The Art of the Impossible (Spoiler)

I know, I am late, but I want to add my opinions about this book as
well:


S P O I L E R

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Now, after I finished reading "The Art of the Impossible" myself, I
understand even better why this book is so popular. It is a fascinating
read. KRAD is well knows to be an expert in Star Trek trivia and
especially everything that has to do with Klingons. What is remarkable
is that KRAD succeeded to cover nearly 20 years of history in a way that
is neither boring nor confusing. It contains a lot of historic element
we know from TV and/or book form. Sometimes we only know part of the
story. Sometimes we know even less. Not only that, the book also deals
with personal histories, events we have also seen at least in part on TV
or have heard about. Bringing all these bits and pieces together is
already a remarkable achievement in itself. But KRAD does much more than
this: "The Art of the Impossible" is much more than a Star Trek history
book. The author fills in the gaps in ways that changes this collection
of information into a complex, exciting story, a story that has a
beginning and an end, a story that is not only very interesting but can
on occasion be very touching, even funny. I think this book is most
definitely the best KRAD has written so far.

"The Art of the Impossible" deals with a LOT of different people, known
characters and others that are not known to me. I have to add, some of
the many references to Star Trek`s history on TV and also in books may
have been lost to me because contrary to KRAD, I would never win
anything in a trivia contest. My memory is simply not that good. Maybe
some readers even find a glitch here or there, I leave that to others to
point out such mistakes. From my perspective, I can only say that I
found nothing that felt wrong to me. I was just fascinated by this ride
through history. It is also a remarkable achievement to write such a
book that doesn`t confuse the reader, at least it didn`t confuse me. I
never had to look at previous pages because I lost track somewhere.

I always have been a big fan of Elias Vaughn who is most definitely my
favourite DS9 Relaunch character. One aspect that makes him so
interesting is his rich past. I think it was never as obvious as in this
book that using Vaughn is an excellent way to link past events with the
present, to present him as a witness to important historic events. Of
course he also shaped and shapes them himself. The more I read about
Vaughn`s involvements, the more I am getting curious about new aspects
of his life.
That he is on top of that a very human, likeable character adds to it.

In that connection I had to smile about his interaction with Curzon Dax
and I understand his dislike of that man very well now. The way Curzon
Dax dealt with the Betreka Nebula incident also didn`t feel right to me
from the very beginning. I shared Vaughn`s bad feelings about this. Also
in real life, if you have two passionate parties who want something that
is considered to be holy or otherwise precious for themselves, the
situation remains tense with dangerous eruptions of violence unless a
permanent solution is found. This enforced limbo and continuous friction
could have had even worse consequences than we could read in this book.

What also added to the strong impact this book had on me is the mix of
known and old information. Contrary to many fans, I can`t be spoiled,
only teased. That I sometimes knew what will happen but just didn`t know
when exactly and under what circumstances added to my curiosity. To me,
that was mainly the death of Ian Troi and the death of Worf`s parents on
Khitomer. I enjoyed reading about Mogh and Kaasin and their sons very
much. I liked this family, especially Kaasin was a remarkable woman. At
least they died well, something that is very important for Klingons.

What I also liked is that again and again, but mainly at the end of the
book, we were shown what a terrible waste of life resulted from
discovering something precious to the Klingons that was revealed to be
something so different than what Klingons believe. I liked it that KRAD
also included looks at how innocent bystanders became victims as well,
like the owner of a Klingon restaurant (I very much felt for that guy).

At the end I learned that Vaughn knows of another big secret only very
few people know about and we can keep wondering about another mystery in
his past because I don`t know where he actually got that information
from. I am not only looking forward to more stories with Vaughn, to my
surprise this book also succeeded to get me more comfortable with the
idea that Uhura is the head of Starfleet Intelligence. But I will wait
and see until I have read "Catalyst of Sorrows", a book I haven`t got
yet.

Baerbel Haddrell