Star Trek: Mission to Horatius
Author: Mack Reynolds
Published 1968 by Whitman
IT’S 1968
Your favourite tv series is currently showing on NBC each week. You crave the weekly adventures of Captain Kirk and crew and relish every second of whatever exciting dilemma they are faced with each episode, but it’s just not enough. Sure there are a few novelization adaptions, some writers guides and reference guides and some comics, but nothing with anything new.
One lazy Saturday afternoon you stumble across a Star Trek novel with fresh content. New adventures! In book form! You can’t wait to gobble it up.
IT’S 1968
Streaming services don’t exist. No physical copies of your favorite shows. No DVDs, laser discs, VHS or Beta tapes. No recording the shows straight off your tv. So when you read of the crew of the intrepid U.S.S. Enterprise visit planets with cultures that represent episodes straight from the TV, it all seems vaguely familiar. Wait, this is kinda like that episode where the crew where forced to fight gladiator battles, or the episode where the planet inhabitants were constantly drugged and brainwashed in a cult society, etcetera…
IT’s 1968
The concept of the Star Trek future is so fantastical and the science so far ahead you allow your suspension of disbelief to be very broad and willing to accept, or forgive, elements of distance, time and scientific or medical circumstance represented. Trek lore is still being established, world building the far future federation is still in its infancy.
IT’S 1968
The Cold War with Russia was going strong so maybe, just maybe, the characterization of young Ensign Chekov isn’t represented with the proper respect he deserves?
IT’S 1968
You’re an impressionable young kid in your late teens / early twenties and you’re just glad someone out there recognizes your love of sci-fi and Star Trek in particular, and not some judgmental 47 year old blogger from the 21st century curious about the beginnings of the mountainous volumes of Star Trek novels.
I picked this up because Doctor Google tells me it was the first original Star Trek novel published. I’m dipping my toe into the wonderful wide world of Star Trek books, starting at the start.
This one was a real straight forward paint-by-numbers book. The Enterprise are called to investigate a distress signal but are in desperate need of shore leave as the crew is getting a little stir crazy (Very reminiscent of ST: TOS episode Shore Leave, S1 Ep15). A phenomenon that is medically diagnosed as “Cafard” and is contagious. So we have a ticking clock.
The signal is coming from a system called Horatius, with 3 possible planets all inhabited by Earth colonists who set up shop on each planet each with their own agendas for civilisation.
Planet one was populated by naturalists who abandoned technology.
Planet two was populated by a religious group looking for a place to worship in peace.
Planet three was populated by ‘political non-conformists’.
The inhabitants of Planet One had regressed into tribal clans and primitive survival instincts. Very reminiscent of ST: TOS episode The Apple (S2Ep5) or A Private Little War (S2Ep19).
The inhabitants of Planet Two had transformed into a cruel theocracy with a small elite ruling body who has drugged the rest of the global population into submission. Very reminiscent of ST: TOS episode The Return of the Archons (S1Ep21).
The inhabitants of Planet Three had become a fascist dictatorship that were raiding the other 2 populations. Here, crew members were forced to fight in a gladiator combat arena. Very reminiscent of ST: TOS episode The Gamesters of Triskelion (S2Ep16) and Patterns of Force (S2Ep21).
The story ends with a crew chasing a rat around the ship that may or may not have the bubonic plague.
So we essentially get 5 different adventures squeezed into one. The pace is quick and the focus never really rests. There is no character exploration here, we only see the surface of their personalities as everyone is on the job. It never feels personal to the characters and besides the overarching risk to self, there is no risk to the core of who they are. What you see on tv from episode to episode is what you get in the book. The voices, at least, are consistent and easily recognizable to the characters we already know and love. It is a quick, easy read, not particularly gripping. There are some questionable ideas and concepts, such as Sulu smuggles aboard a rat which he brings along to the bridge whilst on duty, attempting to hide it from the rest of the bridge crew. a contagious deadly disease that is brought on by boredom, and an escaped rat sub-plot that is believed to carry the bubonic plague despite any scientific proof at all. But the tenor and tone, the voice and flavour of Star Trek is very much there, although it’s easy to see why Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry himself wasn’t a fan (via the Mission to Horatius Wikipedia page). I’m told there are some great Star Trek writers and books out there, I’m looking forward to getting to them. Because this wasn’t it.
Evin Bryant 23/03/2023