By GustavoLeao / 19:35, 27 December 2012 / Trek Books

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“Cold Equations” Trilogy- Book One: “The Persistence of Memory”

Review by George Daley aka prometheus59650

“Admiral, there be spoilers here.” – Montgomery Scott, had he written this review.

                One could argue the notion that the franchise fatigue that many cite as a cause of Star Trek’s decline on television had taken hold in the stories written in that universe as depicted in the Star Trek novels as well. I found myself squarely in that camp and had been for several years. While in that time there had been some attempts to infuse a sense of scope and creativity into the books, mainly it seems through serial storytelling, they’ve all to varying degrees suffered from the same problems.  Most of them read as little more than a fanservice effort to see how many names and faces familiar to the reader that already knows the deck and section number of Yeoman Rand’s quarters that can be shoved into three hundred or so pages.  As a reader and a fan this is a fun for a one-off book, but it doesn’t make for a universe that that you’d find yourself wanting to revisit.

And for a long time I didn’t bother.

                A drastic change was in order and that change came in the form of David Mack’s Destiny trilogy. In a final, winner-take-all battle between the Federation and the Borg, the Federation is forever changed with more than 60 billion dead, scores beyond that displaced, and a Starfleet that is charged not with just patrolling and expanding borders, but holding the Federation together.  Add facing against the rise of a new enemy: the worlds of the Typhon Pact, and you have a new, rich sandbox to explore.

                “The Persistence of Memory” is Mack’s first book in his latest addition to the new universe. An expertly planned theft calls the Enterprise and crew to Galor IV, home to some of the Federation’s most sensitive research. Once there, they find a lab in shambles and every example of the work of Dr. Noonien Soong, the Federation’s leading expert on artificial life, gone.  An expertly planned heist though does not mean an expertly executed one. Someone or something did its level best to thwart the theft.  Picard and crew set out on a journey to answer the questions of who and why, for Geordi  LaForge it’s a matter of finding a way to save what little remains of Data.

The first of the book’s three sections deal with this and Mack displays a gift for being able to scale the story to plant the seeds of a galactic crisis in one chapter and realistically depict Picard’s newfound family life and a touch of mid-life crisis in the next. The new faces mesh with the old well and Mack’s work shows a dedication to long-term character development.

At this point of the review I’ve kind of wondered whether or not I should go into the second section of the book, as it is a massive spoiler, but I’ve given you the spoiler warning and I don’t really think I can review the book while entirely skipping a third of it. So this is your final warning: read no further.

The next section picks up on the last moments of the life of Dr. Soong, and beyond. Unwilling to accept death, his last act is to cheat it in the way the reader would honestly most expect and set out on a quest of his own, namely to rebuild (no pun intended) his rather unconventional family. Mack’s Soong is as intelligent and arrogant as one would expect an unappreciated genius to be, but he’s still eminently relatable to the reader because his love for them all shines through and, who among us would not try to set right our mistakes if we got a truly fresh start?

His own quest puts him in the path of the crew of the Enterprise and together they uncover a plot that could plunge an already weary galaxy into another conflict. While the final resolution was somewhat telegraphed it was still well executed and moving even if all you had to go by in terms of knowledge of the Trek universe was this book.

And that’s the fundamental difference between in the books before and after Mack’s reset. I can and have recommended these books to friends who are science fiction fans , but not necessarily fans of Star Trek who have taken that advice and come back satisfied. The new crop of authors including Kristin Beyer and David R. George have taken that newly fertile ground and crafted stories at least as every bit as good as the best Trek produced on television.

Final score: 4.5/5.