Living Memory

[cornerofmadness]

Living Memory by Christopher L. Bennett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I want to start with saying in spite of the 3 star rating, this wasn't bad but it has a few issues and some of it was personal preference. For example, it's set between movie 1 and wrath of khan, not my favorite time period for these characters. I really don't want to see semi-retired Captain Kirk and the book didn't either.

My biggest problem was there were two entirely separate stories in this, not two subplots but two legit separate stories that don't really dovetail. The less interesting of them barely engages Kirk and McCoy (who is bizarrely trying to play matchmaker for Kirk) with an actually interesting idea but it is so divorced from the other plot (and the title) that it seems a shame it wasn't developed more by itself. A group of new Starfleet recruits who come from a planet that had bred them to be fast-developers meant only for war, a program abandoned decades before and they were recently brought out of cryo-sleep. So there's the whole ethical debate about their existence and the purpose of Starfleet in general and then comes a murder.

The other plot was also very interesting and a needed plot. It revolves around the original series episode where Uhura's memories were wiped out by Nomad. We know that she was retrained and it's never mentioned again. The rather improbably plot of this part of the book hinges on her forgotten life before Nomad. It was interesting to extrapolate on this deep violation of Uhura that has never been delved into before. I was disappointed by some of it (the idea she refused to see her family for nearly 2 decades because she can't remember them) but it could have been really engaging.

But it felt like there wasn't quite enough of either story to be more than a novella so they got rammed together even though they make no sense together. It was worth reading but it falls short of being memorable (ironic given the title)



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Comments

[under_the_silk_tree]

I'm sorry this one was a disappointment. I recently read Uhura's Song and it ended up being a bit of a disappointment as well. I have wanted to read some good Star Trek novels, but they seem like a very mixed bag.

[cornerofmadness]

I'll be honest in the case of most of the pro fan fic stuff, the stuff I read on AO3 tends to be better. This wasn't horrible but hell a month later I can barely remember it