THE ENTERPRISE VISITS A WORLD WHERE EVERYONE LOOKS LIKE THE DEVIL

 

Name: Devil World

Author: Gordon Eklund

Publication Date: 11/1979

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 153

Historian’s Note:  Some time before The Magicks of Megas-tu

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”       Lieutenant Commander Gregory           Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura              Lieutenant Kyle                Lieutenant Radly Marcus             Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov             Crewman Albert Schang          Crewman Doyle                      Crewman Mosley              Commodore Wilhelm Schang           Gilla Dupree        Dr. Faustus                Captain Jacob Kell         Dazi       Reni Bates                Many unnamed Danons

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase 13

Planets:  Heartland

My Spoiler filled summary and review: Decades before the Enterprise’s famous five-year mission, a Lt. Marcus was leading a landing party to aid the colonists of the planet Heartland.  Yet, when they arrived, the landing party discovered that all the colonists had gone hopelessly insane. 

In the present time, the crew of the Enterprise is enjoying some well-earned shore leave on Starbase 13. Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy are all enjoying a magic show performed by a Dr. Faustus.  Dr. McCoy is annoyed with Spock ruining all the illusions by logically explaining each time how they were done. Then the show gets weird, when Faustus decides to summon demons to his show.  Ugly demons start appearing left and right.  They don’t seem to hurt anybody, but they are ugly and that bothers McCoy.  Then a woman shows up wearing a mask like it is 2020 outside, and faints.  Everyone forgets about the demons, and they focus on helping the woman.

The lady's health is our primary concern

When they get her to the station’s sickbay, McCoy gets her stable and awake.  The woman is named Gilla Dupree.  Dupree is a religious nut whose weird dieting restrictions threaten her health, but she doesn’t care because she is only concerned for her next life in the reincarnation cycle.  For a religious nut, she is aware her views aren’t “sensible” and is oddly philosophical about it. She also is a famous artist with both Kirk and Spock being amongst her legions of fans.  Dupree is looking for Captain Kirk to help her find her missing father.

Kirk goes to talk with the Starbase 13 commander, Commodore Wilhelm Schang, who happens to have been Kirk’s former boss.  Kirk explains that situation about the famous artist, her father and this forbidden planet she wants to visit in order to find him.  Schang explains that her father is the infamous former Starfleet officer, Captain Joseph Kell.  Kell left Starfleet and went to live with the Klingons.  Kirk referred to him as “Kell the traitor.”  Schang says there is no evidence he ever gave them Starfleet secrets, so he was more of turncoat than outright traitor. Kirk is still committed to find him, and also investigate if the planet should still be under quarantine.  The quarantined planet, Heartland, has a native species known as the Danons.  At their prime the Danons once ruled half the galaxy and even visited Earth.  However, their star-spanned civilization declined and all that remained were a few hundred, all living in a single village.  They gave the Federation permission to set up the colony so there would be other intelligent life on the planet.  

Please make my son not so useless

Schang has one final request.  He confesses to Kirk that he is a deadbeat dad.  He never saw his son, Albert, while he was growing up and as a result, Albert is now useless.  He pulled strings to get his son into Starfleet Academy, however being useless and lazy he washes out after the first year and sent into the fleet as a mere crewman.  He wants Kirk to take him under his wing as his captain’s steward and make him less useless.  Kirk reluctantly agrees, and part of the comic relief of the rest of the book is Crewman Schang being annoying and whiney, while making a mess of his job.

So, the Enterprise takes off for its mission with an artistic religious nut and a useless Academy washout.  When they arrive, they try to make contact with the planet hoping Kell may still have some communication equipment with him.  They make contact but not with Kell, it turns out one of the original colonists managed to retain his sanity and was not picked up by Starfleet when it sent a ship here decades ago.  Kirk decides to lead a landing party and agrees, with some reluctancy, to take both Depree and Schang with him.  They beam down and meet up with the survivor, who is named Reni Bates.  The name matches the one Spock had found amongst the colonists missing after the rescue.  Bates claims to have seen Kell, and that the Danons cannot be trusted.  Bates is willing to take them to the Danons, if Kirk agrees not to believe anything that the Danons tell him.  Kirk humors him and they head on their way.

Trust only me!

  As they approach the Danon village Bates makes himself scarce.  The Danons all look like depictions of the devil in Earth’s Christianity.  They encounter Kell, who is a jerk and won’t give them or his daughter the time of day.  The Danon leader, Dazi, seems more friendly and even arranges a place for them to sleep during the night. Kirk and Dupree have a heart to heart.  Dupree is concerned for her father and Kirk is now in love with Dupree.  (I swear the only thing a beautiful female guest star needs to do is breathe and Kirk falls head over heels for them.) Spock also reports to Kirk that he can sense a disembodied presence, but he is unsure of its nature.

Dazi stops by to make sure they are doing okay and even enjoys a game of poker with the security personnel.  At one-point Dazi whispers something to Crewman Doyle.  The next morning Doyle is missing.  They later find him completely naked, and his memory totally wiped.  The once Starfleet Security Crewman has been reduced to a mental state of infancy.  They send him back to the ship.  Kirk goes to confront Kell and informs him that they are all leaving him included.  Dell doesn’t seem convinced.  Kirk leaves Dell’s hut with him and the landing party is surrounded by Danons.  They try to beam up only to discover that the Danons are blocking the transporter signal.

Spock decides to try to make mental contact with the presence.  The presence overwhelms Spock and for a moment Spock seems to have lost his mind.  McCoy confirms this is only temporary, but he needs to get him back to the ship.  The Danons allow this.

At this point Bates reappears.  He tells Captain Kirk the story of Danons.  He explains that their reign as a great galactic power ended when they crossed swords with a species called the Torgas.  The Torgas stripped them of their empire, forcing the Danons to retreat to just their homeworld, Heartland.  In their defense they built The Great Machine.  The GM had all Danon knowledge, and the late Danons had their consciousness to be absorbed by it.  It drove back their enemies, and the Danons became to worship their creation as a god.  They would even sacrifice most of the children to it leading to a decline in population.  Eventually all the young were sent to it which is why there are only a few hundred left. The GM then suddenly needed more people and asked the Federation to set up a colony but when it tried to merge the humans to the GM’s collective consciousness it caused the humans to go insane. Kell is the only human who hasn’t so the GM has chosen him to represent it to the larger universe.  Kirk has Bates tell the story to the rest of the landing party and shortly after hearing it Depree went missing.

reminds you of the devil

Kirk goes looking for Depree only to discover that she has contacted the GM and asked to take her father’s place.  As she is younger and far more durable the GM agrees to cut ties with Kell.  Kirk tries to get her out of there, but a Danons overwhelm him.  Kirk is danger of being killed by the swarm of demon-looking people until he is saved by the no longer useless Crewman Schang.

Later, on the bridge of the Enterprise, Kirk is upset about the loss of Dupree.  Everyone else got out and back to the ship, including Kell and Bates.  McCoy lets Kirk know that he shouldn’t be so upset, because it will be Dupree who gets the last laugh.  It turns out she was terminally ill the whole time.  She wanted to find her father to say “goodbye.”  When she saw he had been turned into the agent of the GM, she volunteered to take his place knowing she would be dead in a month.  With her gone the GM will no longer have a human to reach out with and will cease once the last of the Danons die.   

Additional thoughts: The story is a fine tale with clear beginning, middle, and end.  The main problem I have with it is the side stories are more interesting than the main event.  Danons, one of the great spacefaring species that ruled the galaxy long before the present powers did.  They are like the Preservers or the Slavers.  The only difference between those other two is there are still some left.  A species that once numbered in the trillions is now reduced to a hundred living in a small village.  What is it like to be them?  What goes through one’s mind when they see their kind heading into extinction while other species are rising and thriving?  Now we have this problem with the episodes too, but the difference is they are limited by budget, books are not. 

There are also things introduced with no payoff.  We have the magician summing demons in the beginning, could they have been related to the Danons?  Nothing comes of it.  We learn that the Danons may be the reason humans came up with the Devil, despite sort of already meeting the devil.  The Devil is known to make deals for people’s souls. Could the Great Machine be responsible for that?  Could that explain what happened to Doyle?  None of this is ever explored.  

In reviewing Eklund’s other book I praised the author for having a strong understanding of the characters.  He seems to have forgotten a lot of what he knows in this book.  Starfleet doesn’t salute and never has, yet in this story Kirk keeps insisting on being saluted.  He has never done this in the past. When Commodore Schang is about to load his son onto Kirk.  Kirk says he doesn’t use servants.  Tell that to all the various yeomen, who get his coffee, clean his clothes, makes his meals etc.  Kirk complains they keep assigning him women and they get themselves confused for being his wife.  Often says he wants a male yeoman who wouldn’t be mistaking for a spouse.  Kirk’s only concern should be Crewman Schang’s incompetence.  Kirk makes a joke about going down with the ship and Scotty responds the Enterprise isn’t a ship. Since when?  They always refer to the Enterprise as a ship.

Kirk "I don't have servants!" 

In the end why didn’t Kirk talk the Great Machine into suicide like he normally does, or at the very least blow it apart with the Enterprise’s phasers?  I don’t care about the Prime Directive; Kirk has violated it for less.  Bates makes it very clear that the GM is responsible for the almost extinction of the Danons.  If Kirk ignored the Prime Directive under the justification that the local people aren’t evolving when they are being ruled by a computer, but when a local people is being exterminated by said computer why would he hesitate?  Bates himself uses the word genocide to describe what was happening.  He was probably hoping Kirk would act on his reputation.

This is a ship!

The only thing I thought was right was Kirk following hopelessly in love again.  This time for Dupree.   However, it turns out she is going to be one of those doomed loves of his.  Loving Captain Kirk can often be fatal.  It isn’t guaranteed to happen, but it must be a concern.  The book also did right by Captain Jacob Kell, as we seen with both Matt Decker and Ronald Tracey, a starship captain’s sanity cannot survive the loss of his or her crew. Kell’s loss of sanity was not as extreme as the other two, he just decided to live with the Klingons and then turn his mind over to a great computer.  Speaking of the Klingons, despite their constant mention they never show up in the story.

Why not blast it with phasers?

Given her experience with mind wipes, I wonder if Lt. Uhura could possibly help poor Crewman Doyle regain his lost mind.  After her experience with Nomad, I think she would be the best to help him find his way out of the tunnel.

In the end, we got a Star Trek story that was good but not particularly great.    

Should it be canon: Sure, I have a lot of issues with the characterization.  However, that is also true of many episodes such as “The Paradise Syndrome” and “Turnabout Intruder.”

Cover Art: The cover art is a bit of a lie and a spoiler.  It has Gilla Dupree in the center, sitting on a throne, all dressed up.  It hints of her ascension in the end where there is not a lot of foreshadowing to it in the story. She is flanked by Kirk and Sulu.  Kirk makes since but Sulu a very bit role in the story so featuring him on the cover is the lie. Behind them are some huts, so that part is honest.

Final Grade: Final Grade 3 of 5

KIRK VS. OMNE AND OMNE

 

Name: The Fate of the Phoenix  

Authors: Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath

Publication Date: 5/1979

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 262

Historian’s Note:  Immediately after The Price of the Phoenix

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk and Prince James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Dr. Joseph M'Benga            Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      The Romulan Fleet Commander       Subcommander Tal            Omne    Other Omne     Trevanian    Elder Hegarch of Voran Dynasty   Younger Hegarch of Voran Dynasty      The Romulan Commander-in-Chief    Doyen of the Thorvan League     Maroc     Maia Roblein           R.A. Roblein       Rovan         Varal of Voran         V'Rlee

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Phoenix ships, unnamed Romulan scout ship, unnamed Romulan heavy battle cruiser, unnamed Romulan dreadnought

Planets: Voran, Razar, and Thorva

My Spoiler filled summary and review: This book begins shortly after the authors’ last book, “The Price of the Phoenix” ends.  If the reader has not read it, that will not matter for the narrator gives a brief summary of events. The crew has been rocked by the adventure especially the Captain and First Officer.  The two wonder if they will ever be normal again.  Kirk now has a duplicate and there is a general fear that Omne, if he lives, can now make himself look like Spock.  (Why they fear this I have no idea it foreshadows this story but I don’t remember that being in the last book, more on that in My Additional Thoughts section.)  The duplicate Kirk now called James has gone to live in the Romulan Star Empire as the boytoy of the Lady Fleet Commander they first encountered in “The Enterprise Incident.”

Now the mistress of the clone Kirk

As the crew of the Enterprise continues their recovery elsewhere things are a foot.  A high-ranking Federation administrator who was about to resign after the death of a loved one now has that very same loved one returned to him somehow by a mysterious benefactor.  Not only is this fellow not retiring he announces that there will be a major conference.   This conference will be hosted by the Federation member Voran the capital and largest planet of the Voran Dynasty Hegemony.  The entire Hegemony joined the Federation as a group which gave their monarch control of a huge chunk of Federation territory near the Romulan Neutral Zone.  If they were to give up on the Federation, it would be a crippling blow putting the UFP in a distant disadvantage with both the Romulans and the Klingons.  The tone of the conference will be does the United Federation of Planets live up to its promises, the Prime Directive, and address the topic of secession.  Omne’s involvement couldn’t be clearer if there was a sign that said, “Omne’s not dead and he is behind all this.” 

Federation conferences what can go wrong?

It turns out that the Federation isn’t the only major intergalactic power with a large interplanetary sub-state.  For the Romulan Star Empire that is the Thorvan League of Planets, ruled by a constitutional monarch called, the Doyen.  The Fleet Commander has a history with the Doyen, when she captured one of her ships doing something they should not have been.  The League’s legislative body agreed that the Doyen is in her debt.  The Fleet Commander is looking for a power base if she is to stand against Omne without the support of her high command. 

It turns out that the Doyen has her own boytoy.  The Fleet Commander and the Doyen have a secret meeting/party where they exchange boytoys for the evening.  The clone James finds the whole thing a bit degrading but goes along with the kinky spirit of it.  The other boytoy is named Trevanian.  The Fleet Commander decides to invoke her right to demand a hostage and tells the Doyen that Trevanian will be that hostage.  This enrages the Doyen who demands they fight a duel of honor.   The duel doesn’t have to be to the death, but it can end that way.   The two fight the boytoys as the prize.  The Fleet Commander proves to be the better fighter and as a consequence Trevanian is going to be their guest.  The Fleet Commander did this not only to ensure Doyen loyalty but to protect James’s identity.  The hostage is allowed a kinsman.  He is talked out of it so they can say James is Trevanain and the real Trevanian is the kinsmen.  Doyen is said but will remain loyal.  

Clone Kirk, not the only Romulan boytoy

 Captain Kirk himself is made the top ambassador this conference by the Federation.  This is somewhat odd, for one the Federation would typically send an actual ambassador.  Maybe Starfleet Command felt all the first contacts and ad hoc negotiations gave him the skill they needed?  Kirk does an actually good job at defending the Federation’s positions.  He briefly meets with the old dying Hegarch and his young heir.  It is at this point the Romulan Fleet Commander shows up.  Running into her must be awkward for personal reasons, as his other self is her boytoy.  Kirk is also not sure whose she is on in this conflict or her possible motivations.  Calling into question the wisdom of allowing his other self to go live with her.

Whose side is she on?

Half-way through the conference, the attendees get to meet the new Regent of the Voran Dynasty Hegemony.  And the Regent is Omne.  Back from his apparent death, and now the leader of the subsection of the Federation looking leave, it is as if he has already won.  He even gets to enjoy humiliating Kirk.  As Omne’s position as Regent requires Kirk the Ambassador to great him as “my lord.”

Omne’s victory is short lived however when there is an assassination attempt at the conference by an individual who looks just like Spock.  The real Spock is severally injured and almost died, but is ironically saved by Omne.  Trevanian is also injured and is kidnapped by the fake Spock, with “James” going after them.  After the smoke clears Omne explains that the fake Spock was a hybrid phoenix duplicate of both himself and Mr. Spock, with the Omne personally dominating.  Omne had created him to use against Kirk but the hybrid other has Omne’s ego as well.   The Other, as Omne calls him, now has an agenda of his own and has the intelligence of both personalities at work.   

Spock injured

Kirk is forced to from an alliance with Omne, who a few chapters ago Kirk was moaning that Omne was the worst thing that ever happened to him, and the Lady Commander.  Omne is aware where the Other is heading.  Omne has a secret headquarters inside and anomaly that would spell doom for most ships. Omne has a special “Phoenix” ship that can travel through it.  Kirk, the Fleet Commander, and Spock all go on the mission with the Enterprise to follow behind with Mr. Scott in command. 

The party goes out to stop the Other, who also has a Phoenix ship, while entering the anomaly they find a Romulan scout ship also in pursuit the pilot is James, who is trying to get his fellow boytoy back from the Other.  That ship is destroyed but they are able to rescue James.  While James is in pain Kirk feels it as well.  Omne then tries to see if he can meditate and use it to reveal the Other.  This fails and Omne briefly regresses to an earlier point of his life when he wasn’t such a jerk, this only temporary and the memories all come back. 

 The Commander-In-Chief of the Romulan Star Empire shows up with a fleet of ships looking for the Fleet Commander who he suspects has betrayed the Empire to the Federation.  However, he becomes slightly outgunned when the Doyen shows up with her own fleet angry over the loss of her personal boytoy.  Although the Imperial government has more ships overall it does not have more ships here at the moment.  The two leaders exchange words when the Fleet Commander’s flagship arrives under the command of Subcommander Tal.  Tal tries to reason with both the Commander-in-Chief and the Doyen that the Fleet Commander is not a traitor and will get back the Doyen’s boytoy.  The Enterprise is stuck in the middle of all of this.

Subcommander Tal tries to reason with everyone

Kirk, Omne, and company have arrived at Omne’s world that he uses for a homebase. They must beam a good distance away from the location of the Other.  So, this landing party of mostly-enemies-now-reluctant-allies have to go over the mountain and through the woods to Omne’s headquarters they go.  They find their way there and confront the Other.  Each side tries to outwit the other, however the Other seems to have the upper hand.  The Other agrees to release Trevanain in exchange for him to be able to banish the non-hybrid Omne to another dimension.  They complete the exchange, but Omne has a trick up his sleeve and grabbed Captain Kirk so they both were transported.  Angered but not able to do anything, the remainder of the party leaves the planet and returns to the Enterprise outside the anomaly, where the starship is still in the middle of a Romulan stand still.  Spock and the Fleet Commander decide they will return to see if they can rescue Jim.  They decide to leave James behind, if they fail, he will have to become Captain Kirk again.

  Trapped in the other dimension Omne finds Kirk struck with amnesia and not much use to their cause.  Omne knows a way out of this place and leads the demented Kirk there.  However, they run into the Other who has traveled to stop them.  Then we have the Omne vs. Omne showdown.  Their final stand takes place over a bridge, that is over a deep cavern like the ones from “What are Little Girls Made of?”.  The bridge begins to collapse Omne escapes it but the Other and Kirk aren’t so lucky.  At this moment the inner Spock of the Other takes over and throws Captain Kirk to safety, while he falls to his death.  

Kirk and Omne use the Other’s technology to transport themselves back to safety.  However, Kirk gets back first and quickly grabs a phaser and gets the drop on Omne.  Turns out the Captain, never had amnesia it was just a ploy to trick Omne to let his guard down.  Kirk won’t kill Omne for he owes him for helping him.  He will use the Phoenix technology to make another Omne.  With his ego Omne can’t cooperate with a duplicate of himself.  He needs to dominate, the Other proved that.  With the anomaly about to collapse anyone left on the planet will be trapped there for quite some time.  Omne agrees to exile over duplication.  He and Kirk disagree whether or not this is his Elba or St. Helena. 

Kirk returns to the Enterprise, the situation with the Romulans is resolved, Kirk also contacts the young Hegarch.  The new monarch now seems quite capable away from Omne.  When told the Regent wouldn’t return, he is quite pleased and will remain in the Federation.  Everything seems good but Omne’s trigger transporter that he used to escape last time, is used to kidnap the clone James.  With James now trapped in exile with Omne the end has a bitter taste.  The Fleet Commander resolves to find her boytoy somehow.  The epilogue has Omne in exile meeting a mysterious someone.  It may be James or someone else.   

Additional thoughts: Okay one of the biggest challenges of this book is just getting past the premise.  A quote often attributed to the great Alfred Hitchcock “you can get someone to believe the impossible but not the improbable.”  I have no problems with the future spaceships that travel faster than light, aliens we can have sex with to make babies, and exact clone duplicates.  I cannot get on board with allowing Kirk’s duplicate, with all his knowledge, to go live with the Romulan Fleet Commander as her personal boytoy.  Not only do I find close friendliness and trust with her weird and unnatural, but just the risk of allowing the duplicate to fall into the wrong hands is way too much for me to accept.  It just strikes me as some kinky sex fantasy the writers came up with after watching “The Enterprise Incident.”

Also, after surgically altering the Kirk duplicate to look Romulan going so far as altering his blood so it would color green, why didn’t they give him a Romulan name to use most of the time?  Why is he still “James.”  Is that how the Fleet Commander introduces him to people?  “Who is that?” “Oh, it’s my little boytoy princeling James.”

The Romulan James

Spock is duplicated again.  This is not exactly original thinking.  We first saw this in “Spock Must Die,” then in the Animated Series episode “The Infinite Vulcan,” and once more in “Ni Var.”  This story does have a special twist with this clone being a hybrid of Spock and the main bad guy.  Speaking about this however the story begins with Kirk and Spock seemingly aware that a duplicate potentially exists.  Kirk goes so far to say he can never trust Spock again because he won’t know if it’s Spock. I do not remember this in the original story.  When reading this I went back and checked my original review over in case I had just forgotten.  Not finding a mention there I started reading other reviews of that book and still no mentions.  I don’t really want and won’t read that book a second time for something I am probably not going to find.  So this is either a complete retcon or so lightly covered in the first book that no one noticed.

Despite its clear flaws the book isn’t terrible there are some redeemable moments.  It also forces us to look at the villain differently as he temporally changes sides.  It reminds me of Terminator 2 thirteen years before it came out.  In the first story you introduce a seemingly unstoppable bad guy and barely stop him.  In the second you introduce a more impressive bad guy and have the former villain team up with the hero.  It allows some new insights into the villain. 

I assume Omne accepted Kirk’s amnesia story because of his own bout with the condition earlier in the story.  Either way it was funny to see Kirk win by simply “playing dumb.”  

I assumed the other Kirk was going to die at some point.  After all they can’t have two Kirks running around.  Instead he is just lost somewhere.  The Fleet Commander is on the case thought because a good boytoy is hard to find.  

Should it be canon: No, for the reasons I stated above.   The story’s very premise is overly ridiculous to be taken seriously.  Even as the alternate time line the story would be wonky. 

Cover Art:  The cover is not overly impressive.  It just has Kirk on his knees before a giant in the shadows who is clearly Omne.

Final Grade: Final Grade 3 of 5