The Tells of Cutezar
Series: USS M. Curie Discoveries 1
Reviewed date: 2007 Jan 2
Rating: 1
215 pages
From the back cover: "This inspirational novel is a science fiction adventure combining humor, romance, and cultural study."
I had this book pegged after reading the first two words.
"Warp three!"
"Oh no," I thought. "This is a science fiction book written by someone whose only exposure to science fiction is Star Trek." I hoped I was wrong, but I wasn't. The Tells of Cutezar owes everything to Star Trek. The technology, the society, the jargon, even the catch-phrases. I made a brief list of things ripped straight from Star Trek.
- A viewscreen on the bridge
- Science officers
- Bridge officers and non-bridge officers
- Comm buttons exactly like Star Trek communicator badges
- A communications officer
- Swivel chairs on the bridge
- A bridge conference room
- Tractor beams
- Beam transporters
- Transporter rooms
- A transporter chief
- Voice-activated computers
- Turbolifts
- Automatic sliding doors
- All-ship intercom button at the captain's chair
- Food synthesizers
- Alert buttons outside living quarters
- Shuttle bays
Even some phrases are lifted.
- "Warp three!"
- "Standard orbit."
- "Security to shuttle bay."
- "Huong, you have the conn."
- "Engage."
- "On screen."
- "Three to beam up."
- "Come." (In response to someone pushing the alert button asking to come into the room.)
Jo Bower added only one element of her own: religion. Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek is antagonistic toward religion, but Jo Bower's version features the ship's chaplain as the main character. Everybody is deeply interested in religion, and Chaplain Craig Lea is the most popular man on board. Vespers is the highlight of everyone's day, everybody prays at the drop of a hat, and Gene Roddenberry is spinning in his grave.
The plot is fairly thin: The USS M. Curie, a science vessel, makes an archaeological expedition to Cutezar, where the scientists discover that Cutezar is not uninhabited as originally thought. After making first contact with the Cutezarians, the scientists decide they'd rather continue with their dig, so they obtain permission from the Cutezarians to continue excavation.
Chaplain Craig Lea has fallen ill, and spends the whole book in pain and being drugged to the gills by the doctor, and falling in love with Chief Science Office LaShonya Reed. When it is discovered that the Cutezarians visited Earth long ago at the behest of their god the Spirit of All Things, Craig gets it into his mind that they must worship the same Christian God as he (and apparently every other human in the book) does. He talks to the Cutezarians and after much discussion, they conclude that the Spirit of All Things is the same as Jehovah God. Much rejoicing ensues.
The Tells of Cutezar is self-published, because no real publisher would touch it with a ten foot barge pole. As fan fiction it's not half bad, although it suffers from a couple of problems:
- no internal conflict (everybody is so nice, nobody even gets snippy or irritated)
- A crummy romance
- Hundreds of pages spent on Chaplain Craig's medical difficulties (which are ultimately meaningless in the context of the plot and of the character development).
If I considered it as self-published fan fiction, I would not give The Tells of Cutezar a rating. But Jo Bower doesn't bill it as fan fiction. There are no overt references to Star Trek, Star Fleet, or the Federation. Everything is exactly like Star Trek, but it's not explicitly set in the Star Trek universe, nor is any homage paid. It's presented as an entirely original work. So I shall not rate it as fan fiction, but rather as a piece of wholesale theft. The Tells of Cutezar rates just a 1 out of 5.
Also, it gets preachy.
The following is my review of The Tells of Cutezar for Amazon.com. I used different rating criteria, and wrote for a different audience. Given the inflated rating system of Amazon.com, I gave the book three stars.
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was an atheist and a humanist. What if he had instead been a strong Christian? Star Trek might show religion in a positive light, rather than being subtly hostile to it.
Jo Bower's book "The Tells of Cutezar" is a re-imagining of Star Trek with a decidedly Christian bent. Gone is the condescending dismissiveness of religion that Gene Roddenberry infused into the show. Jo Bower's version features the Chaplain Craig Lea as the main character, and portrays everyone--crew, scientists, and civilians alike--as people intensely interested in religion and spirituality.
The setting is the USS M. Curie, a science vessel on an archaeological mission to the abandonded planet Cutezar. When they arrive at Cutezar, they discover that the planet is still inhabited. The scientists make first contact with the Cutezarians, then (with the Cutezarians' permisson) decide to continue with their archaeological excavation.
Meanwhile, Chaplain Craig Lea is struck ill by a bizarre electrical storm on the planet's surface. His recuperation is slow, but he pushes himself hard in his attempt to understand the Cutezarians. Craig hopes to determine whether the Cutezarians have a religion, and if so, whether they worship the same God of Christianity as described in the Bible. In his studies, Craig makes an alarming discovery: millennia ago, the Cutezarians visited Earth!
Considered as a piece of Star Trek fan fiction, "The Tells of Cutezar" holds its own. (Note: it is not explicitly set in the Star Trek universe, but everything--the technology, the customs, even the jargon--is straight out of Star Trek.) The biggest failing is the lack of internal conflict: all the characters are nice to each other, there are no conflicts, no arguments, no disagreements even. It's unrealistic. The other problem is that everybody is really excited about religion: everybody prays at the drop of a hat, Chaplain Craig Lea is the most popular man on the ship, and vespers is the highlight of everyone's day. It would be more realistic if there were some characters who were ambivalent about religion, and some who were antagonistic toward it.
My copy appears to be a pre-release copy; it has only 315 pages compared to the 394 listed for the copy on Amazon. I believe that is merely a difference in typesetting, and that my copy has all the same text, but I don't know that for sure.