The Eugenics Wars Vol. 2: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (Star Trek) [Hardcover]

Because Star Trek's writers chose to set the original series in a believable future scenario rather than creating a "galaxy far, far away" a la George Lucas, they wrote several episodes that dealt with what in the mid-1960s was still the future. Two of them, including "Assignment: Earth," involved time travel by Capt. Kirk and the USS Enterprise to the Sixties, while "Space Seed," by Carey Wilbur and Gene L. Coon, established the history of the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s.

Obviously, the writers of the episode had no idea that Star Trek would become such a long-lived franchise or that a feature film would be based on "Space Seed," yet Khan Noonien Singh -- one of Ricardo Montalban's most memorable roles -- and the events of his era loom large in the Trek scenario. So how does a writer of contemporary Trek -- whether it is on film or the printed page/e-book -- reconcile what was the 1960s "future" with our very real and stormy past in a believable way?

In my review of Volume One of Star Trek -- The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh I mentioned that author Greg Cox (Assignment: Eternity) chose to focus his two-volume series not on the captain and crew of the NCC-1701 (although they have a relevant "frame" storyline that acts as a launching pad for the "historical's" main narrative) but on the efforts of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln to save Earth from a major world war as the now-adult children of the Chrysalis Project fight among themselves for world supremacy.

Obviously, the outcome (Khan attempts to conquer world, fails, and is exiled with 90 or so of his genetically superior brothers and sisters aboard the advanced DY-100 sleeper ship SS Botany Bay, to be found 300 years later by Kirk's Enterprise in the Mutara Sector) is never in doubt. No, the fun in reading Cox's novels is in seeing how he manages to blend Star Trek's established history with our own recent past.

After a 23rd Century prologue that continues Kirk's now imperiled investigation of the Paragon Colony on the planet Sycorax (the Klingons have sabotaged the colony and Kirk must find a way to save the genetically engineered humans' skins, as well as those of his own landing party), Cox returns to the 20th Century, this time during the critical early 1990s, at a time when the post-Cold War era is marked by wars in the Balkans and elsewhere, the rise of the "militia" movement in the United States, and all the other events that made the Nineties "a strange, violent time," as Spock says in the original 1967 episode. Cox manages to convincingly portray the unconnected headlines (Revolutionary turmoil stirs in Peru; Ethnic hatred plunges Yugoslavia into civil war!) as part of the Star Trek universe's Eugenics Wars.

Volume Two is just as exciting and funny as the first installment of the series, with more action and inside jokes and references to the culture of the time period, other Trek histories (even Jonathan Archer gets a mention in this one), and even a knowing little homage to Ricardo Montalban's best known TV role ("Welcome, Miss Lincoln, to Chrysalis Island!").

Although Star Trek has pitted its various starships and space station crews against such formidable antagonists as the Klingons, the Romulans, the Borg, and the Xindi, few of them have had such an indelible persona as Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically engineered "superman" who, according to the Original Series episode "Space Seed" and the 1982 feature film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, ruled one-quarter of the Earth during a period called the Eugenics Wars. As Khan says to Chekov in Star Trek II, "On Earth, 200 years ago, I was a prince, with power over millions."

Whereas Greg Cox's first novel in a two-book cycle sets up the whole Khan backstory (he's the product of an ambitious attempt by brilliant but twisted scientists to "improve" humanity by tinkering with human DNA) by mixing real Earth history from 1974 to 1989 and Star Trek lore, Volume Two tells the story of Khan Noonien Singh at the very height of his power, his failed attempt to unite his genetically engineered brothers and sisters under his banner, and his ultimate exile aboard the DY-100 sleeper ship he will name, aptly, SS Botany Bay.

Although there is a thematically-linked "frame story" set during Capt. Kirk's first five-year mission about the Enterprise investigating a colony of genetically engineered humans that has applied for membership in the Federation, Cox's main storyline focuses on Agent Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln's attempts to stop Khan -- who had briefly worked them in their mission to save Earth from a third world war but then fell out with Seven and followed a darker path -- from blowing up the planet and destroying humanity. To tell this important story in the Star Trek mythos without having the 21st Century reader rolling his or her eyes and going, "Yeah, right. If the Eugenics Wars happened in the '90s, why didn't I hear about it on CNN?" Cox has incorporated the Balkan Wars, the rise of militias in the United States, the "Black Hawk Down" ambush in Mogadishu, and almost every major crisis in the mid-1990s and meshes it with Star Trek "history," which thankfully was not very detailed in the 1967 episode that introduced Khan.

As he does so well in Volume One, Cox blends an exciting Star Trek adventure -- full of references to established "facts" and characters from various movies and series episodes -- with real historical events that took place from 1992 to 1996. He slyly makes social commentary about our recent past and allusions to other famous movies and television series, including an homage to Ricardo Montalban's (Khan) most famous TV role.

The pace is fast and Cox's style is very engaging. He apparently loves Star Trek and its characters, and it clearly shows in this exciting and entertaining series of novels. I strongly recommend this two-book series to Star Trek fans and even non-fans.

What this book (and its predecessor) attempt to do is to reconcile the facts given in that episode (and its movie sequel) with the actual history of the previous decade. This might seem impossible, but in fact is managed quite nicely; the machinations of the genetically enhanced would-be world conquerors mostly happened behind the scenes, and was kept out of the mainstream press, in a way that seems far more plausible than might be expected. Further, the characterizations were handled well, and the writing style is excellent.

The only reason that I mark the book down a star is that the "frame story" format, in which the first chapter and the last detail a minor adventure of Kirk and the Enterprise, simply to provide a bit of "face time" for the major characters who some fans might feel cheated without, was basically irrelevant to the main story. I'd have preferred to see the main story told as a stand-alone, with the secondary story fleshed out and given its own book. As it stands, it was just a distraction.