Audiobook Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country by John Jackson Miller

 

 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country by John Jackson Miller

Audiobook, First published February, 2023

Of all the authors writing Star Trek, there are many voices the publishers of modern ST novels could’ve gone with for the first spin-off novel with the Strange New Worlds crew. John Jackson Miller is a good choice since he has written Captain Pike and the Enterprise before filling in the important gap of where the flagship was during the Klingon War. He’s written comics and prose for Star Wars, Halo, Iron Man, Simpsons, Conan, Planet of the Apes, and Mass Effect, with recent graphic novels for Battlestar Galactica, Dumbo, and The Lion King. Dumbo huh? I do want to check out his Conan and BSG.

I listened to his last ST novel on audiobook last year and had a wonderful experience so why enjoy this novel on audio during the last two weeks of SNW season two. An interesting thing about this novel is that it is a sequel to the Enterprise third season episode North Star.  (wouldn’t hurt to re-watch that episode)

One thing the novels do well that the show just can’t do is use time and space a little bit more accurately and I really like that the events of this mission take place over weeks and months, meant to be between episodes of season one in the timeline…I like that.

Pike and a small team of the command crew are testing a new shuttle, in the search for a lost starship, when they lose power and chief engineer Hemmer has to pull a miracle to beam all four on the shuttle (Pike, Number One, Spock, and Uhura) to the planet, each in a different location. It would be easy to see this novel as constant push and pull with the prime directive, but each crew member figures out slowly that the Prime directive is hardly the issue here at the moment. The people on this random planet look like they are from the old West, and Pike knows Jonathan Archer and his enterprise found a similar situation.

The structure of the novel is quite good, each of the four has their own adventures and plans a role in eventually helping them escape. Something that doesn’t look likely is the technology doesn’t seem to function on this world. Also on the planet an old flame of Pike’s who he didn’t know was on the ship they were looking for. Uhura and Spock have the best stories.

Really the coolest part is Spocks and I hesitate to give that away. So trust me if you are a Strange New Worlds fan this audiobook is well performed and the novel is very good, so reading, or listening I recommend the experience to Star Trek fans….

WARNED…

The story of the Vulcans who had been stranded on the planet more than 150 earth years earlier in the process of sneak attacking Andoria is a really cool way to further tie this novel to Enterprise. Also imagine of Spock and the Vulcans showing up being master sea farers with the old Earth ocean ship was just cool as hell.