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Khan had his origins in the classic Trek episode "Space Seed", played by Ricardo Montalban; he showed up again the "The Wrath of Khan" in theaters, in a tale of maddened vengeance. However, we never got to see too much of his full motivations, being first the typical megalomaniac, then driven by a need to kill off Kirk. There are hints dropped involving an attempt to take over Earth in the 1990's, but that was about it.
So...introducing The Eugenics Wars. There are two things to keep in mind about this book. First, it that it's volume one. Don't expect the really nasty stuff...yet. Second, in spite of the logo "Star Trek", this really isn't about Star Trek; oh, sure, there are multiple reference in the book to the various series, which long time fans will recognize. But in spite of a framing story with Kirk and Co, this really isn't following them. The logo should really be replaced by "Assignment: Earth".
"Assignment: Earth" was an episode that introduced a fellow named Gary Seven, a human raised on an alien world who was returned to Earth with advanced technology to help humanity avoid destroying itself. He is assisted by his secretary, Roberta Lincoln, who had no idea of what she was getting into in that episode, and a cat named Isis who is far more than she appears. The author, Greg Cox, dropped hints of Seven's role against Khan in his previous Trek book, Assignment: Eternity; now, he goes into detail.
Which (finally) brings me to the The Eugenics Wars. Seven and Lincoln, having been active for six years, attempt to track down a group of scientists who have gone missing-geneticists and biochemists. Seven deduces that somebody is preparing a genetic-engineering experiment. The investigation takes them on the trail of Dr. Sarina Kaur of the Chrysalis Project, a project dedicated to designing perfect humans...and as an aside, a way to wipe out the rest to make room. The two take different paths to the same goal-Seven checks with the somewhat-less-than-legal angle, while Roberta poses as a scientist in hopes of catching the attention of whoever is kidnapping/recruiting the scientists.
This investigation/infiltration takes up most of the book; however, things get interesting once Khan steps fully into the scene. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that Seven seriously underestimates him and leave it at that!
The book is, as I've mentioned, rife with tidbits from Trek lore; there's references to some early Trek episodes, one of the movies, and even a Deep Space Nine episode. But equally interesting is how Cox weaves in the real-life events of the years covered by this book into the storyline, seeing Seven's influence on events. I do think Cox was a little heavy on cultural references, though; Roberta's thoughts seem somewhat jarring, as if Cox is going out of his way to reference what would then be current events. Truth to tell, though, I got over that pretty quickly.
Volume One is pretty much all build-up, but the climax of the book insures that Volume Two will be moving very, very quickly! I'm looking forward to seeing how Khan gets from ruling a good chunk of the world to ending up in space for its rendezvous with destiny, and the Enterprise. (And if you should decide to read this, go ahead and read the afterward! Chock full of references to the real world!)
Heh. That's not what you want to hear about. We wanna know about Khan. So scrap the framing story out of your heads, and let's get back to the real plot of this book. We left them off with Khan finally ready to start his effort to conquer the world, ruled by himself and his chosen subordinates-all products of the Chrysalis Project. He's gotten a bunch of useful information from Gary Seven's computer, and has used that information to build a weapon unlike any other-a satellite that rips holes in the Earth's ozone layer. Really, really big holes. As he's no dummy, though, he uses it much like the U. S. uses nuclear weapons-a deterrent against military conquest against him.
Of course, Khan still has a couple of irritants to deal with. Seven and his ally Roberta Lincoln are still working against him-although only rarely coming into direct conflict. As annoying as they are, however, they pale to the threat posed by a small number of other genetically enhanced people-whose agendas clash with Khan's. Each has a somewhat different outlook, from the Amazonian, to the militant American, to the fellow who believes it's all foreordained by the "starfathers".
In the meantime, while Seven and Roberta play their chesslike game against Khan's ambitions, and Khan busies himself with getting ready to take over the world and surviving attacks by his brethren, a small group of people who have unwittingly (and in most cases, unknowingly) had contact with the future get together to design what will become the most advanced spacecraft of this time. Characters who have shown up in episodes of the original Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager all are represented here (I don't think anyone was in Next Generation, but I can't prove a thing).
This book really took me by surprise. Volume Two, I'd expected, would be somewhat apocalyptic, far more overt than it actually turned out to be. In many ways, I found it far better than my expectations; as with Volume One, it takes a very significant number of real life events and ties them to the war between Khan, his compatriots and Seven. And make no mistake-while the warfare is not open, there are definitely large amounts of casualties justifying the antipathy Earth holds for the genetically enhanced even in the time of the Next Generation.
Khan is written totally in character...shifting between gentility and raw fury with equal ease, and every bit the master strategist you'd expect (except, naturally, for a minor tactical flaw as mentioned in the quote above). His associates, Ament and Joaquin, balance him quite nicely-one a voice of reason, and the other the fanatic bodyguard who really hates it when his master puts himself in harm's way. Seven doesn't get too much time in this one, as he's gotten significantly older, and so plays the part of Roberta's mentor more than before. Roberta's finally gotten out of some of her more annoying habits, which was a relief to me.
Aside from a very important plot point I figured out by chapter two (and most readers will probably catch it too), I found the journey of getting to Khan's final destiny to be rather enjoyable. Greg Cox is to be highly commended for putting together a pair of books that only peripherally touch on Star Trek as a whole; if you switched some names and removed the framing story, it'd stand out quite nicely as a science fiction novel on its own merits. The fact that it is a Star Trek book, though, allows it to hit some rather nice touches that it couldn't have done otherwise. I highly recommend The Eugenics Wars to any fan of Star Trek, and especially to those who loved the original episode "Space Seed" and the movie "The Wrath of Khan".
(Side note: Cox once again includes a handy afterword with historic references...enough to make me wonder if Khan's legacy isn't still with us)
(Another side note: I wonder if we can find
a way to get Cox to write up the third world war mentioned a couple times
in Trek...after this one, I think he'd be a natural)
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