Star Trek: Prometheus: Fire with Fire
“Big Finish” is a name that is more associated with Doctor Who than it is Star Trek. The production company, which has been running since 1996 originally started off by adapting “The New Adventures” series into audio dramas (the books themselves had featured Doctor Who). In 1999 the company got the rights to Doctor Who, bringing Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy to new adventures. Since then, Paul McGann, Tom Baker, David Tennant and even John Hurt have reprised the role of the Doctor. The range’s producer, Nicholas Briggs plays the voice of the Daleks (and other creatures) in the returned TV series.
As well as spinning off into other aspects of Dr Who and its wider universe (yes, its brought back Torchwood!) the company has moved into tons of other franchises, including “The Avengers” (Steed and Peel, not Ironman and Hulk) “Blake’s 7”, “The Prisoner”, “Stargate SG1”, “Captain Scarlet” and much more.
As someone who has been aware of Big Finish since before I became embroiled in “Doctor Who” Fandom, I found myself constantly hoping that one day “Star Trek” would get the Big Finish treatment. It has come close. David Warner aka St. John Talbert/Chancellor Gorkon/Gul Madred has played a “What if” Doctor for the range. Chase Masterson, best known as Leeta, plays a bounty hunter named Vienna opposite Sylvester McCoy. The character has even received her own spin off series.
Despite these links (and others I might be overlooking) the idea of Big Finish producing Star Trek adventures for the crew, and even bringing some Trek Alumni to the microphone was what I really wanted. Imagine stories set during the series runs, or even new adventures bringing different different characters together. Titan? Section 31 Files? Temporal Investigations? Freed from the constraints of a visual effects budget, the sky could truly be the limit. However, it was a dream.
Until now.
While having a casual browse through the Big Finish Website for the first time in a while, I was thrilled to discover that they had released “Star Trek: Prometheus” on audio. I promptly downloaded episode 1 and gave it a listen.
Written by Bernd Perplies and Christian Humberg “Star Trek: Prometheus” is a German language Star Trek novel series, originally released to tie in with the 50th anniversary. The series was translated into English in 2017, and was released by Big Finish starting with the first two parts in July and part three due for December.
Book 1, “Fire with Fire”, opens up with an ill fated away mission in Captain Kirk’s era. The novel then picks up in the main timeframe, the post Nemesis era.
After a series of terrorist attacks that harm both the Federation and the Klingon empire, Starfleet dispatches the USS Prometheus (the ultra-powerful ship seen in the episode “Message in a Bottle”) to the Lembatta Cluster, where an extremist faction of the isolationistic Renoa have been implicated. Adams and his crew must also contend with the IKS Bortas who, despite being allies during this mission turn out to be belligerent even by Klingon standards.
I won’t go into too much detail, but there are a few familiar characters in the novel, and even their descendants. However, these are mostly in supporting roles. Most of the crew are entirely new characters.
I think this is the first audiobook I have listened to that isn’t abridged or written for the medium. As such, it weighs in at a hefty 11 hours or 1 full GB of data. As it isn’t available in CD form, you need to make sure that the device you’re going to listen to has enough space. If you’re listening on an Apple or Android form, I heartily recommend the Big Finish app. Once you buy the download from the website, you can just sign into the app and download at your leisure. Plus if you have ever bought anything direct from Big Finish since February 2008 that is available for download (almost the entire range, save for some which are no longer available, alas, like Stargate), you can download on the app (or indeed via your online account) as well.
While the story has some nice nods to Star Trek’s past, it is determined to tell its own story. Much like Star Trek did fifty years ago, the series takes an issue facing our society today – namely the issues of extremism, terrorism and our own reaction to this and explores them through the science fiction filter. While sometimes this is quite “on the nose” for today’s audience, it nevertheless provides some interesting food for thought.
There are some great sequences, that feel cinematic in their pacing, particularly in the final chapters of the book. As we have mostly new characters, we get some nice portraits of who they are and why we should care. In the audiobook, the narrator Alec Newman (who appeared in “Enterprise” does a good job of giving all of the characters a fantastic voice I am eager to see where the story goes next.
That being said, I think the book might be a trifle long This is a celebration of Trek, but even the Prologue gets its own little prologue. I think if a few scenes had been cut here or there, the pacing might be a bit better. Also, while I am a fan of Newman’s reading of the novel, he does struggle with the pronunciation of a couple of long established names from the show “Tal Shire” for example.
However, these complaints are minor. This is a great audio book that has some great sequences and is clearly a love letter to “Star Trek” in all of its forms.
Now, despite the success of Discovery and the return of Picard, I am still hoping that we’ll get to hear full cast Star Trek audio plays from Big Finish someday.
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