#doctor’s orders

[holdy-caulfield]

My small review on Star Trek book:

Doctor’s Orders by Diana Duane. With spoilers!

Genre: hard sci fi

Pages: 291

Key words: worldbuilding, alien culture, time, strategies, psychology, Hippocratic Oath, tlinguistics, first time in command, stressful situations

Highlights: McCoy is in character, Kirk mostly, battle, crew work, humor, worldbuilding

Downsides: reason why McCoy is in command (unrealistic, OOC for Kirk), Spock & McCoy interactions (too friendly for them), lack of tension.

Vibe/tone: nerdy, light-hearted

I really enjoy sci-fi as a whole genre, and the worldbuilding aspect is what has drawn me into Star Trek in the first place (second place was a video of Kirk and Spock). When it comes to fiction based on the franchise & fanfiction for me the most important aspect are canonical characters and their relationship.

I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about Diana Duane, so I was exited to get my hands on her books. Since McCoy is my favourite character, I decided to start with the book where he’s in a primal focus.

Also, the premise seemed great, as I was very curious how McCoy would behave as a commander of the ship, and I was particularly interested how he would handle Spock, as there were a few instances in the show where Spock and McCoy have been left without Kirk. The book cover showed Spock standing firmly next to our favourite doctor in the captain’s chair. Also, I thought that the idea itself is intriguing enough — what will be the difference in the decision making between a trained soldier and a doctor? The book even starts with a Hippocratic Oath.

This book does feel like an episode. It’s relatively short, the whole action takes place in a span of a few days, it has an idealistic nature, and a perfectly good ending. All characters are in fact in character, which is why Diane is often praised.

The dialogue and humor are good, you can even hear original voices and intonations, there’s a lot of strategic decisions during battle and I love watching/reading the whole crew working together as the whole.

The fact that McCoy is new to commanding, helps the reader to understand what’s going on better and his decisions, and it is easier to imagine how you’d feel in his shoes. The whole McCoy commanding aspect in my opinion was very in character.

The book however has a lot of focus on the planetary species and human characters getting to know them better, studying them and discussing them from a scientific perspective (so, the book puts science into science fiction). It was a curious read, but I think it is not exactly for those who came for action adventure. A bunch of scientists discussing species and linguistics is the bigger part of the book. I love this stuff as I said earlier, I personally could read all these discussions about interesting species and their culture forever, but I can imagine it can be boring for some (although IMO if you’re a ST fun you should expect this).

I quickly understood what’s going with them personally but there were some aspects which I didn’t quite understand or were not explained enough (so, why Ornae were building stuff? Maybe I’m forgetting something, but I don’t remember if they gave a clear answer). I also didn’t get why ;At would say yes in the end. It felt for me rather logical that they would say no. I didn’t feel that either Federation either the species would benefit in anything else then knowledge. Well, they could protect the planet, but… I thought ;At are a bit too powerful to really need this.

There are also Klingons. I thought it was a very nice touch that doctor managed to find a common ground using psychology. It was funny, but also believable.

Klingons however do not feel as a threat, well, not dangerous enough. Klingons’ motivation to be on the planet however for me personally seemed not really satisfactory for a reader. It made them even less threatening (while they of course shouldn’t be exactly threatening, I just wished for more… spice). I really did like the unexpected friendliness simply because McCoy is a professional medic and knows psychology, it’s very in character and canonical. I enjoyed the bits when he uses his profession to command and even as a moral compass.

My biggest issue was there was not enough tension. And it is primarily because of Spock.

It might be my own vision, but what I can judge from the show is that Spock and McCoy have a complicated relationship in the span of the series. Their philosophies opposite each other, while both characters are not so different as either McCoy or Spock would think (they both are very emphatic for example) so it creates this unique dynamic of a lot things being unsaid and truths ignored.

Most of the time when McCoy and Spock are left alone with each other, they start an argument and can say actually hurtful things to each other, also, it’s quite obvious to me that Spock likes McCoy, while McCoy’s reaction to him is not exactly unambiguous. There should be tension. It what makes it interesting.

In the book, McCoy and Spock are as friendly as could be. Of course there are a few funny moments, but for me there should be a lot more bickering, a lot more emotions involved around Kirk’s disappearance, and there could be just done more (for example, there could be a danger which would force them to leave the orbit, but McCoy wants to stay to find Jim, and Spock is there to try to make him understand the logics and the fact that he feels that Jim is alright… ).

Kirk is there to balance Spock and McCoy out. The idea of McCoy being forced to rely on Spock with whom he disagrees mostly, or Spock relying on emotional McCoy is such an interesting concept, so it’s a pity for me I didn’t get this explored in the book.

And Kirk isn’t in a real danger, which also makes it lack tension. But it’s probably my own issue, I like “damsel in distress” trope when it comes to strong characters like the Enterprise crew and the trio in particular.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read. Despite the lack of tension, there is good dialogue, realistic approach to the idea of a medical doctor being in command, the battle is great, worldbuilding is creative, and overall it is very TOS-y.

[cessreads]

I AM EMOTIONAL AGAIN

[lemontartyellow]

I do wish I could’ve stayed kind of apathetic towards Lee in general because now that she’s one of my favorites I remember how ass her writing was and I become the Joker.

[callmebliss]

LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN THE SHOP

[twinknote]

just came back from the doctor. told them i’m depressed. they said the best course of treatment is being hugged and cherished by the gay ppl in my phone

[aforgottenthing]

Just watched “Doctor’s Orders.” RIP to my man

[hopecomesbacktolife]

having a delightful little language associations moment a la Viorica Marian’s The Power Of Language

so as an added dash of whimsy, and because I love cats ohsososo much, and because one of my tumblr mutual + friend uses this tag and I thought it was so adorable and precious, I reblog cat photos/videos/cat related things, with the tag # cat (important)

however, because I am a messy typer and am often saved by the holy yet fallible powers of autocorrect, about half the time I mean to type “cat” (c, a, t) I end up actually typing �� at” (space, a, t)

this in turn makes me think of @dduane ‘s alien species called the ;At from Doctor’s Orders (one of my favorite books of all time, so lovely, 1000/10 ♡) and ponder about pronunciation options for their name, which always kind of brightens my day a bit at the thought because, yes, the ;At are also very important to me 🥰

I wish there was more of a Doctor’s Orders fandom on tumblr, I would totally start reblogging fanworks for that book with # ;At (important) 🖖🏻🫶🏻

[shironezuninja]

I envy those who are Baby People. There’s no way I can act as a traveling caretaker while dealing with crowds at a wedding ceremony. It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it’d be. I came here to find a Mate, but I’d rather spay myself than make a commitment to reproduce.

[trashtrekker]

Fluent in sarcarsm 🩵

[n-hospital]

suffering from an ailment of sorts

[maegara]

Some of you haven’t listened to Adele’s ‘Hold On’ with headphones on and your eyes closed recently and it shows

[lemontartyellow]

I think about how they took away all of Lee’s development in Season 5 and I become evil.

[stump-not-found]

post canon shenanigans

[aitadjcrazytimes]

[idontmindifuforgetme]

”I will be withering away in bed��� no. You will be out there under the spring sun. With the grass between your toes

We will not be girlrotting in April. We will be girlblooming girlburgeoning girlflourishing

[notyourmusebby]

Ollie talking about how Carlos went to the garage and help and guide him through his first f1 race like an overbearing dad 😭❤️

“He was telling them (the engineers) what to tell me basically. So, that was pretty nice.”

“He knows what the driver wants so i found that really useful. He was looking at my driving and giving some pointers, what to change on my driving, and what to change on the car set up itself.”