Star Trek Book Review: Lost to Eternity (2024) by Greg Cox

“I just wanted more life… for everyone.”

Stardates: 2024, 2268, 2292

Taking place across three distinct timeframes, Greg Cox’s Lost to Eternity is another altogether around wonderful TOS-era Star Trek novel. The first storyline takes place in San Francisco in 2024 wherein a true crime podcaster named Melinda Silver tries to track down the marine biologist Gillian Taylor from the Cetacean Institute who disappeared some forty years earlier (as shown in the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). This delightful story-line sees Melinda and her techie companion Dennis follow a trail of clues, much like Woodward and Bernstein, tracking Gillian’s last known moments in 1986: her pizza date with a curly-haired mystery man, her confrontation with an odd “monk” who jumped into the whale tank at the Cetacean Institute, and even an apparent kidney regeneration miracle drug. They interrogate numerous people and eventually stumble upon a top-secret government conspiracy to cover-up the investigation into this incident. Of course, this is all dramatic irony since fans of Star Trek IV know full well what happened to Gillian Taylor. But for Melinda, eventually all roads point to a shadowy Silicon Valley biotech magnate named Orlando Wilder who is obsessed with genetic experiments (via his secretive company aptly called Amaranth). He has been desperately trying to chase down Dr. McCoy’s ‘miracle drug’ which was given to Gillian to regrow her liver. Orlando explains that he has been delving into eugenics with the goal of hopefully helping humans live longer (this is perhaps slightly different from the top-secret Chrysalis Project which was referenced in several prior Star Trek novels). But the meeting goes sideways and Orlando fights with Dennis in a broken bottle squabble, killing Dennis. Orlando then maniacally kidnaps Melinda and freezes her inside a cryo tube.

The second storyline is a classic Trek adventure that takes place in 2268 during the Enterprise’s original five-year mission. Shortly after the distress call on Beta XII-A (as shown in the episode “Day of the Dove”), the Enterprise arrives at a barbaric backwater planet called Atraz where Dr. Taya Hamparian, a scientist who has been conducting top-secret genetic experiments, has suddenly gone missing. She is notably half-Andorian and half-human. Dr. Hamparian was traveling aboard an ordinary transport vessel called the “SS Chinook” until it was hijacked by a terrorist named Pierre Fortier using a bulb of Horta acid (from the episode “The Devil in the Dark”). Fortier takes Dr. Hamparian with him in an escape pod and they land on the nearby planet Atraz. Now, some time later when the Enterprise arrives at Atraz, a landing party has been organized to track her down on the planet’s surface. Naturally, this leads to all sorts of trouble, like a fight in a giant gladiatorial arena populated by huge carnivorous birds, and the situation gets especially tense when the Klingons suddenly arrive under the leadership of Klingon Commander Khod (who appeared in the TOS episode “Elaan of Troyius”). The Federation tries to retrieve Dr. Hamparian while the Klingons hope to kidnap her in order to learn more about her secret genetic experiments. But in this case, both the Federation and the Klingons are forced to uneasily team-up in order to find Dr. Hamparian when members of both crews are taken prisoner by the Atrazians. Soon they learn that Dr. Hamparian has actually staged her own “kidnapping” as a way of hopefully escaping strict Federation regulations on genetic experiments. She was hoping not to be found in order to conduct her controversial research in private. Meanwhile, aboard the Enterprise, Spock deftly outmaneuvers the Klingons with a brilliant communication decoy ploy followed by a bluffing threat of hostility. On Atraz, Dr. Hamparian’s research has been secretly supported by a dark mastermind “wizard” named Siroth who, as it turns out, is the puppet master for the whole project. In time however, after watching Siroth’s careless attention to the lives of the visiting Enterprise crewmen, Dr. Hamparian quickly grows disillusioned with Siroth and she quietly defects to the Enterprise. This leads to a wild escape sequence which only ends when the Enterprise makes a targeted ‘lightning’ strike on Siroth’s facility, destroying Dr. Hamparian’s genetic research. But Siroth manages to survive.

Lastly, the third story-line takes place in 2292 after the collapse of the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire alliance, just prior to the explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis (as shown in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). In this story, an ancient elusive alien species called the Osori (a three-eyed, reptilian or amphibious species) has finally agreed to establish diplomatic relations for the first time with its three major neighbors: the Federation under Kirk of the Enterprise-A (since the original Enterprise was destroyed in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock); the Klingons under B’Eleste aboard the ship the Lukana; and the Romulans under Commander Plavius. The crews of each of the three ships intermingle with each other and envoys from the Osori are beamed aboard each of the three ships. The ships will collectively transport the Osori to the neutral “peace” planet of Nimbus III for negotiations (Nimbus III was first shown in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier). The fan favorite character Saavik leads the delegation aboard the Klingon vessel where an Osori named Cyloo has joined. Here, we learn a bit more about the Osori, namely that they are a highly advanced species and nearly immortal, though they are not as old as either the Organians or Metrons (as explained by an Osori envoy named Gledii). The Osori have corporeal forms, but they are capable of temporarily transforming themselves into incorporeal beings. They measure their life in terms of millennia, and Bones remarks that they are like a whole race of Flints (a reference to the episode “Requiem for Methuselah”). However, things go awry when the doctor aboard the Klingon vessel named Kesh kidnaps Cyloo (the Osori envoy), along with Saavik, and others like Romulan Subcommander Taleb. He transports them away on a shuttle before the shuttle is suddenly destroyed before everyone’s eyes! Could this be the end of Saavik? The Federation, Klingons, and Romulans all start pointing fingers at one another while the Osori start to grow nervous.   

Each of the three plots (A, B, and C) are then all brilliantly woven together in a fascinating time-jumping tale wherein we learn the big twist –Orlando Wilder, Siroth, and Kesh are actually all one and the same person. He was a genetically-engineered human prior to birth which allowed him to live much longer than the typical human life. Augmentation, coupled with the use of cryo tubes, has allowed him to live for centuries as he has been searching for the secret to immortality. As Orlando Wilder, he sought to develop life-extending technology through his biotech firm, as Siroth he tried to hijack Dr. Hamparian’s genetic research on Atraz, and as Kesh he kidnapped an elusive Osori in an effort to learn their secrets to near-immortality. However, Kesh’s prisoners did not die aboard the escape pod. Instead, they were beamed away through a cloud to a nearby asteroid where Kesh has a hidden base, complete with a research lab and cryo tubes. Here, Saavik leads a rebellion against Kesh and she discovers a cryo tube containing the body of none other than Melinda Silver! Melinda has been frozen for about three hundred years since her confrontation with Orlando Wilder on earth. Saavik awakens her and performs a mindmeld to better understand her story. It is an illuminating experience for them both. Then the rebels issue a muffled message back to the Enterprise, which demonstrates that Kesh’s prisoners are in fact still alive, and this leads to the three vessels approaching the asteroid and rescuing them all. In the end, Kesh interestingly comes across as a fairly sympathetic character –after all, he was merely trying to expand modern science’s ability to extend human life. He just went a little overboard with it. But Melinda reminds him that he actually took her life away from her, rather than extending it. And when he realizes this, he laments: “I just wanted more life… for everyone.” Kesh is then taken prisoner aboard the Enterprise and placed in the brig, while the Klingons and Romulans depart so the Enterprise can transport the Osori safely back to their homeworld.

In a wonderfully satisfying coda, Melinda finally meets with Gillian Taylor aboard her boat “The Cetacean” on San Francisco Bay. Gillian tells Melinda that she enjoyed listening to old records of her podcast and introduces her to the rescued whales, George and Gracie, as well as their baby, Harpo. Gillian hopes for updates to the universal translator to be able to communicate with the whales and she offers a charming meditation on aging and the passage of time:

“Twenty-third-century Earth is so much better than the troubled world we come from. No wars, no poverty, no prejudice, no pollution, no constant sense that the whole planet is on the brink of disaster. I don’t lie awake at night anymore, worrying about the environment or the nuclear arms race or the economy. I’m not fighting a losing battle to save the whales anymore, and you know what, I can live with that. I’m more relaxed and at peace than I ever was back in the eighties, even if I do feel like a dinosaur sometimes” (386).

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As is often the case in Greg Cox’s Star Trek novels, Lost to Eternity is a playful exploration of time travel and different eras of Star Trek, all of which are masterfully stitched together by the end of the novel (though for much of the book, readers are left in the dark as to why we are reading about a 21^st century podcaster in one chapter, and then a familiar 23^rd century TOS adventure in the next chapter, and then an even later 23^rd century diplomatic mission that runs afoul). The whole connecting tissue only becomes clear by the end and it’s definitely worth the wait. Greg Cox has proven himself to be one of the best Trek writers, his novels deeply understand the characters and the interplay between comedy and weightiness in classic Star Trek. And on top of all that, while his books are heavily researched, they still don’t feel burdensome or unnecessarily encyclopedic. They are, above all, Trek adventures that are fun and to top it all off I’ve also noticed Cox has a tendency to explore contemporary social and political issues through this lens –issues like conspiracy theorists, podcasts, internet fanatics, megalomaniacal tech billionaires, and the renewed cultural obsession with eugenics and immortality. Amusingly, the character of Melinda Silver in Lost to Eternity brings all manner of modern slang into Trek vernacular, such as “what the freak” and even an “okay boomer” at the end. It is funny albeit a little jarring. In my view, Lost to Eternity is another top-tier Star Trek novel from Greg Cox (he is rapidly becoming one of my favorite Trek authors).  

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Assorted Notes:

• The Horta acid referenced at the start of the book is a corrosive chemical that allows the Horta creature to tunnel through solid rock with ease (as introduced in the episode “The Devil in the Dark”).
• Cibonor Prime is the planet the SS Chinook was initially bound for before it was hijacked by Fortier.
• There are so many species and planets referenced in this book, some of which include: Andorian, Orion, Venusian, Tiburonian, Mugato, Terran, Argelius II, Kalandans, Fabrini, Capela IV, and others.
• The most notorious augment, Khan Noonien Singh, serves as a key figure looming underneath the debate over life-extension in this novel. He is referenced several times.
• The mission to rescue Dr. Hamparian is described as not being an “errand of mercy.”
• It is mentioned that Enterprise transporters are programmed to detect and eliminate infectious agents.
• Apparently Klingon escape pods are set to automatically detonate if they are impeded.
• At one point, Kirk says he thinks of the Prime Directive as a “crucial moral compass” not a “cage.”
• Klingons are amusingly brutish in this novel and there are references to the Klingon dagger, the d’k tahg, as well as the D7 Klingon battlecruiser.
• Romulan ale makes an appearance.
• Kahless is quoted as saying: “It is better to win a war than lose gloriously.”
• Reliux is a major trading port city on the planet Atraz.
• Enkidu is the name of a pet rat in this novel, a reference to Gilgamesh’s animalistic companion in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
• Sto-Vo-Kor is referenced as a Klingon version of Valhalla.
• The books on Kesh’s bookshelf focused on immortality include: The Photonic Eternity by Lilyan Colbert, The Epic of Gilgamesh, “The Mortal Immortal,” Orlando, The Picture of Dorian Gray, She: A History of Adventure, “Rip Van Winkle,” Tuck Everlasting, Methuselah’s Children, The Endless Andorian, Bid Space-Time Return, and others.  
• As established in prior books, Saavik is alluded to being half-Vulcan and half-Romulan.

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Cox, Greg. Lost to Eternity. Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, New York, New York, 2024.  

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