Captain's Log, supplemental. A distress call from the outpost Tanis has put on hold any chance of me bedding down another alien babe. Now, the only survivor of a hot lab catastrophe is loose aboard the Enterprise, and some of the crew think the man is a... blood sucking vampire of old Earth mythology. Naturally, Mr. Spock believes this theory to be most illogical. But some of our crew are now displaying signs of... vampirism. The only cure may be to record another half dozen Priceline commercials and hope for the best. Kirk out.
I usually have mixed feelings about Star Trek trying its hand at the horror genre. None of the horror-themed episodes from the original series right up until the Star Trek series concluded with Enterprise would make a 'best-of' list for me. I concede there's more than enough room for a horror element to be explored in the Trek universe, but the way the series would usually approach it always came across as a television show trying too hard to do something it's not normally equipped for. That, and the horror episodes usually became fairly one-note in a hurry. How many dreary 'nightmare' episodes of The Next Generation did we endure through anyway? The few times horror did work in Star Trek was usually more of the psychological variety and it very often involved Chief O'Brien being made to suffer in various sadistic ways in the dreaming world to further amplify the true horror of being married to series villain Keiko O'Brien in the real world. But I digress...
Bloodthirst is a Star Trek novel set in the original series timeline that takes that spooky Spirit of Halloween set from the episode "Catspaw" and turns it up a notch. It is, more or less, a version of Dracula in space. And the entire novel builds itself up to one shining moment when our erstwhile Russian navigator Pavel Chekov gets to say the word... "wampires". No, I'm not kidding. Yes, it's as awesome as you think it is.
The author of Bloodthirst wrote a number of Trek novels between the mid 80's into the early 2000's, including several of the film novelizations. J.M. Dillard is the Star Trek pen name of one Jeanne Kalogridis, who unsurprisingly went on to write a series of vampire novels in the 90's. Bloodthirst is clearly something of a love letter to Dracula and a plethora of other vampire related fiction, although the main antagonist is not a traditional vampire. Dillard cleverly spruces the story up with a sci-fi aspect, fashioning the villain's bloodthirsty state as the result of an illegally developed bioweapon from a backwater Federation outpost. There are other villains for Kirk and the crew to contend with besides the would-be Nosferatu, including a rogue admiral and an eleventh hour visit from the Romulans.
Because there's only so much that can be done with the series regulars, Dillard introduces several of her own original characters to the crew of the Enterprise. The original characters are mostly red shirts in the security team, but surprisingly none of them feel like throwaway characters. We have Stanger, a former lieutenant demoted down to the lowest ranks because of a rather foolish decision to take the blame for a crime he didn't commit. Tomson, the stern-faced viking woman who has become the ship's chief of security. Lamia, an Andorian ensign who is one of the few blue-skinned women in proximity to Kirk that hasn't boned with him yet. And Lisa Nguyen, the sensitive one who is wrestling with the idea of leaving the Federation for life on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. There's also a kooky admiral named Waverleigh who is apparently old friends with Kirk, drinks heavily, and talks to taxidermic animals. There's one exchange this character has with Kirk where the captain concludes the conversation by saying: "Admiral, you are weird." which had me rolling because it's such a bizarre line but I can also hear Shatner delivering that line with the usual ham.
Of the regulars, while Kirk and Spock have some moments, because the story doubles as a medical mystery, Bloodthirst is undoubtedly a McCoy episode. Good ol' Bones gets plenty of screen time in this novel while he struggles to understand the bio-engineered virus and plays human chess with the vampiric virus creator Dr. Fauci Adams. Nurse Chapel is also featured prominently in the story, but I won't spoil her role for anyone interested in tracking this novel down in the future.
I had some fun with this one. The writing keeps a fairly brisk pace and there were a few genuinely squeamish moments if you're really into the horror aspects, but the novel manages to course-correct back to traditional sci-fi as the climax draws closer. Recommended.
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