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A Burning House (Star Trek: Klingon Empire) |
Author: Keith R. A. DeCandido
Published: 2008-01-29 |
List price: $7.99
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As of: November 23rd, 2008 02:05:44 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 A cliche-shattering take on the Klingons
Earlier this year, Keith R.A. DeCandido's I.K.S. Gorkon returned, this time under the banner of Klingon Empire. The series premise was changed to provide a more expansive view of Klingon life, instead of focusing on the kind of characters we're already used to seeing on TV: the crew of a military vessel. It's a good idea, and one that benefits from the fact that it isn't starting from scratch; we've had a few books to get to know the Gorkon crew, and in this book we follow them off the ship as it undergoes repairs and maintenance and get glimpses of the Empire as crew members make use of their downtime in different ways. (Not that you have to have read the IKS Gorkon books to make sense of this one; you'll be brought up to speed on everything you need to know.)
I haven't always been a big fan of the Klingons, but that's probably due to the lazy stereotypical way Klingons are sometimes written. The Gorkon crew, though, are individuals, each with his or her own distinct personality. And I really liked the way Klingon Empire: A Burning House broadened the canvas to let us see more of nonmilitary life on Klingon worlds, while still featuring the Gorkon characters I'd come to really like over the course of the previous books.
Too often Star Trek gives us just a narrow slice of each of its cultures. You can't have a functional society where everyone is a warrior and no one does all the other jobs. For that matter, you can't have a functional military where everyone's a gung ho frontline fighter who can't wait to die gloriously. Star Trek on TV tends to show us those kinds of characters because they're the ones people in Starfleet are more likely to meet. We don't see the opera singers and composers, the farmers, and all the other people who make Klingon society a society instead of an army. But in Burning House we do. We see how Klingons on colony worlds actually get along with the subjugated locals. We see how people live in the slums of the poorer cities. And, yeah, we see what goes into the making of one of those epic operas.
Though this is a new beginning for the series, nothing's been announced about future Klingon Empire novels yet. I don't know how well A Burning House sold. I haven't noticed any announcements about any new books, though.
If anyone's resisted buying it because they don't like the usual Klingon cliches, they're missing the point of this series completely. This is really good stuff, fun and thoughtful. So buy it already. I want more.
 Klingon World
An incredible story about the klingon world and their way to be ... a Klingon Warrior cannot avoid to read it
Qapla'
Best on the supermarket racks
Minireview: A BURNING HOUSE is a craftsmanlike work, a good novel that pleases the reader without the embarrassing lapses in technique and judgment that so often plague series fiction. It adds new depth to themes and stories already part of the Star Trek universe and weaves together major characters and events from the television series with its own original characters and storylines. Highly recommended.
Elaboration: I picked up A BURNING HOUSE under the same circumstances that I buy most of the Star Trek and Star Wars books I read: I was at Wegmans (upscale northeastern grocery chain) and wanted something to read while waiting to check out. I made the usual mistake of assuming that the back cover would be a good guide to the contents of the book. Sorry, this is not "a tale of the Klingon Empire." Instead, it is several loosely connected tales ... and, fortunately, all of them are good. I've read other Star Trek novels, like FEDERATION and SPOCK'S WORLD, that are more important to the Star Trek universe, but I don't think I've read another Star Trek novel that was as well written or had as much "human interest" as this one. I haven't read any of DeCandido's other books, which means that I came into this series "cold", without knowing any of the characters other than the TV series regulars, and yet I did not feel lost. None of the novel felt like review for the sake of review ("As we last saw our heroes ..."), and yet the characters were vividly drawn, with complex emotions and motivations; just what you would hope for in any novel, but find too infrequently in science fiction, especially in Star Wars/Star Trek series fiction.
One of the things I particularly like about this novel is that it helps anchor the Klingon Empire in something more like reality than we've seen in the past. In ST:TOS, the Klingons were conniving, violent others--a perfect enemy for us, the good guys--the Federation--because they had no redeeming qualities. In the post-ST:TOS films, the Klingons get a new look and a new language, but they're still dirty, rotten bad guys. In ST:TNG, however, we get Klingons who actually live by a code of honor. Their code may not be hours, but is internally consistent and does not condone the kind of sneakiness and dishonesty that we saw in ST:TOS. On the other hand, it involves a strongly anti-intellectual, anti-contemplative philosophy, and a level of fratricidal violence that seem impossible to sustain in any society that has developed beyond feudalism. In fact, the Klingons have a kind of industrial feudalism that we see in other SF, like DUNE. But how can people who disdain science and learning fly spacecraft and keep up technologically with science-oriented societies like the Vulcans or the humans? DeCandido has an answer (although it may have originated with others): They can keep up because the noble/warrior caste is just one stratum of society. Some Klingons live for battle, but many others live to farm, or to treat medical patients, or to develop new technologies, or to write and perform operas celebrating great victories in battle. DeCandido takes us behind the scenes to see how these Klingons live and to experience the contradictions of a society that values the warrior above all else but needs far more farmers and construction workers and engineers than it does armored soldiers. Unless I missed it, there is no specific reference to "a burning house" in the novel; the implication is that the Empire, despite its retooling since Gorkon's time (remember that the Klingons were almost literally the USSR in ST:TOS and have become more or less Russia since the end of the Cold War) is still in trouble; its insistence on maintaining its warlike ways continues to bankrupt its society, and another explosion, like that at the moon of Praxis in STVI, could be on the horizon.
A Bit Indulgent
Well, this isn't your typical Klingon but its still fun. It is a little surprising that the publishers let him write a 400 page book about back story. The whole book is about shore leave for the Gorkon. There is the guy who tries to go home again, the beks that goes to the harvest festival, the doctor who no one listens to, and Klag trying to sort out his screwed up family. That last bit is the more interesting as it deals with Klag/Worf's brother and has a brief detour to DS9. All in all, its a good book and after four books I am starting to be able to keep track of all of the blasted characters on the Gorkon.
MAKE MINE KLINGON, PLEASE!
This recent book is a follow-up of sorts or an addition to I.K.S. Gorkon series of books: A Good Day To Die (2003), Honor Bound (2003), and Enemy Territory (2005) by the same author. Most would know that, but some may not.
Early STAR TREK: maybe producers felt these strange, rough, people just kept "clinging on" so the Klingons became permanent residents. Their dress and portrayal was very much uncertain in most early STAR TREK shows, with the Klingons looking much different, especially in costume, than now. But with this book, we are afforded as never before, a chance to meet and view these vibrant people up close as never before.
We see them collectively and individually, and not broken down into the aristocratic houses as usual, no, we see both the aristocrats who are officers in the defense force and those less elevated, the common folk as well. Or to paraphrase the book, both the "echelons of power" and the "lowest castes". We also get a chance to view their cities, with an eye on their architecture, while receiving a history lesson at the same time. One example, "most Klingon cities were built around a system of roads that could accomodate pedestrians and people astride a mount", we also see that some of their buildings while monumental, can also be small, and box like.
When viewing the various people of this book we are allowed a view of not only the military and political, but also the farmers with their smaller communities, learning also that many Vulcans live here as well. We see the Klingons and hear them in a more personal way than ever before: while the Klingons may value honor highly, wishing to die well, they also can love and laugh just as any other group of people. And as the book relates, though the Houses yet battle with one another, it is much tamer than in the past.
The Klingons have always been one of my favorites, and anyone else enjoying these Klingons as a race, or as individuals in their customs and beliefs, will need peruse this latest book on them. True in some spots the book meanders abit slowly, but at the same time, I have not enjoyed a STAR TREK book as much in a long time.
Included in this book is glossary of Klingon words and expressions as used by the author throughout his book, this not only adds 'fun' to the reading experience but also helps one understand the less than understandable present in the Klingon dialect.
Best in reading, and Qapla!
Semper Fi.
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