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I was wondering if anyone had read the Khan trilogy by Greg Cox (about the Star Trek character).
I've been contemplating buying it, and the synopses I've read for the first book seem very similar to Ender's game. Anyone have any thoughts?
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Maybe the book shows what Ender's Game SHOULD have been like, if only I'd had the brains to set it within the far superior Star Trek universe.
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"Remember, the enemy's gate is directly across the room as thought about in a plane-like manner, and in the real world that's how people fly their spaceships."
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I didn't think it was a trilogy, but I have read the two books to my great enjoyment. I'd have to reread them to come up with similarities to EG, but I can't think of too many off the top of my head. Just a lot of really smart people. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Isn't there a character in STtNG named "Noonian Singh"? I think he built Data, but I could be way off base.
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And it is Noonien Soong, same spelling as Khan's middle name.
That's quite possibly more than coincidental; one of Dr. Soong's forefathers was, at least in Enterprise, involved in eugenics research not too long post-eugenics wars.
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Since we're talking about Kahn, I have to ask: does anyone know the current (official) stance on the rather short-sighted continuity slip-up from the original series, which states that Kahn and his fellow augments ruled the world after the Eugenics War in 1996?! I notice that in later series like Enterprise and DS9, they just never mention when it was supposed to have happened anymore. I mean, I don't follow the news as much as I should, but I certainly don't remember a genetically engineered mad man ruling the world until we launched him into space just under 10 years ago.
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I haven't read any of the three books - the third, which was just released, is called "To Reign In Hell" a deals with what Khan & Co were doing between the episode "Space Seed" and the movie "The Wrath of Khan".
I read, however, that Cox wrote the first two books as if the Eugenics wars DID in fact take place in "our" 1990s, but were all hushed up and covert. I think the other Trek series have been ignoring the issue. I did read one great parody about Khan's mission to bring 1990s grunge music to the future...
Perhaps they aren't too similar to Ender's Game. i just read a synopsis of the first book about four-year-old Khan being super-intelligent and trained to lead other super-intelligent kids in a special training facility, and my Ender warnings went off. But I will have to locate the actual books.
And, Mr. Card, surely imitation is the greatest (or just most annoying) form of flattery?
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
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The entire Kahn Trilogy is good. I found Khan to be an understandable character, especially his life on Seti Alpha VI ("To Reign in Hell").
His rage at Kirk was wholely understandable, especially since he always expected Kirk to return and check on them (None of this is really a spoiler. Khan said all of this in ST II). When the planetary catastrophe hit, he rightly assumed they would only have to survive for a short time until he returned. The fact that Kirk never did and (AFAIR) didn't mention the incident in the official reports to starfleet could lead someone in those circumstances to blame Kirk. It really did seem as the universe was against them. Might drive anyone over the edge, after 20+ years.
I highly recommend it.
Posts: 1346 | Registered: Jun 1999
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IanO, can you spill the beans and tell me what Khan's one glove thing is all about? I'm writing a fanfic and don't want my details to be all fuzzy. I read that "To Reign In Hell" gives the background to that...
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--Yeah, where everybody speaks California English.--
I'm always particularly impressed by Khan, who, despite being Indian, seems to have learned his English in Mexico.
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He burned his hand very badly trying to burn away some rock with a phaser. The planet had just collided with a singularity (or some such technobabble) and where they had been living (and even had been able to flourish in) became a living hell. They were looking for cover in a cave. Or rather, they were hiding in a cave and the mouth collapsed and they needed to get out, so they'd have air. Khan held the phaser on until it was about to explode in some sort of nuclear meltdown, then let the phasers explosion clear the last of the rock. But in holding the phaser his hand was burn nearly to the bone. (One of the side affects of the planet's new geologic instability was that the oceans all became acidic- which one unlucky person discovered to their death. Life was very harsh for them.)
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I think I'd rather have the Swiftian (and I don't mean Tom) sense of humor, Bryan, than be assured that our host is a ST fan.
I love ST, too, but to hint that there is any comparison between OSC and the mostly hack ST writers (except perhaps that they were careful not to "copy" enough to get Paramount sued for copyright infringement) is probably worthy of a little put-down.
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Can you imagine what would have happened if Kirk had mentioned Khan in his official report?
It would be like finding out Hitler is alive and well on a beach somewhere. And a military officer not only knew, but aided and abetted his transport to the island.
Not only would that planet be scoured from one end to the other, but every last officer and crewman who failed to report Khan's existence would be, at the very least, court-martialed and thrown out of Star Fleet.
And given Khan's insistence on "we are superior" schtick, you would think he'd stop whining like a stuck pig and accept a raw deal is better than a phaser in the back of the head. He had his chance and it didn't play out. If he preferred the alternative, death is always an easy out.
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Being confined to a planet where you're barely surviving, where you're constantly being attacked by your 'followers', I think you would begin to fixate on your lot in life and on the person most directly responsible for those conditions.
Not to defend Khan, but he was no Hitler.
** Spoilers**
It was certainly within his power to destroy humanity or at the least to cause great death (using the device invented by Evergreen) and devastation in retaliation to his defeats. But when presented the opportunity to leave Earth and take his chances in space by Gary Seven (who was there thwarting him at every turn), he took it. He did not nihilistically try to get revenge as disappointed in the 'lowly' humans as he was. Arrogant, flawed, corrupt, by-any-means necessary, all were his traits. But still a relatively moral man who was able to see and accept the genetically 'inferior' Lt McGyvers and determine to father a dynasty with her despite her genes.
No, he was not Hitler. Though your reasoning on why Kirk didn't mention anything is sound. But Khan's rage and eventual persecution complex and paranoia are understandable, as is his fixation in Kirk as the ultimate barrier to his rightful place in the universe and a reachable source of his circumstances.
Wow. I never thought I'd be writing a piece defending Khan. I didn't think I liked him all that much. But he is human and understandable in his motivations (in the very contradictory and flawed ST universe).
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Some of that deflation comes from Cox who placed the Eugenics wars within our history (rather than a parallel one, in keeping with ST practice.) So while Khan and his 'brothers' were behind things like the wars in Eastern Europe, Somalia or in other 'brushfires' (mainly accentuating them, rather than causing them), our history could not allow a full scale world war to go on without our knowledge. Thus, the Eugenic's Wars were much more behind the scenes (though his interweaving of our history with plausible scenarios involving the supermen is masterful).
I doubt the original writer of Space Seed envisioned a 'behind-the-scenes' Eugenic's war. But then ST was never even consistant with itself. Cox did the best he could with the material.
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