21 January, 2003
The Romulan Way
Diane Duane and Peter Morwood
1987
254 pp, MMPB
What do you read when you doesn't want to read anything? Common sense would dictate that you simply don't bother to read anything, right? Well, I wouldn't, either, except I need something to occupy me during the dull thirty-minute bus ride home from work. Thus, a Star Trek novel.
The Romulan Way is actually two separate stories, which have little to do with each other. At least, not in any direct fashion. The first story is simply the history of the Romulans, from their splintering off from the Vulcans up to the time of the original Trek series. I have no idea how closely Duane and Morwood's history hews to official Trek canon, but as an occasional Star Trek fan, I found it fairly interesting. As a regular scifi fan, I found it a decent colonization story.
The other plot is more straightforward Trek stuff. Dr. McCoy goes on a mission to locate and evaluate a Federation deep-cover agent operating on one of the Romulan homeworlds, who has failed to issue a report for two years. The fear is that she's "gone native." This mission involves McCoy getting captured by the Romulan military, held prisoner on the estate where the agent works, and tried for espionage (the penalty for which is a rather painful and protracted death). This story wasn't so interesting, for me; McCoy is my least favorite of the Original Series' three main characters (Kirk, Spock, and McCoy). Furthermore, I think that series was at its best when it focussed on the relationship shared by those three. This book only has McCoy, on a mission which seems kind of out of his realm of expertise, and which contained little to no dramatic tension in and of itself. I mean, did I ever doubt that McCoy would get out of his predicament, and fail to escape from his Romulan would-be executioners? Of course not. Worse, the actual method of escape was a Deus Ex Machina.
This one tries to do for the Romulans what The Final Reflection did for the Klingons-- to give some sort of insight into their culture, beyond the usual Trek stereotypes. Unfortunately, it's not done nearly as well as in Ford's book. While the authors try to provide a sympathetic view of Romulan culture, as seen through the eyes of the Federation agent, this view is not really supported by the behavior of the actual Romulans in the book.
Anyway, this is about what you'd probably expect from a Trek book-- pretty much a mediocre reading experience, barely good enough for the bus. Even if you find yourself in the mood for reading a Trek book, there are better ones out there. (Worse ones too, to be fair.)