Review: Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan

Release Date: January 1985

Genre(s): Fiction, Science-fiction

Publisher: Pocket Books

Pages: 400

Rating:⭐️⭐️.5

Synopsis

Uhura’s Song is a Star Trek Original Series tie-in novel. It tells the story of a time where Uhura met a diplomat from Eeuaio, and they shared forbidden songs with the eternal promise to never share them publically. Shift to the present, and the Eeuoians are suffering from a deadly plague. The Enterprise rushes to save them, and Uhura may have the answers – but even with her songs, there are so many layers of mysteries that need to be uncovered.

Review

I was really looking forward to reading Uhura’s Song. Uhura has been one of my favorite characters since I started watching Star Trek, and I couldn’t wait to read a book centered around her character more in this book. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. For the first few chapters, we do center around Uhura – but for the rest of the book, she remains as a side character. I was surprised (and disappointed) to see her as a side character in what I thought was a book about her.

The first several chapters of Uhura’s Song is what I found to be the strongest part of the book. The author lays out so much in terms of opening up the conflict and backstories needed to continue with the plot. It felt like so much was covered in that short span, and I couldn’t stop flipping the pages. But after that, the pacing slowed down quite a bit. In comparison to the first quarter of the book, the rest of the book felt less eventful and thrilling (as it appeared to be judging by the synopsis and first quarter).

Uhura’s Song also explores the cultural differences between the Eeuoians and those on the Enterprise Away Team. A big portion of this book features several discussions about the Eeuoians learning about human (and Vulcan) customs, and vice versa. I liked how this was explored, primarily because of how civil and open the characters were to understanding the others’ way of life. In the beginning I didn’t think it was going to go this way (there were a lot of feline pun/jokes in the first few chapters), but I’m glad that the story went the way it did here. Something that I really love about Star Trek is the way that it promoted the acceptance of new or different cultures and ideas, and I think that was one of the most “Trek” things about this book.

But overall, this book was just okay to me. I do wish that Uhura was much more involved in this novel and that the pacing was more balanced throughout.