Greg Cox writes a thought-provoking novel in Star Trek: The Original Series: Child of Two Worlds. He takes the reader back to the Star Trek era of Captain Pike and a young Lieutenant Spock. The central theme of the story is that, while a deadly fever outbreak rages aboard the Enterprise, a young woman is on board that threatens war with both the Klingon Empire as well as the planet of Cypria III, a world that contains a mineral necessary to treat the fever.
The young woman is a native of Cypria III, a planet on the boarder of the Klingon space. During a Klingon raid of her home world a decade before the story begins, her father was killed and she was kidnapped by one of the Klingons, who found the fierce seven-year-old girl, who attacked him, worth saving. For the last decade she has lived as Klingon, changing her name from Elzura to Merata, filling her teeth to points, and scarring her forehead to emulate Klingon brow ridges.
For that same decade, her older sister relentlessly tried to find her and finally succeeded. She kidnaps her sister back by tricking her on to her ship under false pretenses. The Klingons pursue them, they send out a distress beacon, and the Enterprise responds. The Enterprise ends up trapped between the Klingons and the Cyprians who both see Elzura/Merata as belonging to them. All the while, the fever rages taking out more and more members of the crew and the Cyprians won’t release the needed mineral unless the Enterprise returns Elzura to them.
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It’s a fascinating story with an interesting conclusion, which I won’t spoil for you here. Spock’s own duel heritage comes into play. And Cox does a good job of making you sympathetic to virtually everyone involved.
Spock’s logic is pushed to the limit while he tries to find the best conclusion for all involved. It’s a good story and well worth reading. My only caveat on that would be that the book is in need of more copy-editing. There are several missing words throughout the text. The occasional typo doesn’t bother me, but there were so many omissions that it actually became distracting. That said if you can tolerate the text problems, the story is enjoyable with lots of action as well as many angles to think about.
Check out Child of Two Worlds and let us know what you think of it in the comments below.
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