Book Review: Lost to Eternity (Star Trek The Original Series)

 

 

So heads up, my reviews between now and next fall will be a little shorter than normal. I am very, very busy planning the 4th international Philip K. Dick Festival in Fullerton, CA from August 20-23rd. It is going to rule, so join us there if you can. I am also working on a SF novella, and the final edits of the sequel to The Last Night To Kill Nazis.  Yeah, that is why the reviews have been a little shorter.

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 Lost to Eternity ( Star Trek: The Original Series) by Greg Cox

400 pages, Paperback
Published July, 2024 by Pocket Books/Star Trek

 I can start by saying that I was a big fan of Greg Cox’s work in Star Trek long before I got to know him a bit. My respect for him has grown, as we have podcasted together about Richard Matheson (Cox served as his editor) and CL Moore.  His trilogy about the Eugenics War was about as close to a magic trick you can do when writing a tie-in novel. Respecting the canon of a show while acknowledging the passing of the years is a needle the producers of SNW didn’t bother to thread. ( I like SNW, but think the handling of Khan was a head scratcher. ) 

I was excited to read this one in part because it has Savvik, a character I always enjoy seeing writers expand on. This is a GREAT novel, and yes, it is a Star Trek novel. It uses canon we know, and events of well-known episodes and movies to great effect.  It is a novel that explores the butterfly effect from the time travel in Star Trek IV The One with the Whales…uh Voyage Home as an inciting incident.

Built on three timelines, A peace conference around the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,  the third year of the Enterprise’s 5-year mission, and our current modern day. The modern story is about a podcaster, Melinda Silver, looking into the disappearance of Gillian Taylor after she left with the Enterprise.  

Cox builds a credible and intense villain around the scene played for laughs in Voyage Home, with McCoy giving a woman a pill that fixes her Kidney in a miraculous way. So we get a bad guy who is inspired by this to try to live forever, and is still causing nasty business centuries later. The story of the podcaster trying to solve the mystery of Gillian is excellently woven into the story and leads to a great and very satisfying ending.  The way the novel shifts between the three timelines is really well done, and rewards those of us who know lots of ST canon.  Big Thumbs up.

Book Review: Red Star Hustle by Sam J. Miller (Well half a book review...)

 

 

>So heads up, my reviews between now and next fall will be a little shorter than normal. I am very, very busy planning the 4th international Philip K. Dick Festival in Fullerton, CA from August 20-23rd. It is going to rule, so join us there if you can. I am also working on a SF novella, and the final edits of the sequel to The Last Night To Kill Nazis.  Yeah, that is why the reviews have been a little shorter.<

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Red Star Hustle by Sam J Miller (Saga Double W/ Apprehension by Mary Robinette Kowal )

 402 pages, paperback
Published October, 2025 by S&S/Saga Press

 

Certain authors just win your loyalty. Once you have been rewarded by following authors to whatever genre they feel comfortable with, then yeah, you’ll keep coming back. My first Sam J. Miller novel was Blackfish City, a winner of the Nebula, but more importantly for me, it was a top read of whatever year it came out. I could look it up, but let's say 2018.  Then he did whale ghosts in the unique The Blade Between. 

Sam J. Miller is a powerful writer, full of unique worlds and ideas, one I am so glad is here to add to the genre. Red Star Hustle is one I knew a bit about going in. I went to Miller’s reading/ signing here in San Diego. I know that he intended to be a less dark, more entertaining space opera, but he couldn’t help himself, he ended up with a gritty noir space opera about addiction and political intrigue. 

RSH is half of a Saga double, and the other half of the novel is written by Mary Robinette Kowal who, I know, has written some pretty big-time SF. I admit I have not read her work yet, I will fix that. Honestly, though I was trying to get to RSH quickly, I will come back to Apprehension. Promise.

This is a far-future crime noir based on the real-life murder and scandal connected to the Italian director of 120 Days of Sodom, Pier Paolo Pasolini. He was murdered in 1975, and there are lots of strange connections to politics, sex workers, and lots of other interesting elements. Great history to make the basis for a crime sci-fi noir novel. It is a case I knew a little bit about, and I think that only adds a layer; you don’t have to know the case to enjoy this.

Aran is a high-class “rent boy,” who is pulled into a mystery and political intrigue when his high-class client - a controversial film director - is found dead.  In his role as a rent boy, he is hired by a unique client a monoarch in a political monarchy who is one more than a dozen clones of their dear leader. 

I personally enjoyed the world-building and thought this diverse set of worlds connected by wormholes was well thought out. Using the PKD technique of having the world-building expressed by the sub-human (The rent boy) and the upper-class lover, made for subtle details that gave us the details we needed. I love the planet zero dislike, the way Aran is uncomfortable with being on a planet. Once the giant mech battles happened I was totally sold.

This is a super gay book, I say that as a positive, to be clear. It is annoying that Cis books that have lots of horny stuff hardly get called graphic, but this one gets that label all the time.  It is a double standard. This is a fun and thoughtful Science Fiction novel. 

Red Star Hustle is one of my favorite modern reads of the year.

Book Review: Pay the Piper by George A. Romero & Daniel Kraus

 

Pay the Piper by George A. Romero & Daniel Kraus

328 pages, Paperback
Published September 2024 by Union Square & Co.

So heads up, my reviews between now and next fall will be a little shorter than normal. I am very, very busy planning the 4th international Philip K. Dick Festival in Fullerton, CA from August 20-23rd. It is going to rule, so join us there if you can. I am also working on a SF novella, and the final edits of the sequel to The Last Night To Kill Nazis.  Yeah, that is why the reviews have been a little shorter.

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As an archive nerd who has dug around the PKD papers, the very existence of this project is very exciting to me. In many ways, I am more glad this exists than I personally enjoyed the story.  So let me be clear, this is an important book. I hope serious horror readers will check it out.

The first reason it is important relates entirely to the history of the project, when we lost George Romero,  he had made a last trilogy of Dead movies, and it seemed Romero was accepting that is all Hollywood wanted from him. I personally was not a fan of the last three Dead movies and found myself wishing that he had gotten more of a chance to stretch his wings. The horror lit world was shocked to learn that Romero had left a Zombie epic half-finished when it was announced that Daniel Kraus would finish it. I had Kraus on my podcast and he hinted at this project years ago. This is the thing  I wished we got more of- Non-Dead projects for Romero. There were a few excellent ones like The Crazies, Creepshow and The Dark Half, but also stinkers like Monkey Shines. No matter what, a novel by Romero would have been very welcome.  

So the story goes that this was a novel that Romero started at some point and never finished. Daniel Kraus was the right guy to do this, besides being a very good, smart writer, he has finished a Romero (started) novel before and seemed to have a very strong concept of what Romero was interested in as a storyteller.

On its own, I am not sure there is much to Pay the Piper; outside of the context, the novel wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.  Interestingly, Romero being a Pittsburgh lifer setting a novel in the bayous of Louisiana. Pay the Piper is a very regional story, with plenty of regionalisms. So plenty of Southern gothic vibes.  Alligator Point is as vivid a setting as anything in King’s Maine, so again it had me wondering where that came from. 

 The characters are a strong point of the novel. There are several of them. As I think back on reading the novel, it is the people in the story, more than the horror elements, that stick out in my memory. Pete Roosvelt and his John Wayne obsessions are better character work that it appears to be at first.  How much is Romero and how much is Kraus is impossible to tell, and frankly, doesn’t matter much.  The combined powers helped shepherd a story with lots of points of view and kept them straight. 

Daniel Kraus is doing important work here. I think this novel is important, that in this case is even more so than being entertainment. I can’t say it was a page turner; the book dragged a bit. That is perfectly fine. The most important thing happening here is honoring the work of a giant in the field.