| Author: Anthology | Series: Star Trek: Mirror Universe - Obsidian Alliances |
| Rating: 7.5 (Jeremy's Scale) | Reviewer: Jeremy |
| Genre: SciFi | Publisher:Simon & Schuster |
| Pages: 438 | Orig Pub Date: March, 2007 |
| Binding: Paperback | Cover Illus.: Tom Hallman |
Three novellas take us to various corners of the Mirror Universe and it's Terran Rebellian against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. Enjoy some new characters and the return of some old favorites
My latest review is Star Trek: Mirror Universe – Obsidian Alliances. The book features the novellas “The Mirror-Scaled Serpent” by Keith R.A. DeCandido, “Cutting Ties” by Peter David, and “Saturn’s Children” by Sarah Shaw.
As the name implies, all three stores are set in the Star Trek Mirror parallel universe. This universe, a cruel and dark version of the Star Trek universe, was first seen in the Star Trek Episode “Mirror, Mirror”. Deep Space 9 returned us to the universe a number of times.
In this book, we get a look at the mirror Voyager crew, as they encounter Kes and Neelix from the “real” universe. “Cutting Ties” gives us the first look at the mirror universe versions of the ‘New Frontiers” crew. “Saturn’s Children” returns us to the saga of Intendant Kira, Smiley, Bashir, and the other Deep Space Nine characters.
I really enjoyed all three of the novellas. This was my first read of Keith R.A. DeCandido’s material. All of his characters were delightfully wicked. I’m not sure that anyone from that universe had any redeeming qualities. The characters I was rooting for were Kes and Neelix to be able to escape from there and return home. Supervisor B’Elanna was delightfully hedonistic and brutal, even as she loathed her ‘half-breed’ Klingon status. Chakotay was the captain of the rebel vessel Voyager, with Tuvok as second officer. Harry Kim was a psychotic security expert or interrogator with a death wish upon as many Klingons as he could get his hands on. By the time the story ended, that was a lot of them. Seska betrayed the Alliance to join the rebellion and had her own agenda even now. Kate Janeway was a fiery engineer who also had her own agenda. This story was a whole lot of gleefully reading of bad things happening to bad people. For me that was a lot of the fun, as there weren’t many in the story that didn’t deserve what came to them. Almost everyone got some measure of what they had coming to them. The rebels aboard Voyager weren’t much better than the Alliance that they were fighting. So, no happy endings (and how can you really have a happy ending in the mirror universe) but this serves as a great springboard for further stories, as Kes’s telepathy has major implications for the universe.
DeCandido did an outstanding job with the characters. He managed to blend some of those character traits that made the characters so recognizable on the TV show, and twist them in that mirror universe fashion. I’ve intended to read some of his work for quite awhile to see what he brings to the Star Trek table. I think that he brings characters, dialogue, and engaging plot that is worthy of my personal upper tier of Star Trek writers. I certainly look forward to reading more of his work to see if he does rise up there with, William Shatner/Judith and Garfield-Reeves-Stevens, Diane Duane, Peter David, and a couple others. Room in my penthouse of Star Trek writing may be getting a bit more crowded, and I personally am very pleased by that.
Speaking of Peter David he wrote “Cutting Ties”. I always like his work and this story had its own fascination. I’ve read only one “New Frontiers” novel, so I didn’t have a lot of preconceived notions about how the “real” characters should act. I didn’t need a solid baseline for Captain MacKenzie, although one previous well-written novel gave me a bit of one, to realize that ‘Muck’ was radically different. I liked that character. He was almost a 'Star Trek barbarian", or “Wulfgar meets Star Trek” if you’re an R.A. Salvatore person. “New Frontiers” focuses on a lot of never before seen Star Trek races. The Mirror version of course was no different, so it was refreshing to see a whole different angle of the universe. The mirror Romulans haven’t really been seen before, as they’re as reclusive in that universe as in the “TV universe”. But we get a look here. This story had a number of plot twists and turns, and it was exciting until the last page, as it wasn’t clear until the end how things would turn out. Don’t worry though, if you want some carnage, this is the mirror universe so you’ll get it.
“Saturn’s Children” by Sarah Shaw was the final story of the book. This story was her first professional fiction credit, having previously written fan fiction. I’ve seen some very talented fan fiction writers, and it’s nice to see someone go from fanfic to “professional”. She did a very good job with this story, and handled the characters very well. The Deep Space Nine crew is the most well fleshed out of the mirror characters from TV. Intendant Kira is perhaps the most prominent of all those characters. She’s devious, she’s conniving, she’s cruel, and hedonistic. That’s a pretty large character to take on, and Shaw did it very well. I could see Nana Visitor in my head as I read. She nailed that character, along with all the others. The Intendant had fallen on some hard times, but she’s always got a plan for turning things around. It was fun to watch that unfold. That’s a character that always “wins” in the end. She was the star of the show and I expected her to somehow rise out of the ashes with her typical flair. Miles “Smiley” O’Brien anchored the other half of the story. He was the most honorable, sympathetic character in the whole book. He was the hope for an honorable rebellion, fighting for a bright future. Zek (not the Grand Nagis of the Ferengi in this universe) and Julian Bashir represented the cruel, “the cure is not much better than the disease”, Alliance. Again, you can look for bad things to happen to bad people. One expects a collection of “dirty deeds done dirt cheap” in the mirror universe. Sarah Shaw lives very well in this universe. If this is her first professional venture, I look forward to many more.
In conclusion, this book represents the Mirror Universe very well in 3 stories. If you like the Mirror Universe you’ll like these stories, as they were written very vividly and capture all those elements that we love to hate among these bad, bad people. If you don’t like the Mirror Universe…give it another shot. And if you don’t like one story, there’s another one only 160 pages or so away. That’s the beauty of short stories/novellas.
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