Book Note: Janet Kagan, Uhura's Song

This note contains spoilers for the book.

I've either been saving this one, or I've been scared that because it's a Star Trek novel it won't be as good as Janet usually is. My experiences with Star Trek novels are very limited, but pretty good -- James Blish was awful, John M. Ford was very good.

This one is starting off rather well. Nice mystery, nice alien characters. The Trek characters aren't clearly wrong, but don't come through very powerfully either. It has the same gentle niceness, not wimpy or weak, that I've liked about her other books.

The primary new character, a doctor, smells a little of Mary Sue, but not so badly as to spoil my appetite.

A lot of it smells a lot like Hellspark. Living in a camp among aliens that you're just making contact with on a new planet that you don't know the dangers of.