The Sorrows of Empire

The Sorrows of Empire
© 2009 David Mack
464 pages

In the original series episode "Mirror, Mirror",  Star Trek heroes Kirk,McCoy Uhura, and Scotty inadvertently changed places with their counterparts in a mirror universe, alter egos who were agents of a galactic empire whose standard operating procedures tended more toward murder than peaceful negotiation. Surviving only by pretending to be imperial officers, the four managed to escaped back to their own universe -- but not before leaving an impact on the mirror universe's Mr. Spock, who was tantalized by the vision of a peaceful republic, governed by men of outstanding decency.   Convinced that his empire is rotting from within, being destined for destruction and a dark age, Spock decides to save it by effecting a coup and offering it a saving vision.  The Sorrows of Empire is a masterful introduction to the Mirror Universe books.

The Mirror Universe as seen in the original series and later in Deep Space Nine are worlds apart; in one, humans control a galactic empire; in the other, they are rebels persecuted by the Klingon-Cardassian alliance.   The Sorrows of Empire links the two together, delivering the story of how the Terran Empire came to be defeated in battle, and the humans turned from rulers to slaves. But whereas Deep Space Nine's  take was utterly cynical, advancing the perception that peace and goodwill cannot withstand against tyranny and malice,  Sorrows gives a different interpretation.  Through stages, and aided immeasurably by his soon-to-be-deceased-superior's secret weapon,  Spock rises to power -- first seizing the Enterprise, then building respect and assuming command of Starfleet, then finally eliminating the Empress herself -- and then engages on a long-term plan of Seldonian ambition.  The Empire is destined to fall,  democratic reforms or not -- so he arranges for an intentional defeat of the Empire, done in such a way that will simultaneously undermine its enemies and plant the seeds for the creation of a second Republic -- the realization of the other universe's dream-Federation.

The Sorrows of Empire is impressively executed;  while the Mirror Universe tends toward kitsch, the gratuitous violence and general vulgarity displayed in the Deep Space Nine episodes is absent altogether. Because so much time passes through the plot,  Trek fans will see it mature through several Trek episodes and a few movies. References to the greater universe abound in number, and range from the subtle to the obvious;  only the nerdiest could spot Lieutenent Xon, from the abandoned Star Trek: Phase 2,  but the many connections made to other Trek novels make a superb standalone novel even better. Not only does Sorrows integrate a lot of canon material into its narrative, but there are tie-ins to Trek literature as well, like the Vanguard Project. David Mack's arrangements of plot and characters succeed, too; despite the abundance of minor characters, most of whom are familiar, the tale never loses focus on Spock and his dream.

Although the logical Spock may be confused with the counterpart we know and love, his differences between our universe's Spock go beyond the goatee. The sheer weight of empire molds his character in ways Trek fans wouldn't expect, but  his efforts to avoid becoming the monster he's trying to destroy must be appreciated. Spock is tortured by desiring morality while at the same time having make hard choices, rather like Sisko in "In the Pale Moonlight".

On all accounts, Sorrows of Empire enthralls.

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon
© 1929 Dashiell Hammeett
217 pages

"You have always, I must say, a smooth explanation ready."

"What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?” 

A beautiful woman whose life is in danger; a streetwise and world-worn private eye who will take on a globe-trotting criminal conspiracy to rescue her,  and a string of murders that implicates them both:   detective novels don't get more archetypal than this.  The Maltese Falcon is the original hardboiled detective story, and despite being nearly ninety years old it ages splendidly.

Sam Spade is a private investigator who is tasked with assisting a damsel in distress, but when his partner is knocked off on the first night of the investigation, and Spade's only clue to the woman's distress killed that same night, things get complicated fast. The police want to pin both murders on Spade, and just for kicks there are gunmen following him around. Despite initially giving Sam a line about being stalked by a sister's boy friend, Miss Damsel is involved in a high-stakes heirloom theft that will deliver either fortune or death to all concerned.

Granted, when I started reading this I was in the mood for a vintage detective novel, so my delight in reading it had a head start. Even so, I can't imagine not being impressed with the language and style employed here. Considering that this first debuted in a magazine, it's hard to believe that publishers gave Hammett  room to describe actions like rolling a cigarette with such articulation, but these sprinkled little diversions are like a pocket square;  they're small, but add enormous aesthetic appeal.   The characters are vivid, popping out in both appearance and personality.  The plot itself is a tangled whodunit that ultimately sees everyone a little frustrated, but displays that for all his cynicism, Spade is still driven by his own  very firm set of morality.  The Maltese Falcon is stylish, fast, and gloriously fun.

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The Age of Steam

A Brief History of the Age of Steam
© 2007 Thomas Crump
288 pages

For most of human history, transportation over land has been prohibitively expensive, limited to highly lucrative goods like silk. Trade grew from the rivers, as did civilization. But in the 18th and 19th century, the advent of industrial technologies, often utilizing steam,  radically transformed society. Not only did wood- and coal-fired engines free factories from the need to locate  beside rivers that powered watermills, but the advent of steam transportation knit cities across the landscape together, creating boundless opportunities for economic expansion. A Brief History of the Age of Steam focuses mostly on steam transportation,  first on boats and then on the rails.  Not surprisingly for an author who also penned A Brief History of Science, it places a lot of emphasis on technical details, like the mechanical workings of the steam engine.  As a rail history, it doesn't compare well to Christian Wolmar's work, since he incorporates both social and technical aspects, but it's a rare history of river steamboats and the rise of oceanic steamers.  A strong point is the close relationship between railroads and imperialism, which he develops.  Even though the writing focuses more on mechanical operations than the human element, the history reads well.  I'm still on the lookout for a naval history of steam transport, however.

F

This week: TBR progress

This past week I was positively underwhelmed by The Bishop in the West Wing, a mystery novel by Andrew Greeley, a Catholic priest.  I’d hoped the novelty of a priest writing about a priest solving mysteries could make for an interesting read, but as with other Greeley novels I've tried, I just couldn't get into it.  I finished this one because it was short, the book is being discarded, and the plot unfolded in the White House.  Essentially the President is an Irish Bill Clinton from Chicago, who is being plagued by a poltergeist and invites his buddy from the old days, now a bishop serving the cardinal of Chicago, to drive it away.  Blackie Ryan, the lead, doesn't do a lot of sleuthing; he just spends several days hanging around the White House while the president eats and has mock-abrasive arguments with his precocious teenage daughters, until eventually Ryan decides the poltergeist is being generated by the malicious lady vice-president.

Well, OK then.   This week I’ll be reading a history of steam transportation that I bought a couple of years ago pursuing an interest in steamships.   It’s a to-be-read extra. I’m also getting back into Richard Fortey’s Earth, a geological history of the planet.

Drink

Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol
© 2008 Ian Gately
546 pages

"We should thank God for beer and burgundy by not drinking too much of them." 

- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

A substance that a third of the world institutionalizes as a religious sacrament and another third expressly forbids  on religious grounds is one to be reckoned with. Since time immemorial, humans have been getting themselves sloshed in one way or another, putting their ingenious minds to work creating alcoholic beverages from whatever plants were available.  Drink is a sweeping history of the potent brew in its many forms, created and consumed by every culture and on nearly every continent.  It's a social history of a sociable subject -- for when people drink, they rarely do so alone. 

Alcohol's roots extend to the beginnings of civilization itself;  where there were grains, there was booze. Wheat rendered beer and rice, sake, and both beverages were the staple of many civilizations' diets. This owes not only to the human race's fondness for getting itself knackered,  but to the fact that bacteria-killing alcoholic content made beer a safer source of water than water itself.  Processing wheat products into potable beverages extended their lives, and sometimes gave people an edge, especially as distillation created drinks with long shelf lives. 

Beyond economic contributions, the communal consumption of alcohol created social ties as well. Not only was wine considered a doorway to inspiration from the muses -- a place later assumed by absinthe -- but drinking it together at feasts loosened tongues and allowed for more honest conversation. Not for nothing did the Romans say "in wine, there is truth.”   Not that true and alcohol were steady partners; mead-drinking also went hand and hand with vigorous boasting about deeds in battle. 

Abuse of alcohol has existed since  its cultivation,  something it lends itself to in affording an escape. Early industrial mill workers steeled themselves with ale to ensure the day, and the Romans were absolutely riotous. While the prevailing  view expressed by people throughout the book is that alcohol is an exquisite complement to life, in moderation,  in view of its power some have attempted to ban it altogether. Islam, for instance, forbids it, and has for centuries. Far less successful was the west's own attempt at prohibition, which led to the rise of organized crime and contempt for government.  

Drink, like those who have imbibed a bit too much, is outstandingly ambitious in trying to render a comprehensive history of alcohol and culture. While he's most thorough covering  the western world,   recurring chapters also address alcohol in China,  Japan, the middle east, and South America.  A 'cultural' history verges on the literal, as Gately examines alcohol's depiction and relationship with art, literature, and the movies.  Yet for all the ground to be covered, Gately does rather well;   the book's bar is well-stocked with stories, and if one doesn't suit your taste another setting and different subject are right behind it.

Related:

A History of the World in Six Glasses, Tom Standage.  A history of the world as told over wine, beer,  coffee, tea, rum, and Coca-Cola.. 

To Reign in Hell (Rise and Fall of KHAAAAAAAAAAN #3)

To Reign in Hell: the Exile of Khan Noonien Singh
©  2006 Greg Cox
384 pages

"No! This is not the end!  Khan Noonien Singh will never surrender, not to this accursed planet and not to the treacherous vagaries of fate. Hear me now! I shall show you that the superior man never bends before the cruelties of fate, no matter how hopeless the odds. Let this entire planet die a slow and miserable death. Let Kirk and Starfleet forget us entirely. I will keep you and the rest of my people alive -- this I swear upon my sacred honor."
He shook his fist at the dust-shrouded sky.
"Do you hear me, Kirk? I will survive!"   p. 269

Khan Noonien Singh is the most outstanding individual villain in all of Trek lore, a man who took from Kirk his dearest blood. An escaped superman from Earth's violent past, Khan failed in attempts to take over the world and then the USS Enterprise before Kirk exiled him to a harsh planet in the Mutara Sector to build his own civilization. Such a dream wasn't to be, however, as only months into exile astronomical phenomena destroyed the planet's chances of sustaining life for very long.   His last hope wrecked, his people dying,  a man bred to be an emperor was left to preside over nothing more than the apocalypse. To Reign in Hell is an exceptional tie-in to "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan,  and an expert conclusion to the Khan trilogy, depicting the demise of a dream and the descent of a man into madness.

The story picks up a year after the events of The Wrath of Khan.  Kirk and his comrades have decided to pay a visit to the hellhole that was Khan's world in order to find out what went wrong;  what happened to make the colony fail so catastrophically, and why did Khan blame a man who had been a  model of mercy towards him?  Soon after landing, Kirk and company discover the underground shelters that Khan and his people fled to when the surface was exposed to the blistering sun and fierce winds that turned grasslands into desert. Within the caverns are historical records, provided by the Starfleet historian who was seduced by Khan and joined him in exile -- Marla McGivers. The novel unfolds as Kirk delves in, and the story that Cox builds works wonderfully to iron out "Space Seed" and TWOK's wrinkles.

To Reign in Hell performs admirably in every aspect; as piece connecting two different Trek stories, as a thriller in its own right, and as the finale of Khan. Khan has never been as human, nor as remotely sympathetic, as he is here. He has no one to villainize, he has only his hopes and ambition, those dreams of creating a world for his people, and it is the environment that renders him a victim. He is doubly human in proving to genuinely love the historian who he took as a wife, Marla; perhaps because the story is told in her voice,  readers are given a more tender appreciation of his character. Certainly the warlord is still there -- he is called the Tyrant by some on the planet -- but here we see aspects of him, like that of a loving spouse, that make him even more fascinating.  It's even possible to feel sorry for him, left to a world washed over in violent storms, with starvation constantly haunting him.  Ultimately the book closes in hope, at least for Kirk -- who discovers in the ruins one last chance to do good by Khan's people.

Thank You For Smoking

Thank You for Smoking
© 1994 Christopher Buckley
272 pages

Nick Naylor may be one of the most hated men in America, because his job is to serve as the legal guardian and advocate of Big Tobacco –and he is very, very good at his job. Nick Naylor is a man who can be invited onto Oprah, and turn an ambush with a teenage cancer patient into a triumph for his own side.   Thank You For Smoking is a story of business intrigue as Naylor  wrestles victory from looming defeat, only to  be subjected to cold-blooded revenge.  A work of political satire, it bloodies noses all around.

 Naylor, like most modern protagonists, is not the model hero; there are few admirable things about him, other than his devotion to his son’s education. That education is financed by him lying through his teeth on national television on a daily basis, sure, but it’s impressive lying.  Although he does his part to prepare, staying abreast of medical reports and the like, most of his finessing the truth is impromptu. His fleet-footedness is impressive, even if he is a scoundrel with the discretion of a randy chimp. Eventually he has his private moment of reckoning, a bit of soul-searching that ends the novel.

The in-between is fun, a look into the lifestyle of the rich and infamous. This is a dark comedy,  which would be more comedic than dark were it not for the main character’s job occupation. He meets with a few friends every week for lunch, companions who represent the alcohol and firearms lobbies. Their tongue-in-cheek name for themselves is the MOD squad – for they are the merchants of death. Fun with names is a common trope here; Nick refers to nicotine, of course, and a stop-smoking group uses the acronym NOMAS, which is ‘no more’ for Spanish speakers.  If characters take themselves seriously, it is only in a pompous way that makes them easier targets for the reader to laugh at. Even an attempt at murder involves worldplay. The laughter stops after Nick is threatened with death on live TV, and then assaulted after he cheerfully loses his security detail.  The book quickly becomes a thriller at that point.

 Thank You for Smoking is not nearly as depressing as They Eat Puppies, Don't They?, and the characters offer much less room for melancholy. They're an awful bunch, but have their moments. It's a fast read, and I enjoyed the fact that while Buckley doesn't shy away from sinister goings-on within the camp of big tobacco, he doesn't take sides with the neo-Puritans who blame tobacco for every medical catastrophe under the sun, and use shame-based advertising to make smokers feel like rapists who simultaneously carry the Black Death.

Altogether it's a fun read.