The third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is just days away, but it’s only the last month that I’ve started watching the series, up to half-way through the second season as of now. And it feels great to be watching something that feels like Star Trek again. I was mostly disappointed with Picard, and Discovery felt disjointed, with low points and high points but never scratching the Star Trek itch. I’d mention to friends how I wasn’t a fan of the season arcs and a focus on just a few characters that left most of the bridge crew in obscurity. They’d agree, and then quickly say how great Strange New Worlds was and that I’d probably like it much more. They were correct. For some reason I don’t have the first of the three Strange New Worlds novels published to date, but I’ve read the two I do have as I started watching the show. These two novels were just as thrilling and fun to read as watching the best of the show. Even if you haven’t seen Strange New Worlds before, or have just been a casual Star Trek fan, the two novels are each worth checking out for unique reasons. I’m assuming that most people who read this are generally familiar with Strange New Worlds, but quickly for anyone who may not: The series is set on the USS Enterprise during a five-year mission under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, before Captain James T. Kirk takes command as featured for in the original series outside its pilot episode. Asylum, by Una McCormack, alternates between a ‘present’ time period corresponding to the series’ first season and a ‘past’ set at Starfleet Academy where future Enterprise first officer (Number One) Commander Una Chin-Riley attends as a cadet and meets a young Ensign Pike who has returned for a hearing and an opportunity to lecture cadets about his fresh ‘real-world’ experiences serving on a starship. With its focus squarely on the relationship between Pike and Chin-Riley, Asylum understandably neglects the other regular characters of the show. I’m usually more excited about seeing some attention paid beyond the top of command, and can be wary of origin stories such as this. But McCormack does a fantastic job with it, also being helped with the fact that they’re both compelling characters whose growth over time becomes evident, both as individuals and as a partnership. The big strength to Asylum, however, comes from its plot and themes. Cadet Chin-Riley’s academic and professional future becomes threatened as she allows her emotions and time to become embroiled in alien socio-politics. Through her roommate she meets an Euxhana family, a cultural minority of the Chionian people seeking asylum in Federation space. Twenty-five years later in the ‘present,’ Starfleet assigns the USS Enterprise to help settle a Chionian trade agreement, which becomes threatened by a pro-Euxhana saboteur. Beyond being entertaining and casting light on Chin-Riley and Pike, Asylum delves into complicated and relevant topics of cultural identity, suppression, freedom, responsibility, and the possibility and limits of activism and engagement. It’s a tremendous story that doesn’t simply cast the players into roles of good versus evil, but displays nuances on all sides to show how best choices can be made, even if making missteps before that can be acknowledged and learned from. The way that these themes impact Chin-Riley’s growth bear import for events both in the first season of Strange New Worlds, as well as the second. Toward the Night by James Swallow is an equally strong and fun novel to Asylum, while being completely different in its emphasis. It features significantly more of a range of characters from the show and features an action-packed plot that feels like an exciting episode with the soul of the original series. It doesn’t deal as much with moral gray areas or complexities, but gives a hopeful tale of discovery among the stars, of finding family and friends. Patrolling the Federation/Klingon Empire border, the USS Enterprise discovers a planet, in orbit of a volatile star, with evidence of a ruined civilization, remains of giant insects, starship-grade metals and Federation technology. They have stumbled upon the old mystery of the USS Baldwin, a starship lost close to a century ago. Among the Baldwin’s crew was Maria Santiago Ortegas, helmswoman Erica Ortegas’ great-grandaunt, a woman whose legend inspired Erica to follow into Starfleet. Finding a strange alien device onboard the Baldwin, an Enterprise away team inadvertently triggers it, causing Pike, Security Chief La’An Noonien-Singh, Nurse Christine Chapel, and Ortegas to be transported into the past soon after the stranding of the Baldwin’s crew on the planet below, and leaving the Enterprise behind in spacetime with Commander Chin-Riley in command to deal with the arrival of conflict-craving Klingons. As Dr. Joseph M’Benga lends his expertise in Klingon warfare to deal with an escalating situation, Spock and Nyota Uhura work to find a way to contact and rescue the vanished away team. Though all the main characters are featured, the novel puts particular emphasis on Ortegas, someone popular with fans who hasn’t had as much backstory expansion as other characters have. The plot of the novel allows Swallow to follow many of the expected tropes of Star Trek, such as orders not to reveal too much to people in the past — but then that all falling apart and needing to divulge everything. This allows Erica Ortegas to form a connection with Maria Ortegas that goes differently than she might have expected based on her hero worship, but that ends up leading to growth and familial bonds for each of the women. Amid all the action, threats, and death that the novel features there is also a good dose of heartwarming elements, such as the Ortegas’ relationship and the aliens of this planet, the reason for their disappearance, and the novel’s epilogue (which I won’t spoil of course). Though there might not be huge surprises in the mysteries that underlie this
