A Bookclub of Two
My buddy Matt and I recently decided to start a little Star Trek book club. Well, Matt suggested it. He knows both of us have invested a lot in obtaining many an unread Star Trek novel. He suggested we read our way through some of the many Star Trek novels out there and compare notes along the way.
It was kismet. I’d recently started reading the first original Star Trek novel to released since Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Vonda N. McIntyre’s The Entropy Effect, seemed a good place to start.
He agreed and finished it in a couple of days. I had to restart it as my memory of certain plot points was a bit fuzzy. I finished it on vacation over 10 days. Most of it in the pool on my Kindle.
Minor spoilers ahead. Actually, let’s call this a spoiler-friendly retrospective. The book was published 45 years ago in 1981, so we’ve hopefully given everyone plenty of time.
Historical Ground
McIntyre graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1970 and studied genetics there as a postgraduate until ending her studies in 1971. All of that knowledge is showcased in Entropy.
Published in June 1981, The Entropy Effect is number two in the Pocket Books Star Trek novel series. The first was Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture novelization.
There had been Star Trek books before this, including James Blish’s adaptations of television episodes, photo novels, and original novels from Bantam Books. But the Pocket Books series represented a new direction for Star Trek fiction. Rather than simply adapting stories we’d already seen, there was now an opportunity to explore new adventures and expand the universe.
Vonda N. McIntyre was the first Star Trek novelist chosen for this new era.
She was not an unknown author. When she was tapped to write this book she had already won two Nebula Awards and a Hugo Award for her novel Dreamsnake. By 1981, she was already a well established name in science fiction.
Editor and Founder of the Timescape book series at Pocket Books, David Hartwell, knew she was a longtime fan of the original series. He trusted her to treat the characters with respect and knew the science would be sound given McIntyre’s background.
McIntyre had written Star Trek screenplays years earlier, when she was just 18. One of those scripts eventually became the foundation for The Entropy Effect.
This gal knew her stuff.
And know this: McIntyre is treading in waters entirely unexplored post The Motion Picture. She had the arduous task of establishing what the next era of Star Trek novels could be–while writing characters we’ve known for years.
Synopsis of The Entropy Effect (spoilers ahead)
While investigating a strange spatial anomaly, the Enterprise takes aboard Dr. Georges Mordreaux, a brilliant theoretical physicist and convicted murderer. Mordreaux also happens to be a former university mentor of Spock.
Things take a rather unexpected turn when an apparent future version of Mordreaux materializes on the bridge and murders Captain Kirk and security officer Mandala Flynn.
Yep, in her first outing she went and killed off the Captain.
It’s a gutsy way to get a Star Trek novel underway–it’s also a relatively safe gamble. We all know we’re not permanently losing the captain in chapter two of a Star Trek novel. What it does do is allow McIntyre to explore what happens to the Enterprise crew when their captain is suddenly gone.
Spock takes center stage as the Enterprise crew attempt to understand what has happened.
Meanwhile, Mordreaux’s experiments have created a temporal catastrophe, with the very fabric of spacetime deteriorating and the universe facing eventual destruction.
Who’s Who, What’s What, and When?
The plot is complex and takes a while to get going. McIntyre has a considerable amount of character backstory to establish before the real adventure gets underway. Her knowledge of quantum physics seems well rehearsed, and she weaves an ambitious time-travel story that doesn’t conveniently solve itself on the first attempt to correct the actions of a time traveler.
At the time, Time Travel in Trek had not yet become the trope it is today.
Though time-travel stories do have an inherent problem. The writer can sometimes get lost in their own logic (no pun intended). There’s a delicate balance between what changes when a timeline is altered and what remains when it’s restored. When the writer struggles to keep those rules straight, so does the reader.
McIntyre clearly understands the original series characters, but occasionally struggles to make their dialogue sound natural. You can tell she’s attempting to write them fresh and give them room to develop, but she leans heavily on the sensibilities of TOS. (I mean, who wouldn’t? What else was there?) Her creativity, while appreciated can feel a little off base–particularly when in the head of a given character (eg. Sulu and his lack of confidence in his abilities).
There’s a bit of a disconnect between the characters as portrayed in the original series and the more mature versions we see in The Motion Picture.
Robert Wise’s direction of the Motion Picture’s screenplay gives Kirk and Spock (and other main characters) considerably more depth and introspection. The transition from television to film was more than a change in uniforms. Our crew had grown older and… wiser.
McIntyre had the challenge of trying to bridge those two worlds. (I can’t help it. The puns just keep coming.)
Spock, however, is written spot on. Perhaps this is the character McIntyre most related to–and understood best. His relationship with Mordreaux, his former mentor, is effective and plausible. There’s a nice personal dimension to their relationship that gives the scientific mystery some weight.
Mordreaux is an interesting character in his own right. I suspect “Mordreaux” is an intentional nod to H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. The Mordreaux character is certainly something of a mad scientist.
McCoy and Sulu, on the other hand, occasionally get dialogue that feels forced. Some of the crew’s reactions to Kirk’s death also seem a little overdone. There’s a considerable amount of sobbing and crying from McCoy and others that doesn’t quite match how I think these characters would have been portrayed in TOS or the subsequent films. Perhaps that’s intentional–to contrast their outward emotional responses with Spock’s much more internal struggle, but it doesn’t always work for me–but many of those reactions are forgivable given she’s forging new metal here.
And then there’s Scotty.
For the love of all things Starfleet, why must we endure phonetic Scottish dialogue? McIntyre wasn’t the first to write him this way and wasn’t the last.
For gods sakes! We know what Scotty sounds like. We’ve been listening to him for years. Just identify who’s speaking and let the reader supply the accent. We don’t need to decipher a Scottish phonetic spelling every time he opens his mouth. (My fellow book club member had the same complaint.)
Vonda, rest your soul, we know. 😉
The relationship between Sulu and Mandala Flynn is another distraction. Their romance reads more like something lifted from a romance novel than a Star Trek adventure. It’s a turnoff and one of the weaker elements of the book.
Sulu’s eventual request for a transfer to a fighter vessel (also weird for Trek) and Kirk’s field promotion offer provide an interesting subplot, but the romance itself never really worked for me.
One of my last criticisms is McIntyre’s tendency to repeat herself.
She has an amazing vocabulary and is clearly an intelligent, accomplished writer. Though… sometimes she’ll make a point and then proceed to explain essentially the same thing in the following paragraph. She’s spoon-feeding the reader to ensure they’ve understood what she’s just told us. She expertly finds different ways to express the same thought–and it gets a little distracting when you are reading. Catch my drift?
The Legacy of Entropy
Despite my criticisms, The Entropy Effect has an engaging, well-executed plot, and a fascinating legacy.
The novel is credited with introducing Hikaru as Sulu’s given name and Nyota as Uhura’s given name. Both would become part of the official Star Trek universe.
That’s a pretty significant contribution, but there’s more!
McIntyre was helping establish a new direction for Star Trek fiction. She wasn’t retelling an episode or adapting a film. She was taking familiar characters and giving them an entirely new adventure. She introduced new scientific ideas, new relationships, and consequences that went beyond the usual television format.
There’s a lot to appreciate here.
Magic Carpet Ride
The Entropy Effect is really a great start to the next generation of Star Trek novels that began in 1981. McIntyre had a monumental task in getting this series off the ground. She was helping establish a new direction for Star Trek fiction, and there was a lot riding on how well these early books were received. If this one hadn’t sold well, we might not have had all those wonderful novels that followed.
Yes, the plot takes its time getting underway, some of the dialogue is forced, the romance is distracting, and Vonda could stand to trust her readers a little more.
But she demonstrates a more than competent understanding of scientific theory, human nature, and Vulcan and human physiology. She writes Spock particularly well and gives him a story that challenges him in ways we don’t often see. It’s an ambitious and scientifically adventurous outing.
Finally, the ending was decent. I wasn’t, however, particularly fond of the way the characters retain echoes of the alternate timeline, mostly in the form of bad dreams. It’s a familiar storytelling trope, and not one I particularly care for–but necessary to give the readers some satisfaction. The characters had invested so much of themselves in resolving the plot, having them forget entirely (once the timeline is corrected) would be a disservice to the reader.
One last thing: I’m also happy to report that Sulu’s mustache didn’t stick around. I absolutely love the original artwork courtesy Wayne Barlowe. It’s a piece of early Star Trek novel history! Featured on the original Timescape cover is a hippy Sulu with a long mustache. It’s super disappointing decades later someone replaces it with a canned image of Spock screaming out in pain. I’ll take mustachioed Sulu over tortured Spock any day.
And so I give The Entropy Effect 4 stars. It retains the 4th star simply because even with its proverbial warts, Vonda accomplished something great here. It’s a worthwhile read to really grasp Star Trek’s history in print and beyond.