Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Infinity's Prism [Paperback]

 

 

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When I reviewed the sister book of "Infinity's Prism", "Echoes and Refractions", I was far from flattering. I recommended it to not even be read but by only the most merciful and die-hard of Trek fans. I had my reasons, though: The book was awful; it was boring and unimaginative to both Star Trek and alternate history fans.

With that in mind, THIS book is the exact opposite. I wrote in my "E and R" review that it carried all the trademark flaws of alternate history, but not only does "IP" lack these flaws, it also has (in all three stories) another positive alternative history quality that I had forgotten until just now: It ends with an indefinite conclusion. Why is that a positive quality? Because Star Trek (hey, history in general) doesn't have a finite ending. There is no "The End" or "...and they lived happily ever after...in space." because it's a tale that is meant to go on and on.

So needless to say, the stories were good, but for those of you still undecided, I'm gonna give you a little taste of what to expect.

While "A Less Perfect Union" was probably my least favourite story in this anthology, it was still a gem. To be fair, one of the reasons I didn't like it so much as the other two stories was probably because this one is based mostly on "Enterprise" and "The Original Series", which I have seen the least of the five Trek series.

Near the end of Enterprise's run they had an encounter with an Earth isolationist group called Terra Prime, intent on routing all non-humans from Earth space, and restricting Earth's stellar movements to commercial rather than exploratory goals. In "our" history, this group was stopped and Earth formed a long-lasting alliance with several different alien races, but in this history, Terra Prime's plan succeeded and we see what the Alpha Quadrant is like in James T. Kirk's early years aboard the USS Enterprise.

It's a much different place to boldly go, while there is no open conflict between Star Fleet and non-humans, Earth is filled with people still blatantly xenophobic, and when news gets out that Terran leaders are working on plans for a new Earth-Aliens alliance, it does not sit well.

Despite this darker toned Star Fleet, the story flows smoothly, taking the good and bad in and feeding it out to paint a realistic picture of a galaxy with an Earthless Federation. And the author, William Leisner, seems to know what changes to make in well-known characters, and what to keep the same. Kirk, for example, is still a courageous, intelligent, womanizing man-of-action, but here carries a surprising grudge against a familiar race.

It would be interesting to see what this timeline would be like come Jean-Luc Picard's time.

James Swallow's Trek novella, "Seeds of Dissent" is a clever combination of Trekkie what-if and the most popular alternate history question: What if Hitler Had Won? But here, Swallow replaces Hitler with his later Star Trek equivalent, Khan Noonien Singh, so if you thought Leisner's Earth-only Star Fleet was a cause for despair, you might very well scream at a universe where Khan conquered the world.

This Star Fleet more resembles The Mirror Universe than the one we know, where augmented soldiers bred for success and loyalty to "The Khan" scour the galaxy for what they deem to be inferior and upstart races, forcing them to either join their "alliance" or die. And at the head of our story is the cool, calculating visage of Julian Bashir, here the captain or Princeps of the warship "Defiance."

Looking back at this story, I can almost laugh. The parallels between Khan and Hitler are oh so subtly hidden, but obvious once found; the author doesn't even mention the latter of the two dictators. And the alternate versions of the different characters could cause jaws to drop, and seconds later those jaws would close and then say, "You know, I could actually see that!" I won't give anything really big away, except for one thing, and only because it's told early in the story:

Kira and Gul Dukat from "Deep Space Nine" are a couple here. A couple. That is all.


As good as those two were though, the whole reason I bought this anthology (and I will say that said reason is still justified) was for the second novella, this one written by Christopher L. Bennett and centered around "Voyager."

In this universe, a mere change of words on Chakotay's part results in the near destruction of Voyager, and her crew now find themselves having to confront the fear they hoped would never become reality: that they would be stuck in the Delta Quadrant forever.

Just like Leisner's "ALPU", Bennett does a good job capturing the pros and cons of the situation and its impact on the different crewmembers. He also points out some of the mistakes Captain Janeway made in her command, mistakes that were ignored in favour of Voyager getting home, but come back to haunt her here.

I will not lie; there are some things here that some readers will not like. In fact, there's one statement made by Janeway near the end that still leaves me scratching my head, but it's forgivable, this one can easily make up for it. So if you are a Voyager fan, and have a few what-if questions yourself, I would strongly recommend this book, and if you happen to read the other two stories and like them, too, well, terrific.

The only thing I can think of that this book has and "Echoes and Refractions" (I'm starting to think it should have been called "Deaf and Dull") is "The Next Generation." While two of "E and R" 's stories are strongly TNG based, the only mention of in "IP" is in Swallow's "Seeds" where an augmented Picard is mentioned but never seen. Too bad, but I can live with it.

So yeah, not much more to say that I haven't already said. Live long and prosper, and if you do happen do buy and read "Echoes and Refractions"...how about "Today is a good day to die."?

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