My Enemy, My Ally

There aren't many books I give a five-star rating to. This is one of them. Diane Duane is simply the best Star Trek novel writer, bar none.

This is the definitive book on the Rihannsu (the Romulans). Duane gives them a unique, believable culture and language, and a sense of honor that rivals the Klingons. The book is full of poignancy and humor, written in a wonderful lyrical prose.

Diane Duane has written several Star Trek novels. It is worth your time to track down each and every one of them.

Lovely as usual. Ael t’Rllaillieu, Romulan (Rihannsu) commander, finds herself without friends among her own people - and goes to her honorable enemies, the captain and crew of the Enterprise for the help she needs. It is a Duane, so a lot of this goes without saying, but - there is some fantastic characterization, and some gorgeous word-play and characters playing with words. "You have small round insects eating a ship on your Earth?" Translators are fun. The standard characters - Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, a little bit of Scotty (though his bits are mostly stereotype) play out beautifully, and true to their canon selves. The new ones - both the additions to the Enterprise crew (many of them non-humanoid aliens - a Horta ensign, for show more one!), and the Rihannsu characters - are equally rich and contradictory - not flat cardboard images, but people with feelings and motivations behind each action. Most of the action is through the eyes of either Ael or Kirk; Sulu gets a nice bit, and there are short scenes from other POVs, but not many. But even from the outside, you can see opinions changing on both (all) sides. The story is a nice little adventure - everything from a space battle to some grunt work in enemy territory, and Kirk pulling a rabbit out of his hat to end it all (which is _not_ explained!). But it's the characters, and what we learn about the Rihannsu (and what they learn about the Federation) that makes this one of my favorite Star Trek books and well up the list on favorite books in general. This is the start of a series, but it's fine as a standalone - the story ends with the book. This story, anyway. show less

I just re-read this book for at least the fifth or sixth time, and it always delights. Romulan Commander Ael is a wonderful character, and the relationship (*not* romantic) which Duane sets up between her and Kirk seems spot-on.

Duane also is one of the best authors at portraying non-human species. My favorite minor character in this book is the Horta's child, Naraht (called "Ensign Rock" by Ael): a smart, plucky young officer-in-training who just happens to look like a blob of rocky lava scuttling around the ship.

My Enemy, My Ally remains one of the best classic Star Trek novels ever written, even thirty years after its original publication date. I want to give this one to everyone I've ever known who's been disappointed by a Trek book and say, "Read this. It will change your mind about Trek."

I will admit right up front that I have a rather large bias toward Diane Duane, who has written a considerable portion of my favorite books (her YA fantasy series, Young Wizards, is also very much worth your time to check out -- but let's not digress). She has a distinctive, lyrical, descriptive prose style that makes each scene jump off the page, and a gift for choosing exactly the right words to evoke specific images for the reader. Specifically in terms show more of Star Trek: she writes aliens very well. The television shows tend to stick to humanoid races out of the necessity of using human actors, but since literature has no such restrictions, Duane's aliens are as strange, interesting and unusual as one could imagine. My favorite of her original alien races are the Hamalki, who are essentially glass spiders who communicate by singing.

Enemy/Ally in particular is the beginning of what would eventually become a pentalogy (or tetralogy, if you prefer, since the third and fourth books were intended to be a single volume but were split in two by the publisher). The novel centers around a high-ranking Romulan officer, Ael t'Rllaillieu, who is an old off-and-on enemy of Captain Kirk's -- and, if you're familiar with the show, the aunt of the female Romulan commander from "The Enterprise Incident," which further puts her at odds with Kirk and company. Ael has learned of experiments taking place on a remote space station, sponsored by the Romulan government, which involve forcibly taking genetic material from kidnapped Vulcan test subjects in order to attempt to create a method for Romulans to be able to use the Vulcan telepathic disciplines. While loyal to her people, Ael is also a highly honorable woman with a strong sense of morals and ethics, and the knowledge of what her government is becoming -- seeing the growing corruption in the Senate, and knowing to what use the mind disciplines would be put if the experiments are successful -- serves as the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. Unable to gain any help from her allies in the government, and more or less exiled to a tour of duty in the Neutral Zone where the Romulan government hopes she will get herself killed, Ael has no choice but to betray her people and turn to her old enemies for help.

I could write a million pages about Ael: she's mature, experienced, competent, able to match wits with Kirk and Spock, and strongly present in the story without upstaging or overshadowing the canon characters. Her relationship with the crew of her ship, Bloodwing, parallels in a rather lovely manner the familial relationship that the crew of the Enterprise have with one another. On the other end of the spectrum, she isn't immune to making mistakes, misjudging others, or failing to see things coming -- in a couple of cases, quite tragically so. In short, she's a well-rounded, dynamic character, and a strong female protagonist in a series (and, let's face it, genre) that sometimes ends up short on such characters. When I first read these books when I was young, I took to Ael immediately; she was one of my first real literary role models, and I'm very, very grateful to Diane Duane for bringing her to life. show less

The things that hooked me on this book is the interaction of Kirk and the 'enemy' romulan commander Ael. The characters feel as if they are straight from the TV series with the aliens and details that they could never have filmed. There are funny little bits like where Uhuru is working on a holographic projector and the test display is that of a Blue Police box out of which appears a Curly haired man with a long multi-colored scarf.
The deeper layer here are questions about what makes an enemy and what makes an ally. There is a Romulan term Mehan-su (I know I spelled it wrong) that can mean, honour, friend or enemy depending upon the context. It can be where you feel you must betray your closest friend or save the life of your worst enemy.

Good sci-fi action adventure that fleshes out the romulans. The main premise of the story is that a bold Romulan commander betrays the empire to enlist Kirk and co’s aid in foiling a Romulan scheme that will spell doom for all.

The main draw of this book is that we get more insight into who the Romulans are. Much of the novel is from the perspective of the Romulan commander and we see many facets of their way of life. Unfortunately none of the facets seen in this book are seen in any of the tv shows but still interesting to see what could have been.

The Romulan protagonist is pretty engaging as she really believes in her Empire but knows that it is in decay. She is easy to sympathize with and we get some good looks into her thoughts and show more how she is reacting to things. On the other hand I felt that the original series cast was missing some of this introspection and depth.

This book really focuses on the humorous side of the enterprise crew and Duane really captured the sense of humor of the Original Series. As mentioned though I was missing their more serious sides. I would have loved to have got some gripping dialogue between Kirk and the Romulan or at least see some more serious discussion between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Along this line of thought, the ending is really action packed but felt a little out of place for Star Trek. As it is this book feels more like the Star Trek movies than the show with a greater emphasis on humor and action than on dialogue and character.

Reading this book it is clear that Duane is a cut above other Star Trek writers. Her Plotting is solid, she has consistent sub plots that reoccur, and makes this book feel really complete as nothing is introduced for no reason. Without the Star Trek license this would still be a solid Sci Fi adventure.

Overall this is a great Sci-Fi adventure with plenty of humor and some food for thought stemming from the Romulan characters. The only real downside is that the Enterprise crew aren’t as compelling as they could be. Regardless, any fan of the Original series should check this book out. show less

Some of the only well-written Star Trek novels are by Diane Duane. She includes plenty of non-hominid aliens (this story guest-stars a Horta ensign!), which is something the original series never was able to do and most authors just don't bother with. She gets the dialogue, well-rounded characters (including secondary/guest-stars), technobabble, action shapes, and evocative imagery just right. I've said before: "This is what Star Trek would be like, if it were good."