Book Review: ‘Spirit Walk’ by Christie Golden

June 27, 2023 at 6:20 am | Posted in Books, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Star Trek | 1 Comment
Tags: christie golden, star trek voyager

Star Trek: Spirit Walk is a duology as part of the Voyager series set six months after the series ended. It was written by Christie Golden and was released in November and December of 2004 by Pocket Books and Simon and Schuster. As with the Deep Space Nine: Avatar duology, I’ll review both books in one review. 

When discussing Voyager books, everyone always goes to the Homecoming duology and the Full Circle series. Those are my favorites, so I can understand why that’s the case for others. Homecoming tells the story we wanted to see from right after Endgame, and Full Circle served as a rejuvenation of the brand after Voyager had been stagnant for a couple of years.

These books serve as the last bastion of Voyager novels from Christie Golden before she left to go to other projects (including Star Wars!). These books always gets a bad rap from fans, but I personally really enjoyed it.

Book 1: Old Wounds

Golden balances the entire crew well, and she does a great job of nailing the voice and character of each member of the crew. Janeway of course is great at Starfleet Academy, Tuvok is with her and as deadpanned as ever. Tom and B’Elanna get some pagetime as they try to determine Miral’s importance in the prophecies they heard. Kim, who was finally, thankfully, promoted in Homecoming, gets to serve in a new and fresh capacity on Voyager. The Doctor and Seven of Nine don’t get much pagetime, but what little time they have is fantastic and on point.

This book is about Chakotay and the new crew of Voyager. In another universe, this duology could have served as the starting point for a series direction that Voyager books could have taken post Endgame/Homecoming. Christie Golden could have stayed on board or another writer could have taken the reigns and continued with Voyager in the Alpha Quadrant. The Full Circle series is fantastic, but Kirsten obviously didn’t want to take the characters in this direction (which I totally understand and respect). Still, I think this design of storytelling would have worked perfectly.

There is so much “Trek” to this book. The sequence of leaving spacedock, the discussions on board the ship, the way the mystery unfolds all just feels quintessentially Star Trek. I’ve said it before, but Christie Golden just gets tie-in properties, and she does a fantastic job of nailing the feel of this book.

One complaint I do have is that because there is so much to cover, everything feels rushed. Certain plotlines like Sekaya and Chakotay get plenty of time, as does the Astall/Kaz plotline, but the rest needed a lot more work. There is a part two, and I’m sure a lot will get resolved there, but this book should have been longer. This was around the time Star Trek had entered the post-Nemesis era and was busy filling out the universe and expanding novels to be 350-400 pages. However, Christie Golden comes from an era where Star Trek books were shorter, and as such usually were 230-300 pages (which both books in this duology fit into). Had Christie Golden expanded about 100 pages per book (and I’m projecting this for book two based on how I know things go down), I think this duology would have been much better.

Book 2: Enemy of My Enemy

This book isn’t near as good as book one, but it does a serviceable job of tying up loose ends and finishing the duology’s storyline.

This book puts a heavy emphasis on Chakotay and Sekaya as they are now captured and being experimented on. If this was a traditional length Trek book from the 2000s (340-400 pages), this storyline might have been balanced out with the others. However, because it isn’t, this storyline takes up too much time and isn’t that exciting. Whenever Trek delves into the “Spirit” realm, it needs to be careful of how much focus it has, because the true excitement and action in these books is the scientific and political and the spiritual stuff works better in the shows than the books.

The best part of the book is the mystery of “What’s up with the Captain”. We the audience know everything, so its interesting to see our characters try to put the pieces together themselves. And Golden did a nice job of bringing in characters from Voyager who weren’t present on the ship at the time.

Tom gets a little to do in this book, but unfortunately he isn’t a primary focus despite being on the cover. He should have had an opportunity to take command of Voyager to prove that he should be the first officer, but that sadly doesn’t happen. (Although it is a nice result at the end anyway).

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed these books, despite having some problems with them. Book one is much better than book two, but both feel quintessentially like “Star Trek” books, and Christie Golden absolutely gets the tone and the feel of Voyager, better than any other author with the possible exception of Kirsten Beyer. I’ll give the duology as a whole 3.5 out of 5.

Reviewed By: Jonathan Koan for Roqoo Depot.