Rihannsu: The Empty Chair (Star Trek: The Original) [Mass Market Paperback]

Oh, God (Elements), how I love this series. Diane Duane is a marvelous yarnspinner when it comes to her characters.

I read "My Enemy, My Ally" probably about 12 years ago, but I never tire of reading it. When I discovered that "The Romulan Way" was a continuance of that story, I devoured the storyline (Arrhae is intriguing) that opened up the history of ch'Rihan and ch'Havran like no book had dared to before. The detailed yarn of The Declared as they left Vulcan those millennia ago and the setbacks they encountered... it explains a LOT about why the Romulans (Rihannsu) are "the way they are."

Discovery of "Swordhunt" and "Honor Blade" when they came out made life interesting until the cliffhanger, and now that I've read "The Empty Chair," I can safely say that I am going back to re-read the entire series again. When you do re-read it, you take great notice of all the intricacies of the characterisations of the original characters (Harb Tanzer, Freeman, Narhaht (a Horta), Arrhae, Ael, Aidoann, the list continues).

And I agree with the previous reviewer--that line by Ael to Kirk at the end successfully ties in this series to canon in such a way that I truly believe it is part of Trek History. The Romulans (Rihannsu) certainly did emerge in TNG quite different than we remembered from TOS... and this series explains how and why they appeared to change so drastically. *applause for Diane Duane*

The Star Trek universe has been enriched by another book from Diane Duane.

The author of many books based on her own fantasy worlds (like Young Wizards, which my kids love), screenplays, etc. in 1988 Diane Duane also wrote my favorite Star Trek book, "Spock's World". In it, she expanded our knowledge of Spock's home planet of Vulcan, bringing together elements from several episodes of the original Star Trek series, including "Amok Time" and "Journey to Babel". She also gave us more about the Enterprise itself, giving it a recreational deck and a computer bulletin board reflecting those early PC/pre-Web days.

In 1984 Diane Duane had already taken on the task of adding more to our knowledge of the Vulcans' long-ago sundered brethren, the Romulans (or Rihannsu as they have come to be called in their own language) with "My Enemy My Ally". She followed this up with a sequel called "The Romulan Way" in 1987 (both co-authored with her husband Peter Morwood).

Now comes a new Romulan book, finishing up this particular saga, "The Empty Chair". Unfortunately when I started reading it I soon realized I'd missed something, which turned out to be the books "Swordhunt" and "Honorblade", both published in 2000. I had to go back and read what happened there to really make sense of "The Empty Chair" and discovered that Stockholm's excellent Science Fiction Bookstore no longer had the two books in stock, presumably because all of the prequels to "The Empty Chair" have just been published together in a single volume called "Rihannsu The Bloodwing Voyages".

(All this is part of the 40th anniversary of Star Trek celebrations, apparently.)

So having read the two books I missed, I resumed reading "The Empty Chair" and it made a lot more sense, although rereading the first two books probably would have helped a bit too. When I got to the end of "The Empty Chair" and Kirk receives something he has obviously been looking for, I had no idea what the thing was. It is possible the reader is not meant to know, but the answer might be in one of those earlier volumes. And I really had no idea what was happening in the last scene. I guess it is based on one of the first two books, which after twenty years, I've forgotten.

So there is a problem having a series with respectively three, thirteen, and six years between its components, although this will not be a problem for a new reader who picks up the books now.

Before I bought the anthology volume I read a negative review of "Swordhunt" on Amazon. The reviewer didn't think enough happened, and was somewhat upset because it apparently doesn't really have an ending and just flows into "Honorblade". In the new anthology the two are combined as "Swordhunt" and I have no idea where the earlier break could have been.

Briefly these books are the story of a Romulan commander named Ael, her ship Bloodwing, and how through a series of encounters and interactions with James Kirk, she leads a Romulan civil war. As I said, it expands our knowledge of the Romulans considerably. I've also been confused about this empire without an emperor, whether there was one or more Praetors, who the Senate are, etc. These questions are answered, at least for this period in Romulan history.

There's more talking than action, but I liked that. There are also bonuses, like briefly meeting the character Sam Coglan again, and encountering the only two Yankees fans on Romulus.

There's also a place towards the end., with major changes among the Romulans, and Spock in the midst of it, when you wonder why he doesn't just start the Re-unification process that he takes up decades later during "Star Trek The Next Generation"? Duane answers that, and shows us that perhaps this is where Spock originally gets the idea. (Now I really wish the film "Nemesis", all of which takes place on Romulus or in Romulan space, had told us where Spock was at this time. Presumably there was no way to get Leonard Nimoy into the film, but it was a large hole.)

One also wonders why, if everything is changed, when we get back to the Romulans in the TNG episodes "Unification" the empire seems as closed in and totalitarian as before? This too Duane provides an answer for, and perhaps it puts the later TNG/DS9 Romulans into a more understandable context. Ael's remarks to Kirk towards the end reflect this:

"But bear in mind that things will change here, and may do so unexpectedly. When they do, I must react as I must. It has even occurred to me that, if matters do not go as I plan, you should not be surprised if for some while, I and all my people might close our borders, and vanish to put our house in order...It will not last forever. Nothing does. But after such a withdrawal, or absence, when we appear again, possibly you should not be surprised if we do not loók, or act, as we do now..."

It seems like a cliche, but this is the capstone of Duane's "Rihannsu" saga. The Empire is starting to come unglued. Political intrigue and infighting is hampering their ability to deal with their enemies, and they're headed in the direction of war with both of their major enemies--the Federation and the Klingons. If the central govenment listened to cooler heads, they'd know they can't fight both foes at once, but denial is the order of the day, and circumstances aren't exactly cooperating. Plus, the more remote regions of the Empire are disenchanted with the type of government that's less and less like the "good old days". Into the saga steps James Kirk, maverick Starfleet captain who ticks his bosses off and has survived only because you can't argue with results. At his side is increasingly "friendly enemy" Commander Ael, aunt of the lady Spock once put the moves on while his shipmates boosted her cloaking device. And in this volume of the tale, this unlikely "buddy team" meet the people of a colony that's moving in the direction of seceding from the Empire. They've just found out that a hawkish element of their people have a doomsday device headed for Earth that makes the Xindi attack on this planet a century or so earlier seem like a minor skirmish by comparison. Moderate elements back on the home planet just might not approve of anything that extreme or barbaric. Among them is a Romulan senator who has dreams about chaotic situations during which she sings "Take Me Out To the Ball Game". At Ael's side is her longtime first officer Aidoann, the Spock to Ael's Kirk. Where did Duane come up with that name, huh? I get a mental picture of her singing; "I'm a Rom'lan girl who cain't say no." For me, that image adds a light side to a grand tale that is fit to stand beside many other huge sagas in a literary franchise that began when James Blish decided to stick an original full-length novel in amongst his short stories based on the original TV series episodes. That was 40 years ago, and the rest, as they say, was history.