Jean Lorrah

They weren't super present in this one, but I really like Jean Lorrah’s Enterprise crew; she makes Kirk the sensitive diplomat I want, Spock the stubborn alien I love, and Bones the dry, capable heart of the Enterprise I need.

On top of which, she gives us happily married, snarky Amanda (all I ever want out of Trek novs is snarky Amanda), moral lynchpin T’Pina, and modern, nuanced villains against the backdrop of an interesting medical mystery.

Loved this particular episode and it’s show more very Trek-y core message. show less

You know, I've never seen "Legacy," the episode of The Next Generation where Tasha Yar's sister turns up, and we learn about the long-dead Tasha's backstory in more detail. Yet I have read Survivors, a TNG novel written during the first season (published during the second) that tells us about Tasha's childhood and early Starfleet career in great detail. In a bit of "head-canon," I suspect that even if I had seen "Legacy," I would still prefer this as the "true" backstory of Tasha Yar. Lorrah show more depicts the ideal Yar, the one TNG never actually gave us: a damaged woman from a damaged world, and thus someone who believes in the idealism of the Federation even more than those raised within it. The characterization of Tasha and also Data are really the book's strong points: I think Lorrah gets Data better than the show writers did at this point. (I really liked the touch that his rattling off of synonyms was a purposeful affectation.) You can see why Pocket commissioned Lorrah to write a Data-focused "giant novel" in Metamorphosis, because he just jumps off the page here, a perfect mixture of superintelligence and emotional inexperience. There's a lot else I could praise or say about this book, but suffice it to say that it's the best kind of tie-in fiction-- a story we couldn't have gotten on screen, but fitting in perfectly with the ones we did. show less

This is part of a series I loved in my teens that was published from the 1970s through the 1980s, and I don't believe any are in print. I find that a shame. Though I wouldn't count this a deathless science fiction classic featuring an awesome prose style such as that of say, Ursula LeGuin, it's one I enjoyed in the same way as books by Marion Zimmer Bradley or Anne McCaffrey. As good, solid action/adventure, often featuring romance and imaginative world-building. So this isn't rated so show more highly because it's groundbreaking science fiction in the same league as Asimov or Heinlein. I'm rating it so high because this is favorite comfort food reading, with characters I love. I own eight of the Sime/Gen books, all I could track down after reading the first one, and of those eight, this one, Ambrov Keon, is my favorite.

The premise of this book is that in the far future humans have mutated into two different types. One kind, the Sime, feeds on the energy of the other kind, the Gen. But this mutation--or possibly genetic manipulation, erupted suddenly and violently, with Simes going through a change at adolescence in which they gained tentacles allowing them to rip the energy from Gens--causing death. And their cycle means they have to do it every month.

As a result, civilization collapsed and reemerged split into two sides. In the Gen society, when some adolescents change into Simes, they're immediately killed. In Sime society, if their energy settles into Gens, they become slaves and food. And parentage is no predictor. So parents raise children knowing that one way or the other they could lose them, see them become monsters or cattle.

But things have begun to change. A Sime and Gen, in love, discovered that certain Simes, called Channels, could take this energy safely and transfer it to other Simes. And certain Gens, called Companions, could control the transfer of energy so both could survive.

Enter Risa Tigue, born into Sime territory and trained to think of Gens as not human--until she meets Sergi, a Companion who changes her life. Risa is the primary reason this is a favorite. She's that oddity in science fiction, especially when this was published in 1986, a strong female character, a leader. It occurs to me her name is similar to FM Busby's Rissa of Rissa and Tregare, another strong female figure in science fiction from decades ago, and I suspect the name might be homage, because I can see a lot of similarities in their spirit, and in the entrepreneurial drive both share and which Risa uses to help transform things around her. show less

You might argue that this book is pointless: its central premise is that Data becomes a human being for real, which of course he never did on the show, nor even alluded to, so the whole thing has to be wiped from both history and memory. But Jean Lorrah is such a good author as to overcome this. I said in my review of Survivors that she excelled at capturing Data and Yar; extend that here to the whole Enterprise-D crew. Picard's speeches sound like ones Patrick Stewart would give on the show more show, Riker doesn't do much but Lorrah captures his openness to all experiences, and even Wesley comes across as smart, naïve, and eager in a way that's not annoying.

It's not just dialogue, either; when Data is transformed into a human, the two people who recognize him without any prodding are Doctor Pulaski and Geordi La Forge, which feels exactly right to me. Best of all is how she captures ways of thinking. When we're inside Data's head as an android, it rings true as the interiority of the character we see the exteriority of on screen. Even better is what she pulls off in the second half of the book: if Data was a human being, this is how he would think, trying to be an android but with only human mental capacities. I'd have loved to have seen Brent Spiner do any of this on screen, but the book gets by just fine without it because it gives us Data's actual thoughts in a way the television never could. The whole book might not have "happened," but if it Data were to become human, this is how it would be.

The only thing not to like is the kind of cursory way it wraps up: Data's motivations for undoing his humanity come out of nowhere, and after the middle of the book drives home that Data has value as a person, not just from his android powers, it's a little disappointing that the end kind of revolves around his android powers saving the day. Though I guess Lorrah undercuts that with the cute last line (which fortuitously foreshadows Data getting Spot in "Data's Day" on screen).

Anyway, this is an enjoyable book, one of the best Next Generation novels. Rereading Lorrah's two Next Generation novels has made me regret that she never contributed to Star Trek again after this. show less