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| Captain Kirk, T'Prylla, and Mr. Spock, thankfully not a romantic triangle. |
Yesterday, I discussed Greg Bear’s approach to writing for popular media franchises. Then I
launched into a discussion of Corona, his lone contribution to the Star Trek universe. I also rued my
ability to finish discussing this entertaining novel, and yearned for a Transporter Emergency Recovery (or TEREC) machine of my very own. If I owned one,
I could make several clones of myself, and get far more writing done each
day. But as I haven’t been able to
acquire my own TEREC machine (mainly because they’re not yet publicly available), I’ll have to accept my limitations, and finish yesterday’s post today.
Come on, Apple Computer!
I don’t need a smarter phone; I need a TEREC. Get your priorities straight!
All the issues listed yesterday are sufficient to make Corona an interesting and
entertaining novel. But Bear adds one
more strand that sets his novel above the norm.
The lead scientist T’Prylla and her family heading the mission are
outcasts. They were exiled not because
they were not sufficiently devoted to Logic, but because of their decision-making
process. Imagine the residents of an
ancient Greek city gathered one day for a debate, and voted as to whether Plato or
Aristotle’s philosophical approach to life was the most sound. The winners--the majority--then drive the rest of their
community, the followers of “an inadequate philosophy,” out of the city. That is essentially what has happened to
T’Prylla and her family.
Meanwhile, human reporter Rowena Mason has accompanied the
crew on this rescue mission. She hails
from the planet Yalbo, which has a small number of inhabitants. She isn’t comfortable with the idea of
leaving home. Nor does she feel good
about mixing with other species, such as Andorians or Vulcans, or even half-Vulcans like Mr.
Spock. But she works for the Federation
News Service, and they needed her on this mission, so she couldn’t say "No." The U.S.S. Enterprise’s rescue mission
won’t change prejudices back on Yalbo, or for that matter on the planet Vulcan,
but through Rowena's experience of working with Mr. Spock, and the exiled Vulcan
scientists such as T’Prylla, her worldview starts to expand, and she begins to
understand the benefits of accepting others for who they are, as equals, and
the benefit of interacting directly with them.
Greg Bear’s scientific speculation sometimes overtakes my
ability to follow, and readers with greater knowledge of such fields will thus find
even more to enjoy in this classic Star Trek novel. But there’s so much going on in this novel
that any fan should find a sufficient number of interesting storylines, and the challenges
the various characters face, to make reading this novel a pleasurable and
rewarding experience. Unfortunately, Pocket
Books has published hundreds (if not thousands) of Star Trek novels,
and Corona is one that is currently out of print, so you won’t find it in a new
bookstore. But there are older copies
out there that you can find in a used bookstore, or at your local library. If you read Corona, and enjoy it like I did,
perhaps you might discuss it with your friends on the Internet? Just like the radiation of those infant
stars, the staff at Pocket Books could notice all the interest being
generated, and decide to bring the novel back into print. Perhaps, were they to do so, they might even
send some unexpected royalties Greg Bear’s way.
That’d be an awfully nice thing to happen, to someone as open and giving
to the Science Fiction community as he is.
So, you ask, does writing this book review mean that I'm a Greg Bear fan? You bet!
Dragon Dave
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