Mirror Universe Goodness

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Heads up STSF community at large for you book readers and anyone who is a Mirror Universe Nut like myself. Can you guess what I'll be reading this weekend?

 

Star Trek: Shards and Shadows was released Tuesday 01.06.09 and is a follow up collection of short stories to 2007's Obsidian Alliances and Glass Empires.

 

The first paragraph on the below book synopsis, quoted from the Barnes and Noble site, is probably the most accurate description of the Mirror Universe that I have ever read. Star Treks MU is an alternate extension of what and who we know, and it just so happens that the characters have a darker honor:

 

Fractured history. Broken lives. Splintered souls. Since the alternate universe was first glimpsed in the classic episode "Mirror, Mirror," something about Star Trek's dark side has beckoned us, called to us, tempted us — like forbidden fruit on the Tree of Knowledge. To taste it is to lose oneself in a world of startling familiarity and terrifying contradictions, where everything and everyone we knew is somehow disturbingly different, and where shocking secrets await their revelation.

 

What began in 2007 with Glass Empires and Obsidian Alliances — the first truly in-depth foray into the turbulent history of this other continuum — now continues in twelve new short tales that revisit and expand upon that so-called "Mirror Universe," spanning all five of the core incarnations of Star Trek, as well as their literary offshoots, across more than two hundred years of divergent history, as chronicled by...

 

Christopher L. Bennett - Margaret Wander Bonanno - Peter David - Keith R.A. DeCandido - Michael Jan Friedman - Jim Johnson - Rudy Josephs - David Mack - Dave Stern - James Swallow - Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore - Susan Wright

[Grom 0]

Heads up STSF community at large for you book readers and anyone who is a Mirror Universe Nut like myself. Can you guess what I'll be reading this weekend?

 

Wait, you like mirror? I pretty much pegged you for the human-only, Star Fleet 4 eva, give me canon, son, roleplaying type. :rolleyes:

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Wait, you like mirror? I pretty much pegged you for the human-only, Star Fleet 4 eva, give me canon, son, roleplaying type. :rolleyes:

 

Oh yeah Grom! That's, like, totally how I feel. Mirror Universe is cool and everything, but it's not the greatest gimmick the Trek Universe has to offer. I don't really get the fascination there, and I'll never create a specific Mirror styled board name or write Mirror logs or anything like that. Yeah, I really don't like Mirror all that much, but the book looks interesting. ::straight face:: :P

[Guest Sar'vek t'Jhiin]

I owe you one, kitty. I completely forgot about this. Going to Barnes and Noble tonight.

 

Edit: And purchased. Settling in to read tonight. One story, at least...

Edited January 8, 2009 by Sar'vek t'Jhiin

[Aliana Lucindak 0]

I should read that to. Other then the even smaller Original series female uniforms, it was really an intriguing storyline.

~Ali

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Ack! I have to wait to grab my copy on Friday. The suspense is killin' me.

 

I just like the fact that the short stories contained within the Mirror Universe book line expand on the MU a bit, moving away from the common stereotypes that seem to have been plastered on the Mirror Universe.

 

Case in point: a common misconception among the non-Mirror inclined Trek populace is that the Mirror Universe is all about sneering, smirking, sex, assassinations, and piratical violence ... of course, these fun and wicked things are all present in the darker universe of Mirror, and if they were not it'd be no fun. w00t w00t! :-D

 

However, you can tell when someone overkills the Mirror Universe, because the Player spends the entire chat hour or log doing ::smirks:: ::sneers:: every other chat line as if that is going to equal Mirror, or they assume it's all about jumping into bed (all the time) with the department head or what have you in order to move up in rank.

 

The short stories of Obsidian and Glass Empires (and I hope Shards) go beyond these usual "cliches" and give the reader a glimpse into how Mirror can work as a viable and vibrant universe to play in, because if all the officers are trying to assassinate one another, nothing would get done. A darker universe yes, with individuals we think we know leading rougher and tougher lives, but jobs and duties still need to be completed.

 

Gotta love the piratical quirks of this kick azz universe.

[eagle 0]

Kansas...oh beloved kitty...just one point of contention...every mirror must have the "gratuitous sex and violence"...and at times all impromptu...makes life interesting... :rolleyes:

[Sorehl 0]

I picked up my copy and started into it last night.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Kansas...oh beloved kitty...just one point of contention...every mirror must have the "gratuitous sex and violence"...and at times all impromptu...makes life interesting... ;)

 

Oh, I'm a big fan of the Mirror gratuitous sex and violence, Eagle - and that just looks really wrong typed and sounds even worse out loud. :-P

 

But there is a point as I said earlier in the topic where it can get stupidly cliche rather then entertaining. Case in point: the Intendant of DS9's Mirror 'Verse entries. Not to get the DS9ers up in arms, and Nana Visitor was fantastic with the vampy portrayal, but if the alternate Kira was taken in another direction, less mature or whatever you want to call it, and Visitor didn't do the good job that she did, the Intendant could have gone the way of stupid. As the episodes left it, she was a dangerous character with a wicked sense of duty/humor - made a pretty good pirate queen.

 

A Mirror balance with the sex, violence, and dark pirate adventures can be hard to do, but it is doable and thankfully the Mirror book entries have been pretty good about keeping it real so to speak.

 

I picked up my copy and started into it last night.

 

Happy Reading Sorehl! There's enough content there that no matter your level of interest in Trek, or what show(s) you prefer over the other Trek shows, you can find one or two entries that you like.

 

**MINOR SPOILERS**

 

The Enterprise entry was sorta kinda predictable, but had a classic dark ending - I liked it.

 

I also liked the spot light on Robert April as the pre-Captain Pike/ Captain Kirk era entry, and it was an interesting look at what can go through a Mirror commanders mind while they carry out the orders of the Empire. Loved. It.

 

I resisted the urge to skip around and read the stories out of order - because I know a certain Sarvek went for the Mac Calhoun entry first :-P - and this is as far as I've gotten, but Shards is looking good.