They thought space was the final frontier – they were wrong.
Recently I spent a bit of time examining the phenomenon that is the mash-up novel. I reviewed the zombie/Jane Austen trilogy that begins with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Overall, the experience was a lot of fun and it was nice to read various authors attempts to bring two dramatically different genres together in such a full on way.
For my next foray into the world of mash-up novels I decided to stick with zombies but bring things bang up to date with something that is set this century rather than at the turn of the nineteenth. Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin D Anderson and Sam Stall brings finds the hordes of undead taking on their most awesome foe yet, Star Trek geeks. I should point out, in the spirit of full disclosure, I would probably fall into this category.
Jim Pike works at a large hotel in downtown Houston. As an ex-serviceman, after two tours of Afghanistan, he wants nothing more than to quietly go about his life acquiring as little responsibility as possible. His sister is coming into town to attend Gulf Con Star Trek convention at the hotel and Jim is looking forward to spending some time with sibling. As the attendees start to arrive the zombies start to appear and make their presence felt.
One of the things I love to see in a zombie novel is a new spin on zombie mythology and I particularly enjoyed the premise here. In keeping with the science fiction theme we have a space parasite that when exposed to organic matter, namely us, turns the host into mindless violent husk only interested in propagating the species and searching for more hosts.
Almost all of the action takes place within the hotel and this adds a nice claustrophobic edge to events as they unfold. Dark stairwells and long empty corridors help to heighten this effect. In fact it is not until very near the end that the actions shifts outside and the reader gets to learn what is going on elsewhere.
Anyone who has ever attended a genre convention will feel right at home with this tale. The humour in the novel is handled well. I think, however, that it is fair to say, that the more that you know about Trek and its various incarnations/spin-offs the more you will get from the novel. Most character and location names are guaranteed to raise a smile on the face of any Trek aficionado. There are also some nice nods to another famous sci-fi franchise which the majority of readers will be familiar with.
Night of the Living Trekkies isn’t Shakespeare, but then I would argue that it’s not supposed to be. This is brain (excuse the pun) candy of the highest order. It is exactly the sort of thing you want to pick up when you want some action, some laughs and at two hundred and fifty six pages an easy read.
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