Star Trek II Novelization

Novelizations are a tricky thing, especially if you’re working from an earlier version of the script. There’s minute changes (Regulus vs Regula, Alpha Ceti V vs Ceti Alpha V for example), expanded scenes (a *lot* more Peter Preston, Joachim has serious reservations about Khan), things that existed in the novels only later conceded as Canon (Sulu was already a Captain transferring to Excelsior at the end of the month (yes, the ship was already named) Saavik’s half-Romulan heritage (which might as well be canon by this point), and things that only exist here (Sulu again, nearly killed on the bridge when Reliant attacks in the nebula, resuscitated by David Marcus and out of the action for the remainder of the scene, and Spock not knowing Jim’s Birthday until *now*, Peter’s crush on Saavik and her tutoring him).

Then there’s also tweaks, I don’t know how much of it is author’s liberty and how much is script vs screen, but after 37 years of knowing this movie the words don’t flow nearly as well here. The words are sometimes substituted or flipped around. It detracts a bit from the overall product. Kirk is also a lot closer to despair and closer to the breaking point than the movie shows us, theatrically so. Despite all this though, it remains a fun read and there’s a bit little more to discover.

Gonna admit I did remember Kirk avoiding the urge to scream Dive! Dive! Dive!. that’s the ONLY thing I remembered for sure from the last time (aside from again Peter Preston and Saavik expanded backstory)

Here’s some (a lot of) notes and highlights:

Keep reading

That last Enterprise novel was real good but also it was the final hours for Porthos :(((

It also shows that not everything happens linearly, and just because there’s been discussions and meetings about a noninterference directive after recent events with the Vertians (The Aliens from Silent Enemy) and the Ware (The Self Repairing Station from Dead Stop). The Section 31 plot line mostly gets resolved (while operating within the larger framework established in DS9′s Control) but Trip is more alone than ever even with Devna (an Orion Slave Girl turned intelligence operative who’s still trying to figure things out) but we know how it ends with Trip. A least we think we do (there was an epilogue at the end of the Romulan War books where he was living with T’Pol as a Vulcan).

There’s some pure science and exploration stuff too as T’Pol’s Endeavour is called by a Boomer captain to figure out if a race of walking trees are sentient or not, while Hoshi grapples with her fiancee Kimura’s injuries and disabilities.

There’s also the 31-adjacent plotline of the ongoing crisis on Sauria (a Federation member world in the 23rd Century), where a dictator has taken over the world in a few short years. That doesn’t quite get resolved yet but it is kept interesting. Tucker also gets to realize better people than him can get the job done in an open way without falling for 31′s games.

The epilogue was great. 

goddamn that scene where Pulaski is finally allowed to see the hollow shell of Julian Bashir is heartbreaking, but bringing Kukalaka out was perfect. Even if he hasn’t reacted yet it’s something.