Here There be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido - Star Trek: S.C.E Book 3 - A Short Story Review

 

Here is the strength and weakens of tie-in books - they reward the dedicated reader while making somebody new to the series know they are missing context. 

This story in particular really made me feel that I was missing out on just how it fit into the wider narrative of the Star Trek Literary Universe.

Just look at the Historian's Note inserted before the story!

Here There Be Monsters takes place shortly after the events of the Gateways crossover, specifically after Book 3: Doors Into Chaos, Book 4: Demons of Air and Darkness, Book 5: No Man's Land, Book 6: Cold Wars, and the stories "Horn and Ivory," "In the Queue," "Death After Life," and "The Other Side" in Book 7: What Lay Beyond.

Whew!

Is this pure marketing or a service to the reader?  Being a completist myself, the references in the story to the events above served only to distract me from the events in front of me.  Of course, had I read those books previously, I would have been feeling quite rewarded by all this.

A good writer will not allow previous books to take away from the one he is writing nor to make those details required reading to understand the current adventure.  And that was the case here.

The gateways, which in my mind looked and worked like the time portal from the original Star Trek TV series, was causing havoc on a distant colony.  "Monsters" were coming through and making things unpleasant for the locals.

Thank goodness Star Trek is about "seeking out new life and new civilizations" and not just killing the life forms we don't understand.  The team of the U.S.S da Vinci take the time to understand what is happening before taking any action.

This is why I will always love Star Trek.  It posits that one day we will be better than our bullets.