Greg Bear: Star Trek Corona Part 2

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

Greg Bear: Star Trek Corona Part 1

Cover art courtesy of the great
Boris Vallejo

Greg Bear has written novels in other people’s universes, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Halo.  At first, this seemed rather strange to me.  As he has built a successful career with his imaginative Hard Science Fiction stories, he can no doubt commands large advances and royalties.  On the other hand, books written in media franchises typically pay an author a smaller advance, and little or no royalties.  When I met him at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego in 2011, I asked him why he would solicit or accept such a work-for-hire project.  He responded that he does this because he’s a fan of these franchises, and writing a novel gave him the opportunity to explore them in greater detail.  

In the case of Star Trek, his love of the franchise is evident before one even starts his novel Corona.  In the Acknowledgements, Greg Bear mentions that he contributed illustrations for the original edition of Bjo Trimble and Dorothy Jones Hedyt’s Star Trek Concordance.  “Does this make me a trekkie?” he asks.  “You bet.”

In Corona, a team of Vulcan scientists becomes stranded on a distant outpost when the infant stars they are studying give off radiation that interferes with their ability to send and receive messages.  By the time the Federation receives their distress signal, ten years have passed, and they are presumed dead.  Nonetheless, the U.S.S. Enterprise is directed to investigate, and rescue any survivors they may find.  This turns out to be a fortunate coincidence.  The ship’s sickbay has just been upgraded with a Transporter Emergency Recovery (or TEREC) unit.  By comparing a person's originally transmitted body pattern with his or her present one, Doctor McCoy can repair injuries and cure a person's illness.  (Needless to say, Bear wrote this novel years before Star Trek: The Next Generation explored the concept further).  This TEREC unit could prove useful, as the infant stars’ radiation has damaged some of the Vulcan scientists who were in cryogenic suspension, and can no longer be revived successfully.  But Dr. McCoy’s ability to use the device may be limited, as it comes with protocols and safeguards that could limit the use of TEREC in this particular case. 

How much power and judgment should be allowed starship captains and their crews is one of the themes Bear concentrates on in Corona.  Unconstrained use of TEREC could allow Dr. McCoy to make unlimited copies of a given individual, as with cloning.  Alternatively, he could use TEREC to improve everyone aboard the Enterprise, cure all their bodily deficiencies, supercharge their muscles, brains, or immune systems, or even return their bodies to an earlier period of their lives (and by doing so repeatedly, grant them immortality).  Meanwhile, an observer aboard the Enterprise is comparing Kirk’s actions and decisions to computer recommendations.  Kirk’s judgment has often saved the ship, but no man is infallible.  Computers can sort through an infinite number of options quickly, and perhaps make a more informed choice.  So with this mission, the future of command is being determined, and Kirk, as the Defendant, represents all his fellow starship captains.

I’ve got more to say about Greg Bear’s novel, but time marches relentlessly on.  So with reluctance, I must sign off for today with the promise that this post will conclude tomorrow.  If only I had a TEREC machine, and could constantly rejuvenate myself, and enhance my brain’s functioning, so I could write more, better and faster! 

Maybe I'll telephone Dr. Rudy Wells, and order up a bionic brain.

Dragon Dave 

Boris Vallejo: a short biography