Toward the Night by James SwallowMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A planet circling a star that is suddenly acting erratic causing the inhabitants to deal with it in a radical solution, one that will eventually get the attention of Starfleet not once but twice. Toward the Night by James Swallow is the third book featuring the characters from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in a novelization surrounding one of the latest Star Trek series.
Taking place between the second season episodes “Among the Lotus Eaters” and “Charades”, the book follows the crew of the Enterprise as it tracks down a distress signal from century-lost early Federation vessel in a disputed system between the Federation and Klingon Empire only to find a chronological enigma. I don’t know if there is a record for the number of cliché plot-of-the-week thrown into one story, but this has to be up for consideration as there is a new alien civilization, mysterious derelict starship, mysterious orb, time travel and not ruining the timeline, finding hardboiled shipwreck survivors, long lost family member who isn’t what you imagined, deadly planet in two different time frames, and fighting Klingons just off the top of my head. If this was a single 60-minute episode, it would be bad, but thankful this is in a book allowing all these cliches to meld together in a great narrative scope conceived and executed by James Swallows. Using numerous points of view from the show’s main characters as well as those created for the story, Swallow does a good job bringing the show characters onto the page and bring forth engaging new characters for them to interact with. Of the three books of the Strange New Worlds line, this is easily the best not only in story but in how the author brings all the characters across.
Toward the Night is an example of a media tie-in novel that uses its medium for maximum potential to bring an entertaining story that would be too much for a single episode to the reader for their enjoyment.
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