Star Trek: From The Ship’s Library

Warning: This post may contain a mild Star Trek movie spoiler.

I don’t read a lot of Star Trek books. I’ll pick one up if it looks interesting, but I’ve never been too fond of them. For one thing, they have a scary range of suckness; for every good one, there are a dozen poor ones. For another, until recently I kept my geekness tucked away neatly, and would never have been seen in public reading a Trek book (with their lurid, stupid covers).

That’s changing. For one thing, the newer books have nicer, more elegant covers (check out the Vanguard series as an example). For another, the books are getting better.

You might hear something about books on the next episode of the Starbase 66 podcast, coming soon. Or you might not. I’m not saying.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the books again today because of this interview Chris Pine (Kirk) and Zach Quinto (Spock) gave about the new Star Trek movie. For some reason, it’s in the Wall Street Journal, which, strangely, I don’t read. But it’s online now, and includes this odd quote from Pine:

Pine: “I’m not well-versed in the Trek canon, but we’re venturing into territory that’s only been covered in these paperback novels they sell. It’s definitely not going to please everyone. There’s a scene where my character is in a bar and he’s definitely inebriated and under the influence of his own arrogance. It’s him becoming the Kirk everyone knows. In my book that makes the journey a little more interesting. If he’s a clear-cut leader from the beginning, you don’t have anywhere to go.”

There have been hints from the producers before that this film will draw from the books, which I find interesting; the books aren’t canon, but are often entertaining and include key information about the characters. Read Enterprise: The First Adventure, for instance, to learn more about Janice Rand. But that stuff isn’t canon.

Now it might be. And if theories about alternate timelines and paradoxes are true, this film might just break down that old canon barrier and give fans of the books a chance to see their versions of the classic Trek characters onscreen.

Here are five Star Trek books you should read:

• Prime Directive, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens: This Canadian duo brought us the final mission of Kirk’s five-year voyage. Very entertaining.
• Strangers from the Sky, Margaret Wander Bonnano: This is the story of the first contact with Vulcan, a tale later contradicted by First Contact, but still a great read.
• New Frontier: House of Cards, Peter David. Not the best in this exceptionally good series, but you should start with it.
• Vulcan’s Glory, D.C. Fontana: I had to dig to find out the name of this book, the story of Spock’s first mission under Pike, as I haven’t read it in decades. But it was one of the first I ever read and has stayed with me.
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Gene Roddenberry: Better than the movie.

I’ve been meaning to read the new Titan series of books, following Captain Riker’s crew, but I haven’t had the time. Soon, though.

The Pine/Quinto interview is here.

Music Review: The Tea Party

The Tea Party kind of sucked. But not all the time.

This Canadian trio sliced through the early-90s grunge scene with The River, the first single from the disc Splendor Solis. Big, loud, pretentious and hairy, it was a psychedelic epic, a big fuck-you to the current spate of mumbling, shambling Seattle sounders. I liked it. It was like Jim Morrison fronting a Led Zeppelin cover band, sort of. The rest of the disc was okay, nothing as strong as that first single, but better than a lot of Canadian rock at the time.

In the fall of 1993, I met the band at a bar in North Bay, Ontario, called Wylders. We did the obligatory interview, and I stayed to review the show itself. The River was getting a lot of airplay, and there was some buzz around these guys. And the show was solid; I remember how the three of them turned their song Sun Goin’ Down into Stone Temple Pilots’ Sex Type Thing, then drifted back to their own tune. There was a mellow interlude with bongo drums and acoustic instruments, and a lot of eastern influence.

Towards the end of the show, singer-guitarist Jeff Martin was leading the band (Stuart Chatwood and Jeff Burrows) through a raging version of The River, and the crowd went wild. Crazy wild, in fact, and it was really something, considering Wylders’ could seat about 150 people max. Martin played harder, really got into it. The crowd grew even more frenzied. And then everyone fled, running next door to the adjoining sports bar. Joltin’ Joe Carter had just won the World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays, and his ecstatic run around the bases was dominating the big-screen TVs. So much for the Tea Party. You could see the pissed-offedness on Martin’s face. But I didn’t feel bad; he was actually one of the worst interview subjects I had in 20 years of journalism, and I was still a little peeved.

A couple of years later, the band released The Edges of Twilight, a much more polished disc. I consider it their best; the tracks Fire in the Head and Sister Awake are among their strongest songs. Martin brought the sounds of the Arab world to the forefront, and it worked well in  a hard-rock context. But just like Splendor Solis, I found the same problem: one song, okay, two songs, okay, three or more … too much. I’ve still never listened to a Tea Party album all the way through. And that’s sad; they were excellent musicians, gifted multi-instrumentalists, and Martin is one of the country’s best guitarists. All of that, though, matters little if the songs are bogged down under a heavy velvet curtain of pretension (says the guy who loves the Cult, right?)

It was that year that I saw the band for the second time, in one of the biggest gyps in Canadian beer promo history. A leading brewer was holding a “win to get in” concert series; you had to win a ticket via radio promotions to be able to see a big concert in a small venue. My city was fourth on the list. And the featured act was a surprise until the show started. The first three shows featured, if I recall correctly, Metallica, Lenny Kravitz and Alanis Morissette. When our local show happened, the big rumour was AC/DC.

I was there, covering it, and it was not AC/DC. It was the Tea Party. And even the free beer couldn’t keep the crowd in the bar. By the end of the first set, the place had cleared out. I stayed; I still hold that the Tea Party was one of the best live bands in Canada at that time, and it was a fantastic show. But I was pretty much alone in that sentiment. “Imagine that,” a rival radio DJ said the next morning. “If you’re sorry you missed them, just wait; they’ll be playing at a bar in town next week.”

The Tea Party kept on releasing albums all through the 90s and into the 2000s. Standout singles include Temptation, Heaven’s Coming Down and The Writing’s on the Wall.  But just as with their earlier albums, these singles were high points on otherwise unlistenable albums. Transmission, for instance, boasts the short sharp shock of Temptation, which introduced electronics to the band’s patchouli sound, but the rest of the disc is tiresome and self-indulgent. The trend continued until the band split up a couple of years ago.

Some groups are best suited for greatest-hits discs. This is one of them. Unless you’re a diehard fan, you are not going to sit through the entire Tea Party output. But a disc with their dozen or so excellent hard-rock singles would be nice to have in the car.

Here’s that first video for The River:

And here’s Temptation:

Commissioner Gordon is Dead

Pat Hingle, who played Gotham City Police Commissioner Gordon in four Batman movies, died today.

I’ll be honest here. I wasn’t crazy about Hingle as Gordon. He looked nothing like the comic character, and nothing like the guy in the 60s show. He was not right for the part. Gordon was a sinewy white-haired old fighter; Hingle was a goofy tub. He had perfect timing, and was a master character actor; you’ve seen him more times than you know. But he was not who I would have picked to be Gordon.

Then he went and did it, and he did it well. His part was not pivotal, but he was always memorable. As those Batman movies descended from art to camp to shit, he kept at it, doing a fine job. It might be fair to say, actually, that he was the best actor in Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Okay, he might not have been the best, but he was the most grown-up.

It’s just sad that after a lifetime onscreen, Pat Hingle will be most remembered for the Batman films. He did a lot more, and his reputation is gold. Here’s to Pat Hingle.