I bought this book through Princeton University Press’s yearly book sale, which makes available an enormous selection of PUP books at, like, silly prices. I think I paid £3 for this one, and it was worth every penny.
This book is about using the science of evolutionary biology to make predictions about—or at the very least guide our search for—life on other planets. This is itself a fasincating question, but what makes this book charming is the way it integrates a deep knowledge of Star Trek lore into the discussion in plausible and entertaining ways. Mohammed A. F. Noor is not some kook arguing that Star Trek was ahead of its time or 'right' (except accidentally); and he’s not some buzzkill doing a take-down of all the things Star Trek got wrong (although he does note them). He’s simply drawing connections between his two passions in life, which are interested in the same thing—life on other planets—from very different angles.
The book is split up into six chapters. In the first, Noor discusses what conditions must be necessary for something recognizable as life to develop on a planet. For example: what is it about carbon, in particular, that makes it such a good building block? Must the life be carbon based, or could some other element serve the same function? This leads naturally into a discussion of the feasibility of species like the Horta (TOS: The Devil in the Dark), which is silicon-based, alongside real-world experiments showing that some bacteria can form molecules with silicon-carbon bonds. Other sections of this chapter discuss the necessity of liquid water, which is a useful solvent for bringing together chemical reagents, but not necessarily the only one. Ammonia, for example, might do the job. Noor also considers requirid temperature ranges, which are typically best when they allow water to exist in its liquid form—but if water is not the key solvent, then things might work out differently. Tolerance of extreme temperatuers is also a concern, but not a huge one. On earth alone we have extremophiles—creatures that tolerate or even prefer extreme temperatures, either hot or cold—and such entities appear in numerous Star Trek episodes, from the tardigrade-like animal Ripper in the first season of Discovery, to the silver-blooded inhabitants of the ‘demon planet’ from the Voyager episode Demon. (Althouh Noor does not mention it, I cannot let reference to the silver blood people pass without also reminding readers that they show up in the heartbreakingly excellent episode Course: Oblivion, albeit not in their extremophile forms.)
Other chapters tackle evolution, genetics, and reproduction. Noor fills this last chapter with fascinating examples of Earth species, such as the Amazon molly, which is entirely female, and reproduces by mating with males of other species. Fertilization triggers the process, but the eventual offspring contain no trace of DNA from the other species male fish. Thus the Amazon molly species remains distinct from whatever species the dildo-dad belonged to.
Of course, when both parties in a cross-species night out are represented in the offspring, we have hybridization. This is a frequent phenomenon in Star Trek, most famously embodied in the TOS character of Spock, a Vulcan-human hybrid, but there are a variety of other hybrid characters that Noor analyses quite thoroughly. My favourite part of this chapter is his discussion of Haldane’s rule, which captures the (Earthbound) phenomenon whereby female hybrids are more likely to survive than male hybrids, and are more likely to prove fertile, contrary to the trend of sterility among hyrids. As a table on pg 128 reveals, of all the hybrids in Star Trek (up through the first couple of seasons of Discovery at least), more are female than male, and of the hybrid characters who are known to have produced offspring, all but one was female. As Noor concludes, ‘If we speculate that this depiction reflects a difference in hybrid fertility, meaning at least some of the hybrid males were sterile, then we may be observing some signal of Haldane’s Rule just lie among species on earth. I do not think that the Star Trek writers did this intentionally, but the coincidence is amusing.’
I myself suspect that this trend actually reflects a tendency of filmmakers to assign parental roles to female characters than to male characters, but I'm happy to take it as evidence of a galactic Haldane rule. Sometimes it's more fun to look for the science, even if incidentally, than to fume at sociocultural trends among filmmaking.
Nerd Coefficient: 9/10, very high quality/standout in its category
--
The Extractionist, by Kimberly Unger
Eliza McKay works as an extractionist in a futuristic extrapolation of our increasingly plugged in society. Extractionist is one of those jobs that doesn’t yet exist, but becomes necessary in a world where Elon Musk’s Neuralink vision actually works, and not only works, but has become the equivalent of cell phones in today’s culture. Everyone’s got an implant of one version or another, some of them state-of-the art super-fancy versions that are only accesssible if you’ve got military-grade connections, some of them super-cheap retail level chips that are perfectly fine for daily use but not up to more demanding tasks. These implants allow to directly experience cybernetic realities—sort of like the Metaverse, but, y'know, functional. Occasionally, however, people get trapped too deep, and their consciousness must be retrieved and reintegrated with their bodies. This is where Eliza McKay comes in.
So, as plot, she is hired by some secretive black-ops person to extract a member of the team who has gone too deep and knows some crucial information about Stuff. Naturally, the Stuff turns out to be much more large scale and elaborate than Eliza planned for, and heisty cybershenanigans ensue.
I cannot overemphasize the quantity of cyberstuff in this book. Everything is cyber; everything is tech; everything AI (but, y'know, functional). It’s clear that Unger has spent a great deal of time thinking about how this futuristic world will look, how the various technological advances will interface with each other, how the economics of version control and upgrades will affect people’s ability to do certain jobs or interact with different types of equipment. I quite appreciate the way the world she's created echoes the messiness of incompatible operating systems and forced reboots that plague our current digital lives. Just because you’ve got a chip in your brain that's, y'know, functional, doesn’t mean that an inconvenient software update won’t ruin your day.
Unfortunately, for all the thoughtful cyberworldbuilding, the cyberplot and cybercharacters and overall cyberexperience were underwhelming. It’s kind of funny, actually, because when I think about each individual component, I can’t identify any particular flaw beyond a mildly tortured reasoning to justify the circumstances under which extraction is necessary. The characters were fine; their motivations were present; their relationships with each other were developed. The plot proceeded reasonably pacily. I was just deeply bored throughout the entire book. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m not cyber enough to cyberappreciate what Unger is cyberdoing.
Nerd Coefficient: 6/10, still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore
The Frame-up, by Gwenda Bond
This books is a very straightforward heisty heist, with twists and turns exactly where you expect them to be. There are mommy issues to be worked out, old relationships to smooth over, new partnerships to build with surprisingly understanding and unbothered-by-crime painting-owners, and a very convenient diary explaining that a demon whose power is only kept in check by a magical painting must under no circumstances be allowed to regain possession of the picture.
The book is fine. The wheels work, the twists twist. But I found the romantic subplots rather tedious, largely because I don’t think jealousy is an appealing characteristic in potential love interests. And although I don’t read too many heists, and so am not used to keeping track of so many moving parts, I still think some of those convolutions were a bit unearned. For example, at one point Dani’s mother causes extreme complications for her plans for no other reason than that she thinks Dani’s got it too easy, and needs to learn how to deal with jobs when they’re hard. Which doesn’t follow, since Dani’s mother is invested in this heist as much (or more) than any of them, and certainly more invested in it than she is in Dani’s professional development. But then, since (as I said earlier), the painting’s owner seems to have no interest in actually retaining possession of the painting, and is perfectly willing to hire Dani to manage the security of his art gallery, it is undeniably true that Dani seems to be playing the game on easy. Gwenda Bond had to insert complications somewhere, and I guess she chose Dani's mother to do it.
In sum, this was fine. Perfectly good to occupy you while waiting for your laundry to be done, or to read on the bus while keeping one eye out for your stop. But it’s not a book I’m going to stay up late finishing, no matter how twistily the twists twist.
Nerd Coefficient: 6/10, still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore
--
References
Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us about Evolution, Genetics, and Life on Other Worlds. Mohammed A. F. Noor. [Princeton University Press, 2018].
The Extractionist. Kimberly Unger. [Tachyon 2022].
The Frame-Up. Gwenda Bond. [Headline, 2024].
--
CLARA COHEN lives in Scotland in a creaky old building with pipes for gas lighting still lurking under her floorboards. She is an experimental linguist by profession, and calligrapher and Islamic geometric artist by vocation. During figure skating season she does blather on a bit about figure skating. She is on Mastodon at wandering.shop/@ergative.
