Dreams of the Raven
Carmen Carter
Book Description (jacket text):
A merchant ship's frantic S.O.S. sends the USS Enterprise speeding to the rescue! But the starship's mission of mercy soon becomes a desperate struggle for survival against a nightmarish enemy Captain Kirk can neither identify nor understand, an enemy he must defeat without the aid of one of his most trusted officers.
For the Leonard McCoy Kirk knew is gone. In his place stands a stranger – a man with no memory of his Starfleet career, his family, his friends or the one thing James T. Kirk needs most of all... his dreams.
Opinion:
A young person's vision of his or her future life fits the reality only in rare occasions - that is exactly the subject of "Dreams of the Raven".
A mishap and bad news cause McCoy's mind to escape into oblivion, he forgets the past 25 years of his life. The man who considers himself to be about 23 years old and who dreams of a life as a country doctor can not deal with reality and that he serves on a star ship, namely the Enterprise, and that he is divorced. The McCoy part of the book is just great, starting with his small spleens to his verbal sparring with Spock.
This characters sketch is framed by the threat posed by the "Raven", a new alien race created by the author that is much more frightening than every other enemy presented since Star Trek Voyager.
So there is not much to criticize the book for. In general, details considering the characters go along with the official Star Trek history although the 23-year old McCoy seems to be a little bit young for a physician and I consider 25 years too many years to forget in this instance. Nevertheless all ingredients of a great book are present: nicely met characters that fit into the existing context, exciting story and plenty of loose ends that are not untied till the end. Only drawback is in part Spock's behavior that appears a bit to cold although the Vulcan is in other respects well described.
As a conclusion the novel is absolutely recommended.
