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A review by tasharobinson
Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
4.0
As many people have noted in reviews, this book is just the apotheosis of Mary Sue-dom. You could literally hand this book to a fandom newbie to explain the Mary Sue / Gary Stu phenomenon to them. While many of the Star Trek original-series characters (especially Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Chekov) get plenty of face-time here, the center of the narrative is new character Evan Wilson, a brilliant doctor who's also a talented hand-to-hand fighter, an inspired anthropologist and first-contact expert, and a tremendous problem-solver. She's so good at programming that her skills challenge Spock! She's so good at engineering that she creates a delightful puzzle for Scotty that takes all his skills to deal with — and he doesn't realize she did it on purpose! She's so good at piloting, she doesn't even need a guidance system! She's so good at bedside-mannering, she even intimidates McCoy! She's so good at — it doesn't matter what it is, she's so good at it that everyone's impressed into obedience, and by the end of the book, Kirk is a little in love with her, Spock has taken her up as a personal challenge, and everyone else is just singing her praises.
And I don't care. I find this book so much fun. Partially that's because of some really efficient but creative world-building and problem-posing. When an entire race of catlike people fall prey to a nasty pandemic, Uhura tries to track down their ancestors through subtle symbolic cues found in their songs. But even when she finds the homeworld they can't talk about, their distant kin won't discuss them or their disease, and the Enterprise crew has to figure out why.
I never got very deeply into Star Trek novels (in spite of reading all the James Blish episode adaptations as a teenager), and I blame Janet Kagan, because this is one of the first ones I picked up as a teenager, and it spoke so clearly to my interests — first-contact novel, cat people, outsized and colorful characters, lively brisk writing, a really enjoyable kick-ass lady lead — that the other Trek novels I tried largely seemed dull by comparison. This is a remarkably self-indulgent book that reads like extremely professional fan fiction. And there's nothing wrong with that. I periodically pick it up and re-read it in an afternoon just for that sense of sheer self-indulgence.
And I don't care. I find this book so much fun. Partially that's because of some really efficient but creative world-building and problem-posing. When an entire race of catlike people fall prey to a nasty pandemic, Uhura tries to track down their ancestors through subtle symbolic cues found in their songs. But even when she finds the homeworld they can't talk about, their distant kin won't discuss them or their disease, and the Enterprise crew has to figure out why.
I never got very deeply into Star Trek novels (in spite of reading all the James Blish episode adaptations as a teenager), and I blame Janet Kagan, because this is one of the first ones I picked up as a teenager, and it spoke so clearly to my interests — first-contact novel, cat people, outsized and colorful characters, lively brisk writing, a really enjoyable kick-ass lady lead — that the other Trek novels I tried largely seemed dull by comparison. This is a remarkably self-indulgent book that reads like extremely professional fan fiction. And there's nothing wrong with that. I periodically pick it up and re-read it in an afternoon just for that sense of sheer self-indulgence.