Review of
Drastic Measures
Published:
February 2018
Reviewer Rating:
Avg User Rating:
(2.92)
Tarsus IV is facing a desperate situation. A viral contamination is destroying all the crops and existing food supplies in the colony and any help is thought to be weeks away. Emergency powers grant the governorship to Kodos, and he implements a terrible strategy of executing half the colony to save the remaining population. But when Federation help arrives just days later, Kodos becomes a hunted man who will go down in history as "Kodos the Executioner."
I was very hot to read this book when I heard what it was about. The fact that it would actually relate an untold story referenced in the classic Trek episode "Conscience of the King" and give a detailed account of the why's and how's was very intriguing. It didn't quite live up to the hype for me, however. Certainly it picked up the threads set out from the original episode, and provided a pre-Discovery appearance of Phillippa Georgiou and Gabriel Lorca along with some cameos of other classic characters - most notably James Kirk himself. Unfortunately, the cameos are really just that with characters appearing in one scene or so, and even with Georgiou and Lorca as the "main" characters in the story, they don't really rise above stereotypes.
I realize this was written early on in the creation of Discovery so the characters aren't very well developed, but there are precious few moments where they're actually interesting. Lorca is mostly just spit and vinegar - brooding, dark, and angry. Sure circumstances call for some of that, but he never achieves likeability. Similarly, Georgiou is business-like and makes just enough emotional connections with others to be a sympathetic character, but nothing truly special.
Many other characters show up throughout the book that had potential, but they get the spotlight for a chapter or two and are almost never seen again. We get the obligatory appearances of races from other Trek series so fans can say, "Hey...that race WAS around in the classic era!" There was actually an interesting idea with a Betazoid character and I would love to see that developed somewhere in the future.
The biggest disappointment for me is we didn't get nearly enough of Kodos himself. He's little more than a figurehead in this story. Ward touches on some background, but we never get to see a scene of him considering alternatives or what drove him to make the drastic decision that resulted in the death of 4000 people. I wanted to see that. We also never really got to understand how he developed this group of followers who were so dedicated to him, and how they had all of these plans and contingencies in place when he was only acting as Governor for a few days. There was just so much missing detail and emotional moments that I was looking forward to.
While the book has an interesting opening, it really drags in the middle. It suffers from a lot of running around but no real development in those middle chapters. It does pick up and sort of comes together in the last hundred pages or so, but it was pretty tough to slog through to get to that point. I agree with those that said they almost gave up. I did too. Not sure the payoff was really worth it, but the last few chapters were adequately satisfying.
I'm not going to say this is a "must read" for Star Trek fans - even die-hard ones - which is disappointing because it's a story that many classic era fans would be interested in. It just ever quite delivers on the promise of its premise.
I was very hot to read this book when I heard what it was about. The fact that it would actually relate an untold story referenced in the classic Trek episode "Conscience of the King" and give a detailed account of the why's and how's was very intriguing. It didn't quite live up to the hype for me, however. Certainly it picked up the threads set out from the original episode, and provided a pre-Discovery appearance of Phillippa Georgiou and Gabriel Lorca along with some cameos of other classic characters - most notably James Kirk himself. Unfortunately, the cameos are really just that with characters appearing in one scene or so, and even with Georgiou and Lorca as the "main" characters in the story, they don't really rise above stereotypes.
I realize this was written early on in the creation of Discovery so the characters aren't very well developed, but there are precious few moments where they're actually interesting. Lorca is mostly just spit and vinegar - brooding, dark, and angry. Sure circumstances call for some of that, but he never achieves likeability. Similarly, Georgiou is business-like and makes just enough emotional connections with others to be a sympathetic character, but nothing truly special.
Many other characters show up throughout the book that had potential, but they get the spotlight for a chapter or two and are almost never seen again. We get the obligatory appearances of races from other Trek series so fans can say, "Hey...that race WAS around in the classic era!" There was actually an interesting idea with a Betazoid character and I would love to see that developed somewhere in the future.
The biggest disappointment for me is we didn't get nearly enough of Kodos himself. He's little more than a figurehead in this story. Ward touches on some background, but we never get to see a scene of him considering alternatives or what drove him to make the drastic decision that resulted in the death of 4000 people. I wanted to see that. We also never really got to understand how he developed this group of followers who were so dedicated to him, and how they had all of these plans and contingencies in place when he was only acting as Governor for a few days. There was just so much missing detail and emotional moments that I was looking forward to.
While the book has an interesting opening, it really drags in the middle. It suffers from a lot of running around but no real development in those middle chapters. It does pick up and sort of comes together in the last hundred pages or so, but it was pretty tough to slog through to get to that point. I agree with those that said they almost gave up. I did too. Not sure the payoff was really worth it, but the last few chapters were adequately satisfying.
I'm not going to say this is a "must read" for Star Trek fans - even die-hard ones - which is disappointing because it's a story that many classic era fans would be interested in. It just ever quite delivers on the promise of its premise.
