Of all the
Star Trek television series, none annoy me more than
Star Trek: Voyager. Its premise - the crew of a starship marooned some seventy-five-thousand light years from Earth and trying to find their way back home - is arguably even more alluring than that of the original series’ five-year mission of exploration. Yet
Voyager failed to capitalise on its potential; so much so that, at times, I struggled to suspend my disbelief. Not only did the ship get through shuttlecraft like there was no tomorrow, but it fired more irreplaceable photon torpedoes than (the writers made a big deal of stressing that) they had; lost many crewmen, yet had an ever-increasing crew complement; and even had the uncanny habit of running into many of the same species time and again - some of them after having put ten or even twenty-thousand light years between their territory and the ship. Such inconsistencies speak to the show’s fundamental failure to deal with consequences - a general failing in episodic television of the time, but
Voyager especially so. Indeed, I can think of only a single episode that saw the ship carry damage over from the preceding story, when, really,
Voyager should have been a show grounded in attrition. In seven years and 168 episodes, only Captain Janeway’s morals and judgement can claim to have been gradually eroded by circumstance.
Yet in its fourth season, the show offered us a glimpse of what might have been in its spectacular “Year of Hell” two-parter. Under constant attack for months by the time-altering Krenim,
Voyager suffers heavy damage and heavy casualties, bridge officers amongst them. Tuvok is blinded, the captain scarred. Of course, the Year of Hell, the most interesting thing ever to happen to Captain Janeway and her crew, never happened - it was all overwritten in an inevitable
deus ex machina that saw the so-called “prime timeline” restored. Only an author as bold and as innovative as Kirsten Beyer,
Voyager’s literary showrunner these days, could have both the imagination and the gumption to write a sequel to a story that didn’t happen - and to somehow make both count.
Whereas the
Voyager television series became almost absurd in its eschewing of consequences,
A Pocket Full of Lies, much like
The Eternal Tide before it, is an in-depth exploration of them. The effects of things that never were and may not be are felt as keenly here as the devastating after-effects of the preceding trilogy of novels, as well as
The Eternal Tide and even the Borg invasion several years prior. In just a hundred thousand words, Beyer plausibly reconciles the never-was Year of Hell with the Full Circle fleet’s first encounter with the Krenim, while at the same time introducing us to a quantum-duplicate Kathryn Janeway who’s betrayed her oath to Starfleet and is prosecuting an alien war to try to force the enemy into giving up her captured husband and daughter. In the process, she borrows Tuvok from the
Titan and addresses his feelings about his own lost child, before moving on to deal with Harry and Nancy’s relationship in the wake of her possession by a malevolent alien consciousness in the previous story. She even takes the time to induct the newly-minted Ensign Icheb into the fleet with a charming little sub-plot that quickly sees the youngster learn that he’s a long way to go from knowledge to wisdom.
The story of
Denzit Janeway of Sormana is what drives the book, and rightly so. Towards the end of the television series, and in “Year of Hell” in particular, we saw how far
Voyager’s then-captain would go for her crew. Here, we see Sormana’s
denzit go even further for her real family, before Beyer pulls the rug out from under us to reveal that things aren’t quite as “simple” as they seem. At the time, much was made of
Voyager’s creators’ decision to put a woman in the captain’s chair, which is perhaps why the television series’ only ever rarely explored her femininity. Her maternal instincts were always writ large, divided amongst a hundred and forty-odd souls while she herself remained isolated. Well,
Denzit Janeway shows what could have happened had she lost her ship and crew only to be rescued from years of torment by a dashing white knight who’d promptly knock her up, making her the only Kathryn Janeway in the multiverse to become a mother. In one of her most touching and terrifying portrayals, Beyer shows us the lines that this
denzit would cross to get her daughter back, making our Janeway’s Borg alliances and Hirogen technology handovers seem almost sane in comparison.
What’s most interesting about the
denzit though is the reaction that she provokes in others - Tuvok in particular. Circumstances have conspired to push
Titan’s tactical officer’s sympathies away from his old friend and towards this quantum echo of her whose pain he shares. I can’t recall an episode or novel that deals with the Vulcan so brilliantly, getting beneath his stoic façade without completely letting it drop.
Furthermore, having spent three books in the bureaucratic Confederacy, a novel with the ruthless Krenim as the principal antagonists comes as a welcome change of pace. Though Annorax,
Voyager’s “Year of Hell” tormentor, is long-dead, not to mention revered, in the prime timeline, his descendants have not heeded his warnings about the “moods” of time and the danger of making temporal incursions to try to affect precise change. A complex character himself, I’m sure it’s no coincidence that this novel’s Krenim, Agent Dayne, shares Annorax’s passions and flaws. But what makes him even more fascinating is the fact that, unlike Annorax, he’s already got what he wanted from time, and it’s the timeline we already know. As such, the Full Circle fleet can’t look to undo his meddling, but merely understand it, and it’s on this understanding that the plot turns.
Another appealing aspect of
Lies is how it expounds upon some of the Year of Hell’s most fascinating facets, such as the oft-mentioned but never seen on-screen temporal incursions that Annorax spent centuries planning. In one particularly memorable passage, Beyer takes us inside an incursion, and it’s a much more tangible, physical process than “Year of Hell” implied. Beyer’s imagery is as spectacular as it is chilling.
Coming out of the novel, as ever Beyer leaves threads hanging, the most intriguing and emotive of which concerns the fate of
Voyager’s chief engineer, Nancy Conlon, and her on/off lover Harry Kim. Beyer could have glossed over Nancy’s possession in the previous novel with a brief acknowledgement or an aside, as the TV series probably would have, but instead she uses it to push both characters in a new direction that raises a whole host of moral dilemmas in true
Trek style while exploring issues that I don’t think any
Trek series has ever broached in depth: unwanted pregnancy and long-term, potentially terminal illness.
For me,
A Pocket Full of Lies is the first
Voyager novel since Admiral Janeway’s resurrection to trounce its Alpha and Beta Quadrant sister series’ offerings. By turns harrowing and bold, Beyer finally makes good on the Year of Hell premise, as well as, I dare say, that of the female captain.
A Pocket Full of Lies
is available to download from iTunes for £4.99. Amazon charge the same, and also offer a paperback for £7.99.
