Author: Greg Cox
Title: The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (Volume 1)
Genre: Science Fiction
Year: 2001
Pages: 390
Origin: read on the good old Kindle
Nod Rating: 2 nods out of 5
Whilst reading Star Trek articles on Wikipedia – as one does
– the Worm somehow stumbled upon the expanded universe that seemingly
incorporate millions of novels featuring the likes of Captain Kirk and Jean-Luc
Picard. One particular two-part series struck the Worm’s imagination: a secret
history of the twentieth century that combined the character of Khan (recently
resurrected in the blockbuster Star Trek Into Darkness) and a minor creation
from the original series, Gary Seven. Science fiction and history had collided
together: this was all the Worm needed to get reading.
In Star Trek mythology the Eugenics Wars was an event that
occurred in the 1990s; a race of supermen took control of the planet, before
being jettisoned into outer-space. This outlined was written as part of the
original series in the 1960s, when the 1990s seemed a long way off. The
character Khan – the leader of these supermen – resurfaced in a motion picture,
establishing himself as a cult villain within the canon. This book, written by
Greg Cox, returns to the original source material. But rather than place Khan
in outer space in the distant future, he attempts something slightly more
radical: the story of Khan’s time on Earth in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
What’s more, in an attempt to tie in Earth’s real history as well as the
imagined Star Trek universe, Khan’s place within these decades is formed as a
“secret history”, using real events such as the fall of Communism and ethnic cleansing
in the hope of producing a page-turning adventure story.
This volume – the first of two – is set in the early 1970s.
Khan is a child prodigy and generally an unknown quantity; his home environment
– a giant research laboratory – is besieged by Gary Seven and his accomplices
(Roberta Lincoln). Seven succeeds in destroying the work of “evil” scientists,
but the fall out of this means that the planet is under threat of a young
generation of potential power-hungry super-beings.
Cox attempts to build a thriller full of suspense, blending
real events with his imagination: all of which can be deemed a success. Of
course, Cox is no Shakespeare… or indeed, any other in-depth, gripping writer
(of which there are only truly a few). However, his novel is one of action, if
not emotional or intellectual depth. The Worm was mostly hooked with the
weaving together of fiction and non-fiction; unfortunately for the outcome of
the novel, Cox appears to have missed a few open goals in terms of real-life
events to feed from.
As such, this volume – and Star Trek fiction as a whole - is
commendable, but unfortunately not recommendable to those outside the science
fiction family.
