When my mother was attending University, the drama professor had Mom and others pickup Jim Steranko, Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov and most importantly for this review Gene Roddenberry at the airport and drive them around when they had been booked for a series of lectures they gave at the school. So I have heard all the stories told at these lectures.
Combined with my maternal aunt’s love affair with all things Star Trek (until my mother took her to see A New Hope; then it was Kirk who?) and my father’s love of all things Sci-Fi, I grew up surrounded by countless Star Trek novels. This one however is the only one that we had three copies of (one was my mother’s that my aunt stole and then my mother stole back, one was the replacement of that one, and the last was the copy I picked up in a used bookstore because we couldn’t find the first two copies.) It’s also probably my favorite Stark Trek novel out of the maybe four I’ve read; like my aunt before me, I turned out more in to Star Wars than Star Trek.
Ishmael tells the story of Spock, having been captured and tortured by the Klingons, escaping to 1860’s Seattle, Washington; this is due to the Klingons having time-traveled there for a dire purpose. Unfortunately, Spock has no idea what that purpose is, as an unfortunate side effect of the torture is that he has suffered memory loss; he has no memory of who he is, where he’s from, or why he looks different from everyone surrounding him. However, he is not left out in the cold; local sawmill owner Aaron Stemple offers him a place to live and a job, as well as an identity as Aaron’s nephew Ishmael. Meanwhile, Kirk and crew are trying to track down their missing Science Officer. Can they find him? Will Spock ever recover his memories? Will he remember what nefarious plan the Klingons were planning and thwart them at it? And is shaggy hair, a beard, and flannel an image that Spock will want to keep back on the Enterprise (if he ever gets back there)?
Of course, this book is a crossover; in fact, it is the crossover of all crossovers. It contains references to (and appearances from characters of) Doctor Who, Have Gun Will Travel, Bonanza, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Maverick, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Rawhide, Jubilee Trail, Clint Westwood’s Man With No Name character from Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns, and last but not least, Here Come the Brides. Because Here Come the Brides frames this entire book, you probably should have a passing knowledge of the plot of the TV series for this book to make any sense. Luckily, my mother was a large fan of the show, so she filled me in on all necessary information (plus we had the series on DVD.) Add on the fact that three of the actors from Here Come the Brides also appeared in Star Trek episodes (specifically Mark Leonard, who played Aaron Stemple and Sarek, Spock’s father), plus two of the Bolt brothers, this book’s existence actually makes some kind of funny, strange sense. You also get an appearance from a little-known historical figure, Joshua Abraham Norton, the man who called himself “The Emperor of the United States”.
I have read this book at least six times; it’s a comfort book for me. The writing is good, the dialogue snappy, and everyone behaves in character, which is a definite plus for me; I hate reading tie-in novels where I feel like the only thing they have in common with the source material is the characters’ names and maybe the setting. If you can find this book used, I would definitely recommend picking it up. The reveal at the end alone makes it worthwhile and always takes me right back to Journey to Babel.