Mike Chen’s The Photonic Effect wears its twin inspirations on its sleeve, and boldly launches Chen’s work into the subgenre of Space Opera and makes it so.
These are the voyages of the GCF Horizon. It’s mission was to establish and map a new trade route for the Cluster. Instead, it spent ten years in a gravity well with a host of other trapped ships. Upon escape and return to Cluster space, they had found that in the decade since, a civil war had broken out. Now, with the experimental photonic drive that allowed them to escape the gravity well, the Horizon is seen as a tool, or a weapon, by both sides. And it turns out they have unfinished business with the Lumersians in the gravity well. Although the costs of pursuing that might be high indeed for the crew, and perhaps far beyond, as well.
This is the story of Mike Chen’s turn into Space Opera, The Photonic Effect.
Star Trek, in several of its incarnations, particularly TNG and Voyager are two of the clear antecedents and inspirations for Chen’s Horizon. This is in terms of the ship, the multi-species nature of the crew, the Federation like Cluster. In terms of characters, our focus is primarily on the bridge and engineer crew of the Horizon, just like a typical Star Trek episode or series. Our Captain, Demora Kim, even has a Star Trek catchphrase, “Take us there”. Like any Star Trek series, we have a multi species crew. In addition to the humans, including a human from another universe (thanks to that gravity well), the Horizon also has a Dwyen, a humanoid species with a pack based hierarchical structure and outlook. And then there is Chuck...who is rather unusual and not really an active member of the crew at present, although he was crucial to the Horizon’s return to normal space. Given that Chen has written a DS9 comic, it’s clear and easy to see how he is channeling Star Trek into his unique world.
The other inspiration is a somewhat more complicated and in some aspects, darker one to draw from on occasion. And that would be the videogame series Mass Effect. Mass Effect, for those who have never played the games, takes place in a galaxy where Humans are the new kids on the block and eager to prove themselves. The game can turn dark and complicated, with various forces and factions striving in a cutthroat galaxy, including secret factions and powers that the player character are engaged with. And to be truthful, the Horizon does feel much more like the Normandy from Mass Effect than most of the mainline Star Trek series central ships, except maybe Voyager. The ship is not all that large, and it is not even built well for war,¹ which makes people coveting it all the more perilous for the crew of the Horizon. They cannot shoot their way ot of situations, even if they would consider doing so.
With these two powerful influences, Chen has the tools to tell his own tale and develop his own story and verse. Chen relies on a core set of characters and is interested in telling a story of how this flawed found family has to deal with the challenges of return, their own limitations, flaws and failures, and how to forge and come together to face threats. From Kim on down, we get a set of complicated and multi-sided characters much more DS9 in some ways in terms of characters than other Star Trek characters. Or, again, see Mass Effect. The fail points and weaknesses of each of the characters makes each of them real, and engaging to read and follow.
Chen keeps his points of view on three characters:
Kim, the Captain, as our primary character, and the framing device at the front tells us this is her retirement interview and debriefing of her last mission. Kim went through a lot to try and get crew back home, and paid a price herself in seemingly losing her chance at romance with the aforementioned Chuck. Kim is interestingly flawed, is often caught in bad decisions or situations and has to strive to regain her crew’s trust, and to do better.
Another primary point of view is Tanav. Tanav isn’t part of the crew, not exactly, he’s an entertainer from another universe whose ship got caught in the gravity well. Circumstances forced him, along with other ships, to get on board the Horizon. He’s not crew, but he acts in a capacity of an entertainer. Tanav is conflicted--he misses his home universe, although his relations with his parents was rather complicated. And in a ship full of officers and engineers, he does wind up being a bit of an odd-man out. Tanav’s story is one of growth, in the face of conflict and fire, and it shows you don’t have to be the Captain or Chief Engineer to be a hero.
Third, Neera is the aforementioned Chief Engineer on board the Horizon and is the aforementioned Dwyen, which allows Chen to play with humanoid but not quite human. Chen does a great job not only in appearances, but going further and giving Neera a distinctive verbal cadence. I will bet that when I listen to the audiobook, I will be able to tell when Neera is speaking by the way she constructs her sentences, distinctive from all others. Like Kim, she’s imperfect, and her choices in trying to get the Photonic Drive to work wind up with major consequences for everyone.
The whole situation, seen in flashback and recollection, of that last mission that had the Horizon in the gravity well for ten years is an excellent bit of writing, dribbling out details from their ten year ordeal and how they had to make sacrifices and paid costs in order to stay alive. In this way, it feels a lot more like a darker Voyager and much more into Mass Effect territory in that regard. And all of that provides backstory and ballast to the core crew of the Horizon, including the characters who don’t get viewpoints.²
Chen does have two crucial characters who are not from the original mission, and since they don’t have the ballast of the backstory of having gone to the well and having that connection to the crew, or to the world, they don’t come off quite as well. Commander Matthews, foisted onto the Horizon upon their return to the Cluster, definitely has an agenda of his own, and his antagonistic relationship with the crew definitely provides tension. He also provides a more classic sort of square jaw hero, and one, in roleplaying terms, has gone on the heavy side of combat and physical skills that most of the rest of the characters cannot begin to match. The other character I will not mention, as they become the ultimate antagonist of the book. The slow reveal of their true plans and intentions is an excellent bit of craft on the part of the author.
The aforementioned unusual nature of Matthews vis a vis the rest of the crew makes it clear that this is a much more late Star Trek than early Star Trek in terms of the characters approach to problems. The relatively weaponless nature of the Horizon and the lack of skills in weapons and
tactics (Matthews excepted) means that the problems faced and solved usually fall to cleverness, or engineering, or science, as opposed to high grade weaponry and battle tactics.
And the book is a lot of fun to read. If you are a fan of Star Trek, or Mass Effect, this book is relevant to your interests in creating a familiar, yet unique, space opera world. And if you ever wondered what you would get by mixing that peanut butter and chocolate, this book, like it was for me, will entirely be your jam. It’s entertaining, deep, philosophical, reflective, and when the action beats need to happen, Chen delivers. And the world portrayed is a rich space opera verse, giving enough detail beyond the bounds of the Horizon itself to invite the playground of the imagination.
The book closes off Kim’s story, but given that this is a retirement debriefing on page one, a reader must surely guess that this is the end of her career anyway. The adventure may continue with the Horizon, and with other members of the crew, but as primary point of view and this being Kim’s story, the novel is not, as you might be worried, first in an endless series. Like the rest of Chen’s oeuvre to date, it is a stand alone novel that provides an excellent story, flawed and memorable characters, strong worldbuilding and much more for the reader to discover.
Highlights:
Mass Effect X Star Trek = Entertaining Space Opera
Strong set of flawed and interesting characters
Rich and interesting world.
Reference:
Chen, Mike, The Photonic Effect, (Saga Press 2026)
¹ A reference point for me that Chen probably did not intend comes from the board game Star Fleet Battles, which is set in a version of the Star Trek universe. In that game, there is a design for a Federation cruiser that is very much defanged for war but has high capabilities for science and long range reconnaissance ---the Galactic Survey Cruiser. The Horizon feels a lot more like a Galactic Survey Cruiser than a regular Federation ship.
² There is a tuckerization from Star Trek, too. Watch for it!
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin
