The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - K is for Kirk!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge  is proving to be a lot of fun - we've been noodling around a lot of movies and TV shows so far...let's go a different direction with another of our semi-regular departments, one presided over by that notorious Batman villain and reading raconteur...

Bookworm's Book Club!

Yes, boys and girls, welcome to the Book Club edition of The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge. OK. Well, one of them anyway...yes, let's go with...

K is for Kirk!

Star Trek-Section 31: Cloak  by S.D. Perry 

Section 31 is a shadowy "black ops" organization hiding somewhere in the depths of Starfleet, operating from Jonathan Archer's time through Jean-Luc Picard's. It was introduced and featured in five episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; and then it was given more history with four episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. The idea of this group proved popular, so the conspiracies uncovered in the movies Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (featuring Kirk and crew) and Star Trek: Insurrection (featuring Picard & company) have been retconned into Section 31 plots. And before the episodes of ST: Enterprise aired, there was a four book Section 31 series released, one each for The Original Series (TOS), The Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space Nine (DS9), and Voyager (VOY). (And I just realized this review might be well-nigh incomprehensible to anyone not already versed in Star Trek lore...or Lore......)
    Ahem. Belay that digression, mister!
    Cloak is the TOS series entry, and it starts out as a derelict starship is found drifting by the Enterprise. Everyone on the derelict is dead, and it appears the ship's captain - an old friend of Kirk's - was the last to die, and may have murdered the penultimate victim. Marking this as a bigger conundrum - that next to last corpse is not listed as a crew member or passenger on the ship's logs...of course, Kirk seizes on this enigma like a dog with a bone, and together with his crew sets out to get to the bottom of this baffling mystery. At the same time, Spock and McCoy have subplots that firmly lock this book into continuity as occuring around the TOS episodes "The Enterprise Incident" and "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" (and yes, that is an episode title from the show) in Star Trek's third season. The rest of the usual suspects are around in support as Kirk finds romance and a cadre of scientists possibly working under the auspices of a rogue element in Starfleet. Can he uncover the rest of the conspiracy and restore the good name of his late pal?
    I first came upon S.D. Perry as the author of the six Resident Evil books from the early part of the 21st century. I enjoyed those books despite having never played the game up to that point, and I've since been pleased to find Ms. Perry stopping by fairly regularly in my reading in Gene Roddenberry's universe. This is a solid classic Trek adventure, with a good mystery, and our regulars well handled and speaking dialogue easy to "hear" (in the mind's ear) in the voices of the actors who played them. Because the opponent here is a shadow organization, there's not a lot of direct confrontation - but it's still a good yarn well told. As a part of a series, this is pretty standalone - but that's a result of the four books occurring across a couple of hundred years of Federation history, so they can be read singly or in any order. In any case - if you like to read stories set in the worlds of TV shows you watch, this is a safe bet. Check it out!

And til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!