The High Country
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ISBN: 9781668002384
Description
When an experimental shuttlecraft fails, Captain Christopher Pike suspects a mechanical malfunction, only to discover the very principles on which Starfleet bases its technology have simply stopped functioning. He and his crewmates are forced to abandon ship in a dangerous maneuver that scatters their party across the strangest new world they’ve ever encountered.
Reviewed on 3rd April 2023
The first Strange New Worlds book feels superficially like a lot of the old novels - with a planet of the week to visit and find out what’s going on, with a civilisation who appear to be from Earth’s history. In this way, it follows the pitch perfectly - a modern take on the original idea of Star Trek.
It is a modern take too - there’s a good balance between three focal characters - and it’s about much more than just the action and the science fiction concepts.
Miller focussed on the characters we know from before - from The Original Series and from Discovery - possibly reflective of how early the text must have been written, and without him having yet seen the finished product of Season One. But actually my favourite parts are those with La’an, whose voice Miller gets absolutely spot on.
The one thing I did find though was that this wasn’t a book I was able to read fast. I’d just come off a period of heavy reading where I’d be really engrossed for hours, and this broke that habit. I’m not really sure what aspect had that effect, but it meant that it took me nearly two weeks to read instead of two days.