Windows on a Lost World; A Snooze Fest??

Premise

I find the back of the book doesn't give us the true tea on this book. Basically, Kirk (and others) are transformed into crab aliens after going through a portal on a planet ripe for archeology. There's a lot of world building and a lot of descriptions of setting, which if that's interesting for you, this book is for you.

Cast of Characters

So, our main POV is Kirk, with some appearances of Chekov and Spock. McCoy and Scotty are there, but Uhura and Sulu are pretty much absent. We have some new characters too. We are introduced to Talika, from the planet Djelifa, which has a matriarchal society. Let me focus on that for a second, it's treated so exaggerated and comical to the point of almost offense. She is constantly trying to bully the men in this novel, also, does it bother anyone else that Earth has a multitude of different culture but other planets always have just one? Anyways, there is also some archeologists joining Talika to study this planet and its surrounding 'orphan cultures'. 

Is it Good?

    I find it difficult to classify this book, which is why I gave it two stars on Goodreads. It is definitely not as bad as Vulcan's Glory, which is still the worst Trek book I've read. This book reminds me of First Frontier. It's slow, lures you in with a cool premise, but dives in way too much on the alien culture and setting, and leaves you, the reader, far behind. It's a shame, because you can tell that the author really dived in when creating the Kh!lict civilization (why there is a ! I do not know). I almost feel that this book would work better as an episode. It has the same story beats, and it could lose all the drawn out scene description if it could just show us the landscape. I think books that don't work as episodes are preferable, because it allows the author to explore avenues that the show cannot. On second thought, the way that the author writes Kirk's perspective would be difficult to do on the screen, but I really hated reading this book, but thought the concept was okay, so I'm trying to cut V.E. some slack okay? To conclude this section I just want to say that this book has some real issues with tone. Sometimes a random guard will die and no one says anything, and other times someone dies and it's two pages on mourning and how death works in Starfleet. This book cannot decide what it wants to be. There seems to be no urgency in this book, even though there are multiple time constraints, like the Kh!lict having no food and possible starving to death.

The Weird Bits...

    If Kirk and Chekov turning into large crustaceans was not enough for you, there is at least one shocking Spirk moment for ya. So, let's set the scene. Kirk is a crab. He is also trapped with the conscious of the crab in this crab-body. Spock somehow finds him, but the Kh!lict don't have vocal cords, so to communicate, Kirk tries to use the colors on his body to be morse code. 

 "Fighting to contain his growing sense of urgency, he concentrated on the thought that Spock was one of his own. Hot, angry zigzags of red and black - powerful symbols of rejection and denial - surged through his brain...'Most creatures with such conspicuous displays use them to enhance their desirability to potential mates,' Hernandez was saying. 'The shifting color patterns are usually a form of sexual display, although I am at a loss to see how that works for our current subject'" (134-136). 

    Okay, pause. First we have feelings of "denial" and "rejection" when Kirk focuses on Spock. Hmm. Do I need to elaborate on how, especially at the time this show aired and also this book was written, queer people felt guilty and in denial about their feelings towards people of their same gender identity. The author here is hinting at Kirk's feelings, and how he fears that to express his romantic feelings towards Spock will result in rejection. Thus, he denies that he even has these feelings. Later, Hernandez observes that often these color displays are meant to attract a mate. This is played for comedic irony, as Spock has no idea that this creature is Kirk, while the audience does, and they know how desperately he is thinking of Spock in an attempt to get his crab body to respond to him. Even if his mind isn't actually thinking about Spock in a sexual way, the fact that the author includes this part at all, to my mind at least, implies that there is a relationship between them, at least on the part of Kirk. 

Final Thoughts

    This was really the most obvious Spirk moment in the novel. There was moments in the beginning with Kirk thinking things like "Who said Vulcans don't have emotions?" and a really tender moment on page 71, where Kirk and Spock work to protect each other from a bunch of rocks (don't ask).

 That being said, this book is not worth the Spirk moments let me tell you. This book is super boring and dull, and while this is disappointing to me, I still don't think you should bother with it!