‘IN THE HEART OF CHAOS’ (PROM)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
The End of the Voyage in the Lembatta Cluster
This ‘Star Trek’ trilogy of books/audios could have been so much better. 😦
It’s a shame that I have to share with you how disappointing I’ve found the ‘Star Trek Prometheus’ book trilogy by Bernd Perplies and Christian Humberg. It started off well with ‘Fire with Fire’, then it became okay with ‘The Root of All Rage’ and here it became hard-going with ‘In the Heart of Chaos’.
Don’t get me wrong, ‘In the Heart of Chaos’ is a fairly decent finale to the ‘Prometheus’ story arc that we’ve been having, especially with the Prometheus crew dealing with the Klingon Bortas crew, the Renao and the Lembatta Cluster. But by this point, I lost interest in some of the ‘Prometheus’ characters. 😦
There were moments I was able to enjoy with certain characters, particularly with Captain Adams, Jassat ak Namur, Lenissa zh’Thiin, Geron Barai and Jenna Kirk. But sometimes, I drifted from reading the story. The finale wasn’t enough to hold my attention in what should have been a thrilling climax.
Mind you, this wasn’t helped when I read the story from June to August 2022 and I took a week off from reading and hearing ‘In the Heart of Chaos’ to concentrate on attending the ‘Newcastle Comic Con’. Usually that doesn’t happen, as I’m able to find time to read something whilst I’m away on a holiday.
This reinforces my arguments that the ‘Star Trek: Prometheus’ trilogy, when adapted by Big Finish, should have been full-cast audio dramas instead of audiobook readings by Alec Newman. This is especially when you have to take in lots of characters and identify certain settings in space and time.
Ideally, I would like more audios to come from the ‘Prometheus’ book trilogy in order to explore more of the worlds of ‘Star Trek’ through Big Finish. Had the ‘Prometheus’ audios by Big Finish been more like how the ‘Thunderbirds’ audios when adapted from their books, things would be very different.
Maybe Big Finish realised their mistake but it was too late to do anything about it and they couldn’t afford to make more ‘Star Trek’ audios after that. I don’t have the behind-the-scenes details about this and there’s no behind-the-scenes documentary to explain how these audiobooks came to be. 😐
I seem to find it a struggle with checking out book trilogies in sci-fi franchises I’ve enjoyed like the original Thrawn trilogy in ‘Star Wars’ and the ‘Prometheus’ trilogy in ‘Star Trek’. Then again, I haven’t had that much exposure to ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Wars’ books as with ‘Doctor Who’s books. 😐
At this point in the review, I’m struggling to remember certain scenes that happened in ‘In the Heart of Chaos’ as well as certain character moments. I will try my best to find significant moments in the third part of the ‘Prometheus’ trilogy, but it won’t be easy and it’s not as satisfying as I had hoped. 😦
The German edition of ‘In the Heart of Chaos’.
With that said, the ‘Star Trek: Prometheus’ book/audio trilogy is more in tone with ‘Star Trek’ compared to what I’ve seen recently with Season 2 of ‘Star Trek: Picard’. I can’t understand why ‘Star Trek’ shows have to be dark and grim nowadays and not idyllic as they were done in the 1990s.
‘The Orville’ is the closest I’ve come across to being a ‘Star Trek’ show that has more ‘Star Treky’ elements in it. And that’s not even a ‘Star Trek’ show! 😐 Anyway, we continue where we left off with the Prometheus and the Bortas crews having discovered they’re dealing with an original series alien.
The ‘Day of the Dove’ alien in fact. The Prometheus and Bortas crews are about to sort out the ‘Day of the Dove’ alien. It ends up with the Prometheus and Bortas crews struggling to control their aggressive emotions. Soon, both head for a safe region of space far from the ‘Day of the Dove’ alien.
I will admit, the early chapters featuring the Prometheus and Bortas crews dealing with the ‘Day of the Dove’ alien are interesting. This is especially when we experience characters like Captain Adams struggling to control his emotions and trying to remember who he is and the Prometheus’ mission is.
Eventually however, when the Prometheus and the Bortas ships head out away from the ‘Day of the Dove’, I began to lost interest. This is especially when fleets of Federation and Klingon ships were about to head for the borders of the Lembatta Cluster in order to continue dealing with their crisis. 😦
It didn’t feel exciting anymore, especially when the stage was set for the final battle to take place or something like that. Incidentally, I’m not really good with reading battle scenes in outer space. Perhaps it’s the way they’re written or maybe I’m not versed in space battles in prose as I should be.
But I easily lose interest when a space battle takes place, as it’s all technical when it comes to the ships fighting each other in space. I can’t exactly recall if an actual space battle scene took place in ‘In the Heart of Chaos’, but if it did, then it escapes me completely and I don’t recall what happened.
You might find this unusual for someone who’s into sci-fi properties like ‘Star Trek’, ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Doctor Who’. But I’m more for the character-driven stuff featured in a book or a story made in any medium. And even when character moments do occur in a story like this, these can happen rarely. 😐
Again, I stress, there are nice character moments to be found in this book. This is especially includes scenes where Lenissa zh’Thiin meets with Counsellor Isabelle Courmont (I believe) to discuss how she should handle her relationship with Dr. Barai, who unfortunately goes into a coma in this story. 🙂
There’s also the scene in the Prometheus’ mess hall where the Starfleet crewman who made accusations against Jassat ak Namur for being in league with the Renao in ‘The Root of All Rage’ apologises for his actions. This was a nice scene to read and it’s so fitting for the trilogy’s conclusion.
I also feel Jassat ak Namur’s character arc has come about really well when reading his journey in the ‘Prometheus’ trilogy. For the most part, he’s the outsider trying to fit in with Starfleet. Here, in the third part of the trilogy, he proves his worth to his crewmates as well as to Captain Adams himself. 🙂
Jassat also has nice scenes with Jenna Kirk in the story. But going to the point I was trying to make earlier; these scenes happen rarely as most of the chapters featured in the third book of the trilogy have been exposition. I was able to keep interested in ‘Fire with Fire’ than with the other two books.
Once again, ‘In the Heart of Chaos’ is a 30-chapter book with a prologue at the beginning. Both ‘The Root of All Rage’ and ‘In the Heart of Chaos’ are shorter books in chapter length compared to ‘Fire with Fire’. Quite often, the chapters can be very chunky to read and listen to when absorbing the details.
Alec Newman, once again, provides a good reading of this story. I look forward to revisiting his appearances in ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ sometime soon as well as check out his other Big Finish audios, particularly in ‘Doctor Who’. Sadly, even a good reader can’t make the third part of a trilogy exciting.
Let’s talk about some familiar ‘Star Trek’ elements from other TV shows featured in this book. The obvious one of course is Ambassador Spock. Despite the ‘Prometheus’ trilogy’s shortcomings, Spock has been the most enjoyable character to read in the trilogy and I could easily see Leonard Nimoy in the role. 🙂
He’s decently well-written. For Spock, I imagine the ‘Prometheus’ trilogy takes place before the ‘Star Trek’ reboot trilogy where he ends up in the Kelvin timeline. The reason why I bring this up is because this would have all happened before Spock made the very fateful trip in the 2009 film. 😐
I’m not sure how Bernd Perplies and Christian Humberg rate the ‘Star Trek’ reboot trilogy and the recent ‘Star Trek’ shows that have followed it since, such as ‘Discovery’ and ‘Picard’. I’d like to think they prefer the more 1980s-1990s ‘Star Trek’ shows compared to the 2009 to 2022 ‘Star Trek’ incarnations. 🙂
The ‘Star Trek’ incarnations from the 1990s to the early 2000s are, for me, mostly true ‘Star Trek’ compared to the more modern stuff. I’ve yet to see ‘Discovery’ of course, but it’s easy to visualise Ambassador Spock in the ‘Prometheus’ trilogy from the ‘TNG’ two-parter called ‘Unification’. Not the 2009 film. 🙂
In terms of the Klingon Bortas crew, I didn’t find them particularly interesting. Apart from Kromm’s character, since he’s in command of the Bortas, I couldn’t tell which Klingon was which. I know L’emka was against Kromm’s command at times, but she and the other Klingons weren’t interesting.
I also wanted to spend more time on the Prometheus ship rather than on the Klingon Bortas ship. Knowing that the Prometheus crew will only appear in this ‘Star Trek’ trilogy of books/audios, it’s a challenge for the Prometheus and Klingon crews to be balanced out in terms of character development.
Despite me mentioning certain personnel from the Prometheus like Captain Adams and Jassat ak Namur, the other crewmembers don’t stand out for me like Sarita Carson, Paul Winter, Mendon and Roaas. Again, had these been full-cast audios instead of audiobooks, things would be quite different.
Apparently, the Bynar aliens from the ‘TNG’ episode called ‘11001001’ are in this third part of the ‘Prometheus’ trilogy. Whilst it was nice of those characters to make an appearance, they only appeared in like one chapter and it was a struggle to read their dialogue bouncing back and forth. 😐
By the way, remember the emergency medical hologram doctor called Trik in this ‘Prometheus’ trilogy? Yeah, well, he gets possessed when I believe the Prometheus crew are attempting to talk to the alien within the Lembatta Cluster. Somehow, Trik being possessed was quite unnerving to read and hear. 😐
Whilst I appreciate the Renao’s presence in this story and the religious beliefs they had, I don’t think a satisfactory resolution was made between them, the Federation and the Klingon Empire, especially when the Purifying Flame had been defeated. Maybe that’s the point of it all, but it was unsatisfying.
Wesley Crusher makes an appearance in this story as well as Kosinski from the ‘TNG’ episode ‘Where No One Has Gone Before’. It was interesting to find out what happened to Kosinski since that ‘TNG’ episode, but his and Wesley’s appearance in this ‘Prometheus’ book is like only in one chapter here.
I know that was the case with Picard and Worf’s appearances in the previous book with it being in one chapter, but at least they had a purpose to serve in the story. From reading and hearing the book and audio, I don’t feel Wesley and Kosinski’s appearance added much and it felt rather pointless. 😦
The Traveler from ‘Where No One Has Gone’ gets mentioned but doesn’t appear in the book. Alexander Rozhenko also continues his presence in the third book of the ‘Prometheus’ trilogy, but unlike Spock, I didn’t feel he stood out much. Alexander wasn’t very interesting compared to Spock.
This is unusual, considering Alexander came across as mostly interesting in the ‘TNG’ and ‘DS9’ episodes he was in. Surely an exploration into his character and how he handled Klingons like Kromm wouldn’t have hurt. It would have been nice to have had more references to his father Worf.
Lwaxana Troi also makes an appearance, but barely in the closing chapters of the story. You know, after all the build-up she had in ‘The Root of All Rage’, I would have expected her to meet Captain Adams and the Prometheus crew. Even a reference to her daughter Deanna would have been nice. 🙂
‘In the Heart of Chaos’ hasn’t been a satisfying conclusion to the ‘Star Trek: Prometheus’ trilogy. It’s a shame, as there were character moments to be found in the final part of the trilogy, but they came rarely. There also wasn’t enough to excite me about this finale, despite what had gone on before. 😐
It’s sad the potential Big Finish audios of ‘Star Trek’ didn’t turn out the way I had hoped, as there just seems to be the ‘Prometheus’ audios for us to contend with. Maybe there’s hope on the horizon, but I’m content to stay with the current ‘Star Trek’ TV shows that I’ve enjoyed on DVD and via streaming sites.
Maybe I’ve been harsh on the ‘Star Trek: Prometheus’ trilogy, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for.
‘In the Heart of Chaos’ (PROM) rating – 4/10
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