By Sam Christopher
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)
This is a review of three books that contain one story. All appear under the Star Trek: Destiny title. The first book is Gods of Night, the second Mere Mortals, and the third Lost Souls. It is the story of four starship captains who band together to save the Federation from the onslaught of the Borg. Another title for this series could be “How Ericka Hernandez Saved Humanity”. Trekkies (Trekkers, Trek-fans, whatever you want to call us) will certainly remember Hernandez as the captain of the NX-02 Columbia from the tv show Enterprise. I know, I know, one would think she might be a couple centuries too old to be fighting the Borg alongside the likes of Jean-Luc Picard and William Riker, not to mention Captain Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine, but that kind of linear thinking will get you nowhere fast in the Star Trek Universe.
Gods of Night introduces us to a mystery: How did the NX-02 Columbia, a ship with no better than Warp 5 capability, come to crash-land on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant? First, we are shown the event of Jadzia Dax and Benjamin Sisko finding the wreck in 2373 but not having the time to investigate fully, then the story jumps ahead a decade to the new Dax, Ezri, as starship captain committing her crew to a more detailed analysis. Oh, and by the way, there’s also the small matter of the Borg invasion fleet that is hell-bent on slaughtering every being and every world in the Federation. Interspersed with the doom and gloom of the invasion are little side-trips author Mack takes the reader on back to the 22nd Century, where we learn how the Columbia came to meet the mysterious and xenophobic Caeliar, a meeting that would have a most profound impact on the entire galaxy. Side-note: One of the Caeliar is named Lerxst, which is a nickname of Rush singer Geddy Lee. I wondered if it wasn’t some weird accident at the time but I have since learned that David Mack is a huge Rush fan. (Okay, that may not be fair. The guy does love Rush but I haven’t seen him and have no idea how “huge” he is. He could be rail-thin and five-foot-nothin’ for all I know.) Funny thing is, knowing that it’s hard not to think of this trilogy in terms of the epic songs the band used to do, like 2112 and Hemispheres.
Mere Mortals shows us more of the aftermath of the humans’ first ill-fated “interaction” with the Caeliar, as well as more of the Federation’s battle for survival with the Borg. The Enterprise and Aventine meet at the Azure Nebula, which appears to hold the key to the Borg’s travel into the Alpha Quadrant and attempt to ascertain the Collective’s route (there are many subspace tunnels that intersect there). Meanwhile, the President of the Federation is meeting with the representatives of the other surrounding territories in an attempt to gain ships and allies in the fight ahead. Also, there is the curious case of the USS Titan. Too far away to affect the outcome of the “Borg War”, it is instead investigating a strangely hidden world and sun. Making contact with the people of this world, they will discover what the crew of the Columbia found two centuries earlier. More, they will find a starship captain ascended nigh onto godhood.
Lost Souls is the story of another “tribe” of Caeliar, a group that was lost in a great disaster (read Gods of Night) and fell prey to the demons of fear and weakness. It is also the tale of the climactic final (and I do mean final) battle with the Borg. The Collective is shown as it began and a unique solution is tendered and accepted.
I know this is the most skeletal of discussions, but these books really need to be read. Trekkies will love them because they’re Star Trek, and even beyond the main story they give some insight to the continuing development of the lives of the characters we have come to know and love (yes, yes, I’ve even gotten to where I like Riker and Trois… better, anyway), but sf fans of all stripes should be able to get a great story out of the books. It is just an epic saga that moves from one mystery to the next until it shows how they all coalesce to form something both tragic and wonderful, along with a glimpse, however fleeting, of something even grander beyond the horizon. The only blemish in this entire 1300-page odyssey is that I just can’t believe that four Hirogen can just waltz through the Enterprise or the Aventine like that. I just thought that was so lame. Author Mack almost saved it but it was still… just lame. And, worse, completely unnecessary to the story. I almost deducted a quarter point for that sequence alone, but then he used an analogy given to him in a random conversation with the real-life Lerxst and that was enough to overcome this one misstep in an otherwise magnificent story. Trust me, even if you already know what happened to the Borg (as I did because I had already read ST: Voyager: Full Circle) this really is all about the journey.
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