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cahn4/5, with the huge caveat that there is a whole lot of nostalgia working in this book's favor, for me. It was one of the first Trek novels I ever read, and the first Ford I ever read, and the copy I have is the original old library copy I first read (which eventually turned up in the library book sale). Ford is, of course, an acquired taste, and one I can't necessarily recommend unless you're a huge fan of piecing together a complex, often-inadequately-signposted plot, lots of allusions (in this one there are at least three SFF book allusions, not to mention all the Trek allusions. Speaking of which, I assume he's talking about Forever War? Should I read that?), and having to reread to catch all the bits one missed the first time, and his insistence on breaking boundaries (his two Trek novels were a) a worldbuilding Klingon novel where the Enterprise crew show up in the prologue, the epilogue, and a cameo by kid!Spock and McCoy's diapers, and b) a musical). This is all, of course, complete catnip for me!
So, anyway. Here we go. As usual for a Ford book, the entire first two-thirds are character and worldbuilding setup for what happens in the last third; the last third is the plot-heavy bit but is heavily dependent on the character and worldbuilding of the first two thirds.
I think what is happening in the last three chapters is that Krenn has been ordered to see whether it is a good idea to foment war with the Federation (thus Meth's comment to him that if there's going to be a war, it should happen now rather than when the Emperor dies, but Krenn doesn't seem to think of Meth as the enemy, and indeed as a sort of ally). At the same time, he has (apparently?) his whole life been working on revenge on the conspirators who killed his adopted father Kethas (who apparently didn't want war with the Romulans or the Federation). And also, he may have been influenced by Dr. Tagore not to want a war. In any case, the Red File has been assembled, or maybe Krenn himself assembled it, with Van Diemen's shenanigans contained therein.
Admiral Van Diemen, that is, has been surreptitiously sending Starfleet personnel on suicide runs to get themselves killed by Klingons, so as to scare all the worlds in the Federation and force them to stay in the Federation. He's been aided in this (I guess? somehow?) by Maxwell Grandisson III. I honestly don't really understand Grandisson; he doesn't want people to go into space, so he... does want the Federation to stay together? I don't get this part, but it seems to be the case, for reasons I will get into in a bit.
Krenn kills Van Diemen by transporting Zharn in to the train where Van Diemen is and having Zharn break Van Diemen's neck. I think this is pretty clear from the way Ford telegraphs exactly what time it is around the time of the murder and exactly where Krenn is at all times related to the murder. (And Tagore knows this too; he tells Krenn a story about killing Admiral Yamamoto that I never understood before, but duh, it's supposed to be a parallel and tell Krenn that he totally understands what's going on.) It's never super-clear on why Van Diemen is murdered, but it makes sense; I guess it's a combo of a) to get Van Diemen out of their hair, and b) to precipitate the conditions where Krenn can ask for the dilithium report. (Which would have been much more complicated if Van Diemen had still been alive.)
Because Krenn has also figured out from all the people who wanted interviews with him, or maybe it was also in the Red File somehow, that the Federation has dilithium, which is something that the Klingon Empire doesn't know. So he agrees not to release Van Diemen's shenanigans into the public for the dilithium report. (Here it seems to be clear that Krenn is playing some sort of deep game. Meth would probably have preferred that Krenn just release the information so as to destabilize the Federation, right?)
Meanwhile, the Klingon war faction (the same faction that destroyed Kethas, including Krenn's old commander Kodon and Kethas' old enemy Margon that we met in the first chapter) is doing basically the same thing as Van Diemen, preparing to destroy a Federation colony in order to foment war with the Federation. Krenn blows them up instead.
The consequences of all this are twofold. First, because Krenn has the dilithium report, the Klingons will be convinced the Federation has the same technological advances they do, and therefore they won't start a war against them. (And because Krenn didn't release the information on Van Diemen, the Federation won't fracture into tiny pieces that the Klingons could gobble up.) Second, the Empire will be angry that the war faction almost did go to war against a technologically-advanced Federation, and kill the war faction, which means Krenn has revenge for Kethas.
Whew. Ford packed a lot into three fairly short chapters.
Things I still don't understand:
Maxwell Grandisson III. It seems clear that he was the person that Van Diemen was going to meet with when he was murdered. It seems equally clear that he knew about Van Diemen's shenangians (sorry, I just like that word), heck, it's strongly implied that he's responsible for them -- and that he committed suicide when Douglas Shepherd found out about it and told him so. I just still don't quite get how the Back to Earth movement fits in to all of this, or why he was backing Van Diemen if he disliked Starfleet so much.
I don't quite get Vrenn/Krenn's relationship with Kethas. Kethas betrayed him when he was setting up the Romulan Neutral Space. (I also don't get the line, "[Vrenn] knew one proponent of Rom Neutral Space, only one. The idea was related to the principle of central control in the game called chess." Does this mean having a neutral space means that neither player has central control? Or..?) I thought Krenn was angry about that? ("So there was only the khomerex zha, Vrenn thought, and the pieces of the game were only bits of wood in the fire.") Maybe as Krenn got older he found out things were not as he had supposed? (It seems interesting, for example, that Kodon was in the war faction. Perhaps the part about Kethas betraying Vrenn was a lie?) Or maybe being near Tagore influenced him?
What is Kelly's fusion?
So, anyway. Here we go. As usual for a Ford book, the entire first two-thirds are character and worldbuilding setup for what happens in the last third; the last third is the plot-heavy bit but is heavily dependent on the character and worldbuilding of the first two thirds.
I think what is happening in the last three chapters is that Krenn has been ordered to see whether it is a good idea to foment war with the Federation (thus Meth's comment to him that if there's going to be a war, it should happen now rather than when the Emperor dies, but Krenn doesn't seem to think of Meth as the enemy, and indeed as a sort of ally). At the same time, he has (apparently?) his whole life been working on revenge on the conspirators who killed his adopted father Kethas (who apparently didn't want war with the Romulans or the Federation). And also, he may have been influenced by Dr. Tagore not to want a war. In any case, the Red File has been assembled, or maybe Krenn himself assembled it, with Van Diemen's shenanigans contained therein.
Admiral Van Diemen, that is, has been surreptitiously sending Starfleet personnel on suicide runs to get themselves killed by Klingons, so as to scare all the worlds in the Federation and force them to stay in the Federation. He's been aided in this (I guess? somehow?) by Maxwell Grandisson III. I honestly don't really understand Grandisson; he doesn't want people to go into space, so he... does want the Federation to stay together? I don't get this part, but it seems to be the case, for reasons I will get into in a bit.
Krenn kills Van Diemen by transporting Zharn in to the train where Van Diemen is and having Zharn break Van Diemen's neck. I think this is pretty clear from the way Ford telegraphs exactly what time it is around the time of the murder and exactly where Krenn is at all times related to the murder. (And Tagore knows this too; he tells Krenn a story about killing Admiral Yamamoto that I never understood before, but duh, it's supposed to be a parallel and tell Krenn that he totally understands what's going on.) It's never super-clear on why Van Diemen is murdered, but it makes sense; I guess it's a combo of a) to get Van Diemen out of their hair, and b) to precipitate the conditions where Krenn can ask for the dilithium report. (Which would have been much more complicated if Van Diemen had still been alive.)
Because Krenn has also figured out from all the people who wanted interviews with him, or maybe it was also in the Red File somehow, that the Federation has dilithium, which is something that the Klingon Empire doesn't know. So he agrees not to release Van Diemen's shenanigans into the public for the dilithium report. (Here it seems to be clear that Krenn is playing some sort of deep game. Meth would probably have preferred that Krenn just release the information so as to destabilize the Federation, right?)
Meanwhile, the Klingon war faction (the same faction that destroyed Kethas, including Krenn's old commander Kodon and Kethas' old enemy Margon that we met in the first chapter) is doing basically the same thing as Van Diemen, preparing to destroy a Federation colony in order to foment war with the Federation. Krenn blows them up instead.
The consequences of all this are twofold. First, because Krenn has the dilithium report, the Klingons will be convinced the Federation has the same technological advances they do, and therefore they won't start a war against them. (And because Krenn didn't release the information on Van Diemen, the Federation won't fracture into tiny pieces that the Klingons could gobble up.) Second, the Empire will be angry that the war faction almost did go to war against a technologically-advanced Federation, and kill the war faction, which means Krenn has revenge for Kethas.
Whew. Ford packed a lot into three fairly short chapters.
Things I still don't understand:
Maxwell Grandisson III. It seems clear that he was the person that Van Diemen was going to meet with when he was murdered. It seems equally clear that he knew about Van Diemen's shenangians (sorry, I just like that word), heck, it's strongly implied that he's responsible for them -- and that he committed suicide when Douglas Shepherd found out about it and told him so. I just still don't quite get how the Back to Earth movement fits in to all of this, or why he was backing Van Diemen if he disliked Starfleet so much.
I don't quite get Vrenn/Krenn's relationship with Kethas. Kethas betrayed him when he was setting up the Romulan Neutral Space. (I also don't get the line, "[Vrenn] knew one proponent of Rom Neutral Space, only one. The idea was related to the principle of central control in the game called chess." Does this mean having a neutral space means that neither player has central control? Or..?) I thought Krenn was angry about that? ("So there was only the khomerex zha, Vrenn thought, and the pieces of the game were only bits of wood in the fire.") Maybe as Krenn got older he found out things were not as he had supposed? (It seems interesting, for example, that Kodon was in the war faction. Perhaps the part about Kethas betraying Vrenn was a lie?) Or maybe being near Tagore influenced him?
What is Kelly's fusion?
