Make It So! A Star Trek Blogfest

Yay! It’s finally Star Trek Blogfest day.

Sorry I didn’t post earlier, had a lot of running around to do – where’s the transporter room when you really need one? But I’m ready to share my favorites now, and then I’ll do the rounds as soon as I can get the warp drive up and humming.

My five favorite installments of Star Trek:

Original Series: Mirror, Mirror. The original mirror universe storyline in Star Trek – always fun and memorable.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Best of the movies, in my opinion, and the best ‘contemporary time travel’ story that’s even been told in the Trek franchise. The bit in the setup about the search for whales sounds a little corny when you try to explain it to somebody who’s never seen the movie, but it always worked for me when I was watching, and the story knows how and when to be funny, and when to be more serious. Catherine Hicks turns in a great supporting performance as Dr Gillian Taylor.

The Next Generation: Remember me. Another installment that shows how Trek can bring the funny. I’m not a huge Doctor Crusher fan, but she pulls off this episode quite well, including the sense of surrealism when Jean-Luc is the only one left and sees absolutely nothing unusual about the idea of the two of them warping around the galaxy in this giant starship, and of course the discussions with the computer. The twist to the episode’s puzzle is a nice one as well, with Crusher worrying about where everybody else in her life is disappearing to – only to realize at the end that she’s the one who’s dropped out of everybody else’s world.

Deep Space Nine: Call to Arms. This was the first episode that I knew had to make the list – one of my favorite episodes of television ever. From the first subtle foreshadowings of the Federation ‘losing the peace’, Sisko telling the Bajorans to sign a pact with the Dominion because the Federation can’t protect them, through the desperate last stand to protect the Defiant long enough to seal the minefield, the Federation abandoning the station to be re-taken by Cardassians, and Sisko blowing up Ops – it has all the elements you need for epic drama, and it delivers on that. There’s even a god living amongst mortals – at least, that’s how the Dominion see him.

A Wizard of Mars – Chapter three

A wizard of mars chapter index.

So, we’re finally on Mars, and apparently the ‘message bottle’ is exactly where Kit always thought that they’d find something, but couldn’t pinpoint it. (Is that foreshadowing also, perhaps?) Irina and Nita talk a bit about Mamvish, and Irina mentions a detail that I almost included in last week’s chapter review, because I’d been reading ahead a bit and thought that it had been introduced earlier.

Mamvish is an ‘abstainee’ – which means that when she had her Ordeal, her big showdown with the Lone Power to prove that she’s worthy of keeping her powers… the Lone Power defaulted, sent a message saying that he wasn’t going to mess with her. Apparently that has something to do with why she’s such a badass high-power wizard, but it’s unclear which way the cause and effect goes.

Incidentally, I do wonder how literally it’s true that every wizard confronts the Lone Power directly on their ordeal. From what we heard about Ronan’s time-sliding ordeal in Ireland, (in ‘A wizard abroad,’) the maker of entropy didn’t put in a personal appearance, and though he didn’t say that he told Nita the whole story, I’m not sure how Balor could fit in. Ronan had to face the darkness inside himself, though, so maybe that fits.

Moving onward – Kit has to use the ‘Mason’s word’ and reach through solid rock to get the bottle out, but Nita’s cell phone goes off just once he’s got it – Dad’s calling, and he’s pissed, probably something to do with Dairine that’ll send Nita off on a subplot for half the book. She makes sure that Carmela can get a ride back home to Earth, and then transits home, leaving the rest of the chapter POV to Kit. Incidentally, I can’t remember, did Nita have a cell phone during “Wizards at War?” She definitely didn’t during Wizard’s holiday, because I remember her calling her father’s cell phone using her manual, and Dad getting a call from Mars on his cell phone at the end of it, foreshadowing the arrival of this book.