Can it really have been that long since the first time I read The Entropy Effect? I remember it like it was yesterday. There I was, still in High School, November of 1981. I was sitting in the school cafeteria at lunch time, clutching in my hands a treasured acquisition: a spanking new copy of The Entropy Effect, the first in Pocket Books’ legendary series of Star Trek novels. In retrospect, that might not seem like much, but back then, it was pure nirvana for a teenaged Trek freak.
There had been Star Trek novels before The Entropy Effect, of course, but the quality was usually not the best. Pocket Books, however, started recruiting top-notch authors like Diane Carey and Peter David. But first dibs went to Vonda N. McIntyre, who would go on to write several Trek film novelizations. She also wrote The Crystal Star, a Star Wars novel, and received a Nebula Award in 1997.
Today, almost 30 years after reading The Entropy Effect for the first time, I still have my original copy. It’s a bit dog-eared now, and the pages have yellowed heavily. Still, I decided to read it again for old time sake. Sometimes, things you enjoyed in your youth don’t seem to be quite as good as they used to when revisited in middle or old age. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with The Entropy Effect. I think I enjoyed it more today than I did back in the early eighties.
As our story opens, the Enterprise is studying a strange singularity when a distress signal is received from the nearby Aleph system. Spock is reluctant to depart, having discovered that the singularity is somehow tied to an increase in the rate of the universe’s entropy. As a result, the universe will tear itself apart in less than one hundred years.
But the distress signal is of the highest priority the Federation maintains, and Captain Kirk has no choice but to respond. When the Enterprise arrives at Aleph Prime, Kirk is enraged to find that the signal was issued for a run-of-the-mill prisoner transport request. Aleph’s chief prosecutor, Ian Braithewaite, assures the Captain that the prisoner, one Dr. Mordreaux, is a highly dangerous individual and that the distress call was justified.
Spock does not agree. A former student of Dr. Mordreaux, he can’t believe that the Dr. is capable of the crimes he’s accused of, namely using sentient beings as lab rats for his experiments. But when in a demented outburst Mordreaux produces a weapon and kills Captain Kirk, Spock is left to wonder just how such a thing could have happened.
Ultimately, he finds that the Dr has been meddling with time travel, and that meddling is not only the cause of Jim Kirk’s death but also of the impending entropy disaster. But can Spock correct the problem by time-jumping himself to the exact moment the damage was done before time (literally) runs out?
The Entropy Effect is full of interesting plot twists. Time travel stories don’t work well, but McIntyre has done an impressive job with this one. The reader should pay careful attention to detail, as seemingly unimportant happenings early on in the story take on greater meaning later one. Cleverly crafted, The Entropy Effect is like a jigsaw puzzle: the pieces don’t all seem to fit at first, but as the novel progresses, they all start to fall into place.
Characterizations are credible, and McIntyre not only spends time developing a love interest for Mr. Sulu but also gives Dr. McCoy, Scotty, and Spock considerable attention, too. The death of Captain Kirk and his subsequent absence from the spotlight allows such focus on secondary characters. The flow of events keeps the reader interested, and I found myself wanting to see what happen next despite the fact I’d read The Entropy Effect before.
The timeframe for the story is not clearly laid out, though it seems to occur after the events depicted in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. All in all, this is one of the better Trek novel efforts. You can pick up reprinted versions for song at used bookstores or on Ebay. It’s definitely worth reading if you’re a Trek fan. Time and Time again.
No comments:
Post a Comment