stuff, but “The Black Douglas” also provides a fascinating look at the way popular culture of a hundred years ago looked at its past. Everything that happens in the book has an analogue in the real history. De Rentz (real name Gilles de Rais), for instance, is here portrayed as a devil-worshipper, who uses the blood of innocents to appease his dark lord. The real de Rais was, in fact, a mass-murdering child killer. It’s clear that the notion of someone just killing hundreds of children was so unthinkable that only the occult angle made it something people could understand. Killing children is unfathomable. Killing children for Satan is, of course, evil, but at least it makes sense.

So Douglas must get credit for presenting a vision of history as the people of his time would understand it. He makes it all more thrilling and engaging than the simple (if bloody) political intrigue that was the real cause of much of the Douglas’ woes. And I give him credit, too, for a plot twist halfway into the book that I (not knowing the particular area of history at all) did not see coming.

And what of that particular scene in which John D. Rateliff found so much offense? It’s actually quite exciting. One could easily see why Tolkien would be inspired to write a similar scene. The sparse locale, the gnashing wolves attacking by moonlight. Good stuff. The characters do not engage in any “idiotic bravado” and Rateliff’s statement can only indicate that he didn’t actually read the entire scene before passing his judgment.

As I said near the beginning, “The Black Douglas” is a pretty good read. (You can get it from Project Gutenberg here.) Don’t expect anything approaching a modern sensibility and there’s a lot you can get out of it. Some thrills, some action, some romance, some politics. A little bit of everything that makes an adventure story worth reading, actually. If nothing else, it will help make sure that the book is never truly forgotten.

Year: 1899
Author: S. R. Crockett
Publisher: Doubleday & McClure Co.
Pages: 479

Review: An eye-opening book, “Sojourner” is an incredible tale of a little unmanned mission that could – despite obstacles on two planets. The forbidden environment of Mars is enough of a hazard to survive, to say nothing of the months of deep space journey before Soujourner and its Mars Pathfinder mothership arrived at the red planet. Just as many obstacles threatened to keep Sojourner’s wheels on Earth, from technical difficulties to petty bureaucracies.

It’s the latter that made “Sojourner” an eye-opening read. I’ve read many an astronaut biography (and met a few astronauts and cosmonauts to boot), so I’m accustomed to the Right Stuff coming with some baggage – namely an ego to match the steely courage. But I was stunned to read what amounted to tech geek rivalries that threatened to sideline Sojourner at what seemed like every step. Indeed, one mission manager was all for sending the Pathfinder lander to Mars without any kind of rover… unless it was one that came out of his personal “think tank.” And he spent the better part of a year trying to argue that his design should replace Sojourner, or Sojourner should stay on Earth.

It’s a given that we’re supposed to be rooting for Mishkin and his colleagues, since he wrote the book, but after reading the description of some of the internal politics involved, it’s much easier to consider the author and his team of Mars-rover-building hopefuls the good guys. Sojourner performed above and beyond expectations, lasting as many weeks as it was meant to last days; much of the team behind Sojourner went on to design, program and operate the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, which are still operating today, years after their design specs say they would’ve been shut down. It’s easy to figure out who the good guys are in this story.

Mishkin does a good job of explaining even the tech-iest parts of the story, so you know why one rover design was chosen over the others, what technical issues were holding up the entire mission, and what the big problems were that threatened the entire mission in mid-flight; I’m a tech geek, but I’m no aerospace engineer or robotics expert, and I never felt left in the (Martian) dust without an explanation. I’d say that Mishkin needs to get cracking on the follow-up book, except that with Spirit and Opportunity still roving Mars years after beginning their explorations, the story is still in progress.

Year: 2003
Author: Andrew Mishkin
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 338

Review: “Racing The Beam” is not for the faint of heart; this is no sweeping overview of video game history, but rather a collegiate media studies text with a healthy dose of computer science mixed in for good measure. I opened the book with the expectation that I’d hopefully find some new insights into some of the most iconic Atari 2600 games; I closed the book with an understanding of the machine’s hardware (and its legendary limitations) that I almost felt like I was closer to having the know-how to program for it.

Of course, that’d mean trying to squeeze myself into the same rarified class as the programmers whose work is discussed here. Of the six games examined in depth (in some cases including snippets of the actual code), the authors are particularly favorable toward Adventure and Pitfall! – two games which have left huge footprints on the landscape of video game design – but they’re positively ecstatic over Howard Scott Warshaw’s cult classic, Yars’ Revenge. However, none of the six games are panned (and it’s not really a review book anyway); Tod Frye’s 2600 version of Pac-Man is acknowledged to be not as good as it could have been – but the authors take great pains to explain why many of the decisions leading to that outcome were made before Frye was even attached to the project, in essence dooming it to failure regardless of who ended up programming the game.

I thought I had a fairly good understanding of the Atari 2600’s workings; “Racing The Beam” proved to me that I still had much to learn. The title of the book refers to the fact that much of the computational and game logic in any given cartridge’s program has to be undertaken as the cathode ray beam is returning to the top of the screen from the bottom – an interval smaller than the human eye can see, but a formidable and daunting limitation to even think about (since the 2600 had no capacity for bitmapping, the rest of its computational and display cycle was spent drawing the on-screen display line-by-line). I certainly walked away with a healthier respect for the programmers whose works were examined here.

“Racing The Beam” is not a programming manual for the 2600. It’s an appreciation of the machine and its software, pointing out how flexible Atari’s seminal console was despite its obvious limits, and pointing out the genius of its more innovative game makers. But make no mistake, this is not entry-level stuff; anyone not seriously invested in the subject matter is likely to hit the reset button before getting to the last round. Casual gamers wanting a broad overview of the 2600’s software library would do better reading Leonard Herman’s “ABC To The VCS”; serious students of the medium of the video game – especially those with an appreciation for the classics – will definitely dig this.

Year: 2009
Authors: Nick Montfort & Ian Bogost
Publisher: MIT Press
Pages: 184

Review: As always with these kinds of things, whether you like it or not will be directly linked to your feelings towards the ‘Dirty Harry’ films series. If you find them tedious, this book is not going to change your mind. But if you enjoy a bit of low-grade cop drama, this isn’t a bad choice.

The plot of “Death in the Air” at first seems to be typical of the movies, but towards the end, though, it veers into almost sci-fi territory. (Not full scale Moonraker type stuff, mind you.) The characterization of Callahan is pretty much on target and the new characters fit into his world with ease.

It proves to be a quick read. It’s not going to tax any adult reader. While I woun’t claim that it is gripping, it at least moves along at a good pace that keeps sticking to it from being a chore.

“Death in the Air” won’t be confused for a great American novel. (Or even a great example of the genre.) But as novels-based-on-film-series go, it’s pretty darn good.

Year: 1983
Author: Dane Hartman
Publisher: Warner Books
Pages: 192

Review: Unfortunately, The Policeman’s Beard Is Half Constructed is one of those times where the story surrounding the end product is more sensational that the end product itself. In 1983, two men named William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter created a computer program that generated prose by using text templates. They called the program “Racter”, which is short for “raconteur”. As a “proof of concept”, they published a book using nothing but the output from the Racter program. Only the introduction, written by Chamberlain, contained human input. That book was “The Policeman’s Beard Is Half Constructed”.

Racter’s saga doesn’t end there, however. Later that year, Mindscape acquired the rights to publish a commerical version of Racter for home computers, such as the IBM PC, Apple II and Amiga (Racter was originally programmed using the CP/M operating system). However, it soon became clear that the home version of Racter was nowhere near as sophisicated as the version of Racter that wrote “The Policeman’s Beard Is Half Constructed”. The home version would take words that the user inputted and tried to use them as frequently as possible in conversation, which did not allow for much variety. Because of this, Mindscape decided to market the program with a humourous bent rather than a serious artifical intelligence, with such claims as “Tongue-In-Chip Software” and “Half-heartedly endorsed by the Institute Of Artifical Insanity”. Many people were disappointed with the program, and some even accused Chamberlain of heavily modifing the original Racter output in “The Policeman’s Beard…” to make it sound more plausible.

How, then, does the book read? As you might imagine, it’s very surreal and hardly follows any conventions of “standard” writing. In one short story, a woman tells her lover that she desires to have a “spooky child”. Her desire, however, is a “furious desire [which] may murder a child. It may be killing babies someday.” Her lover, however, tells her that their children “will whisper of our love”.

There’s also a collection of limericks that seem to display the limitations of Racter quite strongly. The first line almost always begins with an “adjective-adjective-object” and certain words and rhymes are repeated throughout. In another story, Racter talks about a couple who “have love but they also have typewriters. That is interesting.”

The book is illustrated throughout by Joan Hall (who even conducts an “interview” with Racter and herself in the book), using a combination of 1900’s antique portrait drawings and “modern” graph art. Her pictures usually correlate with what Racter is saying (as best as they can, however, given the difficulty noted in what Racter is exactly trying to say).

As a book purely read for recreation, you will no doubt tire of trying to glean anything from Racter’s wisdom and put the book down after only a few pages. But as a small (yet obscure) footnote on computing, “The Policeman’s Beard Is Half Constructed” is a fascinating read on how so much (and yet, so little) has changed in the field. Surrounded now by the most powerful supercomputers the mind can achieve, we tend to forget how simple things were back in the mid-80’s – when a computer was used to just simply talk.

Year: 1984
Author: Racter
Publisher: Warner Books
Pages: 120

Review: Rob O’Hara knows a couple of things about collecting arcade machines. I knew that before reading this book – there’s something about his back yard outbuilding full of working classic machines vs. my one broken-down machine uselessly taking up a refrigerator’s worth of space in my game room that says he’s definitely got the jump on me in this hobby. “Invading Spaces” is where he shares that obvious wealth of knowledge with coin-op newbies like myself.

Several years ago, I bought a book published by Schiffer that purported to be a guide to collecting arcade games. However, that book was written and published just prior to the early 2000s explosion of interest in 1970s/’80s video game paraphenalia, and as such it concentrated on collecting pinball machines from the mid-20th century, touching on video games almost as an afterthought. “Invading Spaces,” on the other hand, is aimed much more squarely at the generation that grew up gobbling dots with Pac-Man and shooting down Space Invaders – or at least members of any generation who are enamored of those classic quarter gobblers.

One of the most useful parts of the book deals with the acquisition of old games – in essence, it sends the reader a message, in gigantic neon letters, that there is life beyond eBay…and that the best deals often aren’t found there, plain and simple. Another chapter deals with a subject that some would-be coin-op collectors might not think about until they’re suddenly sitting on more or less foreign soil with a refrigerator-sized video game they’ve just handed over money for: getting the machine from here to there. The guide to transporting and moving games covers everything from best practices for loading a machine into a truck or trailer, to moving it into the house.

One issue that remains controversial in the video game collecting community is addressed throughout “Invading Spaces” – MAME cabinets. As much as anyone can with this hot-button subject, O’Hara deals with it as even-handedly as possible, pointing out that, for some people, a MAME cabinet is indeed the way to go. This topic crops up throughout the book, including a discussion of retrofitting an existing classic cabinet into a MAME machine (the mere suggestion of which has actually caused wars to break out on some video game collecting internet forums). This is a much more useful look at the subject than taking a strong editorial stance on one side or the other, allowing the reader to make their own informed choice – and yes, the reader is even informed that retrofitting an old Scramble machine may bring diehard arcade fans out with pitchforks and torches.

The section of the book covering repairs is an area that I – with my broken Kickman machine – have personally found most daunting. A lot of web sites, actual vintage arcade manuals and other sources are quick to tell you that touching the back of the monitor in just the wrong way CAN KILL YOU (the all-caps and boldface comes directly from the manual to my old arcade machine, published in 1981 by Midway). Rob O’Hara addresses this directly, too: is it possible? Yes – but if you take a few simple precautions, you have little to worry about…and even if you do get it wrong, you’ll probably just get knocked on your butt with a tingling headache and an arcade collector’s war story to tell. I still haven’t had the chance to reach into the back of my machine and install a cap kit on my monitor, but I’m a bit more relaxed about knowing that there are ways to do it that won’t mean “game over” in the literal sense.

Oh, and there are stories in this book too – there’s not only peppered throughout the informative text (which helpfully keeps what could’ve been a bone-dry read very casual), but there’s an entire section of arcade-related stories at the end of the book that just didn’t fit anywhere else – but were also too good to leave out. (Trust me on this, you’ll be chuckling about the Black Knight for a few days.)

Year: 2008
Author: Rob O’Hara
Publisher: Lulu.com
Pages: 172

Review: Considered the “official prequel” to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film, “Countdown” sets up Nero and Spock as we see them in the movie, and gives us a taste of the future from which they hail. The story also shows us where the TNG characters are in relation to all of this, and helps to tie the movie’s story in to the existing franchise. As is typical of material in the “expanded” Star Trek universe, there’s no indication that IDW was under any pressure to pay any attention to what’s going on in the increasingly cataclysmic post-Star Trek: Nemesis novels by Pocket Books, and some readers may be just fine with that. The comic even ties off some of the developments introduced in Nemesis itself, and in some cases it minimizes their impact or erases it altogether – again, perhaps not something that anyone will mourn.

“Countdown” also has the task of setting up Nero as such a loose-cannon badass – such a threat to the nearly-unstoppable heroes of ST:TNG – that no less than Ambassador Spock has to be hauled out of retirement to pursue him. This task is complicated by the fact that the comic rounds up younger and much more able-bodied heroes – Picard, Data, Geordi – and then has to explain why Spock had to be the one to chase Nero into the past. The TNG characters wind up being little more than background dressing, and Worf is used as little more than cannon fodder to show us just how off-the-rails Nero is. Diehard TNG fans may be a little distressed to see their heroes marginalized to sell the idea that, even in the TNG/DS9/Voyager era, in the absence of Kirk, Spock is the only one who can face down Nero.

The script by Mike Johnson and Tim Jones does a good job of working both within the existing universe and setting up the events of the movie. It can’t have been an easy task to draw all of those threads together in addition to working in TNG “guest stars.” Lip service is paid, in the meantime, to the Romulan unification movement, the Remans, Borg tech, and Star Trek: Enterprise’s depiction of the Vulcans as not as enlightened as they’d like mere humans to believe. That so much of these elements are brought into the foreground or background without it seeming like overload is quite a feat, though in some ways it also kisses off the “technobabble” era of ’80s and ’90s Trek, what with its talk of singularities and “red matter,” among other things.

The artwork is gorgeous, and nobody whose likeness is portrayed is let down here. There are several two-page spreads that have a real cinematic sweep to them, and the overall styles serves to bridge the visual leap from the last round of TV series and movies to the new movie’s key vehicles very well. There are a few odd design choices – Picard’s ambassadorial robes patterned after a Starfleet uniform? – that jump out…but not very many. Even the different appearance of the Romulans in the film is explained. When you have a story the pivots on deliberations in the Romulan Senate and the Vulcan Science Academy, you know that there’s going to be a lot of page real estate taken up by talking heads, and not so much by action, but when action there is stands out all the more because of this – and in the end, the “talking-head-iness” of it all is more a symptom of the kind of stories that TNG, et al., told to begin with.

So, will “Countdown” actually help to ease those accustomed to the “old” Star Trek universe into the new film? Maybe. “Countdown” is like stopping for gas at the last familiar exit before heading into completely unknown territory. But somehow, one can’t imagine it’ll be the last we ever see or hear of the beloved 24th century characters. Unless Paramount, via its publishing wing Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, takes the approach of focusing completely on “new Trek” spawned from the movie to the exclusion of all else (an approach that the BBC seems to have taken with Doctor Who print fiction), there’ll still be novels featuring Picard, Data, Worf, Colonel Kira, the holographic Doctor, Captain Archer, and so on. There may still be novels featuring the Kirk and Spock we already know so well. That seems to be the thing that’s so hard for some fans resisting the franchise’s new twist to accept: the old characters are still there. Too much collective goodwill is invested in those characters and their stories for a mere alternate timeline to erase them. Whether it’s in novels, graphic novels, fan films, games, or other media, they’ll still be there. “Countdown” makes a handy transition point with a story that illustrates that the characters still exist, but Nero and the aged Spock have disappeared from their universe. Picard, Data, Deep Space Nine and U.S.S. Voyager are still out there – and yet elsewhere they may have different destinies. Is nobody else excited about this stuff?

Year: 2009
Writers: Mike Johnson & Tim Jones, based on a story by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
Artist: David Messina
Colors: David Messina, Giovana Niro, Paolo Maddaleni
Letterers: Chris Mowry, Neil Uyetake, Robbie Robbins
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Pages: 104

Review: It’s hard to realize nowadays, when fan fiction is so prevalent (some would say invasive) but in 1976, the idea of finding a broader audience for fan fiction (outside of the meager readership of fanzines) was a fantastic notion. Without the all-powerful, all-seeing Internet, the only hope for fanfic writers would be the outlandish idea that Paramount themselves would allow a professionally published collection of such stories. But that’s just what Paramount did. They were about to launch the regular series of Star Trek novels with “Spock, Messiah!” and, perhaps, “Star Trek: The New Voyages” was an easy way to get material out to the public while the more professional work was being finalized. (They also upped the ante by getting Gene Roddenberry and the principal cast to write introductions, maybe as a way to take the curse of fanfic off.) Whatever the reason for the book’s publication, it’s good to know that this isn’t the first properly published Star Trek original fiction (having been preceded by junior novel “Mission to Horatius” and James Blish’s “Spock Must Die!”) as it is one of the most embarrasingly amateurish collection of nonsense ever to get the “official” stamp of approval. It basically proves that fan fiction hasn’t changed all that much in thirty years: it stinks.

Now, this is the point where I would usually say “Not that this collection doesn’t have it’s good points” or something like that. I try to be fair and give even the worst dreck its due. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say such a thing in this case and keep my honor intact. These stories are awful; the worst kind of fanwank with no one at the wheel steering these “authors” away from the dangerous rocks. Crash against them they do, again and again and again.

The stories are as follows: “Ni Var” by Claire Gabriel (Spock is split into a human half and a Vulcan half), “Intersection Point” by Juanita Coulson (the ship becomes trapped in a spacial anomaly), “The Enchanted Pool” by Marcia Ericson (Spock crashes onto a planet apparently populated by fairies), “Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited” by Ruth Berman (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley switch places with their fictional counterparts), “The Face on the Barroom Floor” by Eleanor Arnason and Ruth Berman (a tale of shore leave misadventures), “The Hunting” by Doris Beetem (Spock undertakes a Vulcan ritual – the “Mok Farr” – whereby he mind-melds with an animal), “The Winged Dreamers” by Jennifer Guttridge (the crew falls under the influence of telepathic butterflies), “Mind-Sifter” by Shirley Maiewski (Kirk is abducted by Klingons, tortured to insanity and lost in time), and a “Sonnet from the Vulcan: Omicron Ceti Three” by Shirley Meech (a tedious bit of lovesick doggerel).

Maybe you caught something in that list, something that I, myself, didn’t notice until I was almost done. “Star Trek: The New Voyages” was entirely written and edited by women. (Except for the introductions, of course.) I’m not sure what that means in the grand scheme of things, but it may account for the high number of long, deep looks into Spock’s psyche to which the reader is subjected. (If you ever need proof of Spock’s effect on female fans of the seventies, here it is.) This is not a criticism, mind you, just an observation.

Besides, as I indicated earlier, there are plenty of other things to legitimately criticize. Like the silly dialogue and preposterous actions of the Enterprise crew. I know that there was (and is) a strong homo-erotic streak in Star Trek fanfiction where Kirk and Spock are concerned, but when two different authors have a character talking about their “special relationship” and almost “saying too much”, you know that stuff ran a bit too deep. And I don’t care if Kirk was in love with Spock (a point so prevalent in 1970s fandom that even Roddenberry himself felt he had to address it in his novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture), I can’t see him “bounding into” Spock’s quarters, inviting him to come on shore leave, “grinned widely at him, excitement showing in his face and manner”, then dashing off with a wink as he does in one of the stories. (No, I’m not telling you which one. You’ll have to suffer through these yourself if you want to know.)

Few of the other characters act any more appropriately. In that same story, much of the crew (Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, etc.) talk out of turn, defy orders and generally act more independent-minded than the trained military crew they were shown to be in the series. The new characters are throwaway, useless creations that don’t even stand up to the least significant series character. Think of crewmen like Riley who, despite just a couple of appearances, was a vibrant character. Nothing like that here.

And, of course, there are the normal foibles of fan fiction: copious mentions of canon stories, the presence of “Mary Sues”, and lots and lots of bad dialogue. In fact, the only parts of the book that seem real and effective are the introductions. The cast, particularly, seem appreciative of the efforts of the fan writers, but I found it hard to believe they actually read this stuff and liked it as much as they say they did. (Being diplomatic, perhaps.)

So, to sum up, there’s a reason fan fiction doesn’t often get legitimately published. “Star Trek: The New Voyages” is a poster child for why it should stay out of the light.

Year: 1976
Editors: Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath
Publisher: Bantam
Pages: 127

Review: Picking up from the end of “Homecoming” and barreling toward the story’s conclusion without pausing for breath, “The Farther Shore” continues to complicate the immediate plotline for Voyager’s crew, but is clearly setting up problems for them to tackle down the road. In some cases – such as the holograms’ equivalent of a civil rights movement – things are left maddeningly unresolved. Other threads, such as B’Elanna’s search for her mother, are resolved but remain oddly disconnected from the main action. Indeed, every time the narrative shifted to B’Elanna playing out what sometimes seemed like the Klingon version of Survivor, I found myself getting antsy to return to the main plotline.

The characters’ voices are true to how they were portrayed on television, but this book takes a turn that too many episodes took: the focus is squarely on Janeway and Seven. B’Elanna has her own prominent plot thread that has no impact on the main story (and delves into Klingon honor and mysticism, topics I hoped we’d seen the back of with the end of TNG and DS9), and there are some interesting scenes for Harry Kim, but Chakotay, Tuvok and the Doctor wind up taking a back seat to Data. This would be less palatable if not for the author at least making good use of Data in the story – considering his anti-Borg exploits in The Best Of Both Worlds and Star Trek: First Contact, actually, it’s suspiciously lucky for Janeway that Data’s along for the ride.

Two things that were probably meant to be shockers – the resolution of the story involving B’Elanna’s search for her mother, and a side story about a Starfleet officer’s change of heart involving holograms – were, in fact, quite predictable. I saw the “twist” to both of these from a mile off…which, perhaps, isn’t good when the latter plotline was meant to be a real mindf**k.

If there was one very real frustration with this book, however, it’s that it doesn’t really deal with the politically-charged ideas introduced in “Homecoming.” That book dealt with subjects such as indefinite imprisonment without specific charges in a very on-the-nose fashion, but this one seems to opt out of the Trek tradition of socially relevant storytelling and uses these things as mere plot complications. Maybe it’s better that way, to stir up the subject in the reader’s mind without getting into a discussion of the politics involved among the book’s characters, but “Homecoming” seemed to be setting up something a little more…well…substantial. Even the would-be Borg Queen turns out to be what Seven describes as a “damaged individual,” and the ending, while effective in tying off the dramatic threads of the story, really seems to lack the kind of bite that will keep the reader thinking about the underlying ideas after closing the cover.

Still, it’s a perfectly serviceable page-turner, and even with these shortcomings, it’s a more effective full-stop conclusion of the Voyager story – with hints of adventures yet to come – than the ending that the series got on screen.

Year: 2003
Author: Christie Golden
Publisher: Pocket Books
Pages: 275

Review: My fascination with the Sex Pistols began with my brother giving me the documentary The Filth and the Fury for either my birthday or Christmas one year with the cryptic words “You don’t know you want this.” He followed that up with John Lydon’s autobiography, “Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs”, but I just couldn’t get into it, not getting past the first few pages before I put it down. But about a year later, I acquired a different book on the Sex Pistols by their US tour manager, Noel Monk; “12 Days on the Road”, the story of the band’s raucous career-ending tour. With its much more visceral feel and crazy stories right off the bat, it was much easier to get into. So after finishing that, I went back to “Rotten” and then bought original bass player Glen Matlock’s autobiography “I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol”. Three very different perspectives on the story of the band lead to three very different books. Ultimately, they compliment each other, helping to give a more rounded view than any one book would have done alone.

First, there is “12 Days on the Road”. This is clearly the loosest and least well “put together” of the three. Noel Monk is not a writer and the help of collaborator Jimmy Guterman does little to change that. But given the chaotic nature of that infamous tour, it’s in perfect keeping with the subject matter. Noel’s stories are raw, harsh and seemingly unaffected by what others might think about them. He isn’t trying to give a balanced view of things, only his own. And he has plenty of things to talk about, from the normal day-to-day activities of a major tour, to trying to keep track of Sid Vicious as he rebelled against the band, being controlled and…well…just about everything. This one is the view of an outsider who, nonetheless, had intimate dealings with the band and an inside view of goings-on late in the band’s original run.

“Rotten”, on the other hand, is John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon’s personal story. It isn’t confined to the era of the Sex Pistols, but covers much of his life. Lydon also goes maybe a bit too far in trying to create a balanced view of that life, not only going into great detail with his own account, but has opened things up to others, as well. There are frequent breaks for quotes or commentary from the people involved. He even goes so far as to turn whole chapters over to other people or to conversations between himself and others. This gives “Rotten” a bit of the feel of a documentary and less that of a true autobiography. But, ultimately, it is Lydon’s story and his view of things takes precedence. This one is key for understanding where Lydon’s mind was at the key moments in the band and his careers.

Then there’s “I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol”, the last one I read, but the first one written. The style of “Teenage Sex Pistol” is much more like a traditional celebrity autobiography. It has a lot of information, but an informal tone. One gets the sense that Glen Matlock’s co-author, Peter Silverton, did little but organize Glen’s actual words into a cohesive narrative. This one stands out because of its position as Matlock’s official declaration of his place in Pistols history. For many years, Matlock was the forgotten Sex Pistol, all but cut out of the band’s history. So when Matlock first wrote “Teenage Sex Pistol” it was with a definite agenda. That agenda definitely comes through, but with no sense of malice; he just seems to be trying to set the record straight. Of course, The Filth and the Fury and the recent reunion tours have probably cemented him in the public eye as a “true” Sex Pistol better than this book did. Still, it has lots of interesting stories (including some that Lydon and company would not have been privy to) and is the only one of the three to cover the reunions, which it does in two addendums to the original text.

When you try to understand the history of any artistic collaboration (such as a band), it is necessary to see things from many different points of view. Finding one, definitive perspective is unlikely. So reading multiple books, each dedicated to a specific point of view, is a good way to go. I certainly felt that I understood the story of the Sex Pistols better than I had before. Lydon tries to provide multiple points of view, but as he chose the guest voices and even participates in some discussions, it is still driven by his own perspective. So if you are interested in the Sex Pistols, I can endorse all three of these books and would suggest you read as many of them as you can. If you just want one, the closest to a balanced view is “Rotten”, but you still won’t be getting the whole story.

“I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol”
Year: 1991, revised 1997, 2007
Author: Glen Matlock with Peter Silverton
Publisher: Reynolds & Hearn
Pages: 286

“12 Days on the Road”
Year: 1992
Author: Noel E. Monk and Jimmy Guterman
Publisher: Harper
Pages: 240

“Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs”
Year: 1995
Author: John Lydon with Keith and Kent Zimmerman
Publisher: Picador
Pages: 352