Tag: Star Trek

Getting Older

Spock: Change is the essential process of all existence.

Star Trek, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, Stardate 5730.2

As I approach yet another birthday, and my kids are getting close to adulthood, I am definitely starting to see a change in my attitude toward life.

The character of Jeralt from Fire Emblem: Three Houses really sums it up nicely. My attitude has noticeably shifted this past year, especially after my time in the hospital in February, and I find I care a lot less about some things that were once important to me. I don’t mean this in a brooding or dismal sort of way. I am just so glad to be alive and well after that experience, and just being able to read my poetry from the Hyakunin Isshu, or playing Fire Emblem games1 makes me pretty happy lately. I keep my Buddhist routines small and sustainable as much as I can too.

My sense of ambition, something that really drove me in my twenties and thirties, has largely faded these days, and I am already looking forward to just being a nice grandad someday with my wife. Even certain recent goals I had don’t seem nearly as important as they were.

Is this part of the natural aging process? I am not sure. Maybe. Probably.

But it’s also nice being able to just let go and let life flow on, instead of constantly trying to wrestle with it, like punching a giant pile of dough into the shape you want, then getting frustrated when it loses its shape.

Of course, I still like to keep busy and still do self-improvement. I have just gradually narrowed my hobbies and personal goals to the ones I truly care about.

Namu Amida Butsu

1 I currently own five titles now. Three Houses is easily my favorite, but I also enjoy Awakening quite a bit, and Three Hopes. Fire Emblem: Engage is just disappointing. The crossover game, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, is also neat since you do get to tour parts of modern-day Tokyo, plus it’s pretty campy. I was lucky to get that game for less than half-price during my last trip to Japan.

Why This Blog

Natira: “Is truth not truth for all?”

Star Trek “For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky” (s3ep8), Stardate 5476.4.

I started blogging way back in 2005 after visiting Japan for the first time, and discovering the Jodo Shu Buddhist path shortly thereafter from a now-defunct English-language site. Back then, I blogged on Blogger for a year or two, but soon moved to WordPress and have been here for almost 15 years. I have started, and then removed blogs a few times (Level 8 Buddhist, Japan: Life and Religion, etc), but I always come back and start again.

I am not sure why I have such a strong impulse to blog on such nerdy topic over and over again. In the beginning, it was my way of trying to reconcile my religious-cultural experiences in Japan, with the kind of stuff I learned about in Western textbooks. The two seemed pretty different, but over the years I learned a lot about Japanese religion and culture, and every time I learned something new, I’d put it on the blog so others could find it. I have often updated certain articles on Wikipedia as well.

Later, when I was part of a local Japanese-American temple (Jodo Shinshu sect), I learned even more from the experience. The Buddhism is often presented to Westerners is somewhat skewed by a combination of outmoded translations, native “Protestant” bias, and just lack of information. I had to relearn a lot of assumptions over the years myself, and I really miss that time with the temple community, even if I decided to follow a slightly different path.

Over the years through blogging I have been lucky to meet disparate people in places like Europe, Africa and Asia who wanted to learn more, and were themselves struggling with finding the right information. Some of these areas do not have large Buddhist communities. But what matters is that anyone from any walk of life can find information they want, and put it into practice in a way that suits their life. A single mom in rural Arkansas, or a student in Sweden, or an elderly Asian-American all have the right to learn the Dharma, and shouldn’t be limited by time, place, background or cost.

I prefer this open approach. Instead of relying on gurus, special transmissions, seminars, meditation centers, retreats and so on, I want to present Buddhist teachings as-is from sources and sites I come across. I do not make money from this, and I don’t want people’s money (my current employment is enough). Instead, what I learn for myself, I also share with others. Truth must be truth for all with no strings attached.

The way I figure it: people can make their own informed decisions about how to put the Dharma into practice in their lives. They just need sufficient information to make informed choices.

Mindfulness Meditation Isn’t What You Think

Spock : “… I have noted that the healthy release of emotion is frequently very unhealthy for those closest to you.”

Star Trek, “Plato’s Stepchildren” (s3ep10), Stardate 5784.2

Meditation, specifically mindfulness meditation, is touted as a stress-relief exercise. Busy people believe that if they can block out the time to meditate for X minutes a day, or when stressed, this will make more happy and productive. It has been all the rage in Silicon Valley too.

But it doesn’t work.

It will calm your mind while you are sitting, but as soon as you are back to work, your blood pressure will quickly rise again. Old habits will quickly resurface. Self-help, in short, does not help.

How do I know this?

I tried the same trick in my late 20’s. My first child was born, and I was working at Amazon (yes, that Amazon) for a few years in a technical support role. The environment was stressful, demanding, constantly on the move, the on-call rotation gave little time to decompress because something was always broken,1 and I had to drive into work at all hours of the night to try and fix it.

Since I had recently converted to Buddhism at the time, and listened to a lot of Ajahn Brahm dharma talks, I wanted to try meditation. We had a spare office that no one used, so I would go in there once or twice a day, turn off the lights, dutifully sit, chant certain Buddhist mantras, meditate for 20 minutes or more, and then return to work.

As soon as I was back at my desk, the stress would rise all over again. I kept at the meditation for months, almost a year, before I finally gave up.

The stress, constant sense of inadequacy measuring myself to hyper-competitive co-workers who graduated from Stanford, unrealistic work performance goals, fear of losing my job, and so on simply didn’t go away until I QUIT MY JOB AND TOOK A LESS DEMANDING ONE.2

It took me years as a Buddhist to finally realize that stress-relief is not what mindfulness meditation was intended for.

Mindfulness meditation is a tool to develop insight, not stress relief. It is necessary in the early stages of meditation to quiet the chatter in the mind, but that is just the first stage. It is to remove barriers to insight by develop a focused mind, and a quiet mind, a mind that can perceive things in a more balanced way. Consider this quote from the Buddha in a very early text, the Dhammapada:

  1. There is no meditative concentration for him who lacks insight, and no insight for him who lacks meditative concentration. He in whom are found both meditative concentration and insight, indeed, is close to Nibbana.
  2. The monk who has retired to a solitary abode and calmed his mind, who comprehends the Dhamma with insight, in him there arises a delight that transcends all human delights.
    …
  3. Control of the senses, contentment, restraint according to the code of monastic discipline — these form the basis of holy life here for the wise monk.
Translation by Soma Thera from https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.25.budd.html

The emphasis is on focus, insight, and contemplation NOT relaxation or stress-relief. Mindfulness meditation has been repackaged and sold to naive Westerners with false promises. Meditation really does provide excellent benefits, but it has to be done as part of a much larger, holistic lifestyle change and with wholesome intentions. This is the “holy life” as described by the Buddha: a life of wholesome, guilt-free conduct, goodwill towards others, and a desire to pursue the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha).

First, one should take up the Five Precepts of Buddhism. As we see in verse 374 above, the Buddha openly encourages that we curb our worst behaviors first as a foundation for other Buddhist practice. One will gain no lasting benefit from meditation until this is done. Full stop.

Second, one must approach meditation with the mindset of a monk. It is not necessary for lay-people to give up everything and go live in the woods. Buddhism accommodates both the “house-holder” lifestyle and that of a true renunciant (a.k.a. a monk or nun). But both the renunciant and the house-holder are expected to live a life of moderation and restraint.3 Easier said than done (speaking as a gamer and foodie), but it’s a goal to sincerely aspire to.

Speaking of restraint, one should always guard one’s speech. A long time ago, a Buddhist minister I admired once told me that speech was like toothpaste: once it was out of the tube, you couldn’t put it back. One has to learn to carefully monitor what one says both in person and online (and yes, at work). Again, easier said than done, but the alternative will only make your life miserable.

Finally, when such good foundations are established, meditation will help you learn more about yourself, and the world around you.4 It’s incredibly helpful, and life-changing when carried to fruition. I have my own little private insights that have stayed with me through the years, and I hope you will find yours too.

Namu Amida Butsu

Namu Shakamuni Butsu

P.S. if you feel the need to calm yourself right away, try something much simpler. You can recite the nembutsu, the Heart Sutra, a mantra, whatever. Try that for a minute, and see if that works. It is a band-aid fix though, and you still need to approach things from a holisitic standpoint, or you will gain no long-term benefit. Alternatively, just go for a walk.

1 Years later, the sound of a pager going off still triggers me a little bit. No joke.

2 Another ex-Amazonian who had joined the same company years earlier confided in me that after leaving Amazon, he drank himself stupid for months to decompress. I noticed that I was still on a hair-trigger for months after leaving Amazon, and it took me a while to unlearn those habits too. My wife noted that my posture improved after leaving, and that I grumbled about work less. Some jobs are simply not worth staying in.

3 The Buddha was pretty flexible about what exactly this meant, citing whatever cultural standards applied at the time as a benchmark. In short, a lot of it is rooted in common courtesy and good sense. If you cannot act toward others using common courtesy, meditation ain’t gonna fix your issue.

4 You may learn that your whole problem is that your job sucks, for example, and that the burn-out is not worth the money. Of course, if you’re a single mom caring for three kids, you have a lot fewer options available to you, and in such cases I recommend the nembutsu as a starting point.

Letting Go of Expectations of Others

Spock: No one can guarantee the actions of another.

Star Trek, “Day of the Dove” (s3ep7), stardate unknown

The third season of the classic TV series, Star Trek, gets a lot of flak for being lower in quality, but some of the best episodes of the series can be found there. One of my personal favorites is “Day of the Dove”.

The premise is strange at first glance: the Enterprise crew and a group of Klingon prisoners are trapped on the Enterprise by a phantasmal alien that feeds on anger and conflict, which keeps manipulating both sides in order to instigate them into hopeless, unending cycle of conflict. The alien furnishes weapons, seals corridors, plants false memories, and heals fatal injuries all so that the Enterprise crew and Klingons fight can ad infinitum, even as the ship is hurling out of control beyond the edge of the galaxy.

There’s a lot to unpack in this episode, and much of it still relates to circumstances today. But I’ll let you the reader decide for yourself.

In any case, Spock’s quote above illustrates something very Buddhist in my opinion: people expect other people to think and feel the way they do. When they don’t, we get frustrated. We naturally tend to see our own viewpoint as “pristine” and the more other’s deviate from this, the weirder or aberrant they are. We get frustrated when we they don’t do what we expect them to do. This can also happen between spouses, co-workers, and so on.

But as Spock rightly implies, this is arrogant, irrational, and dare I say “illogical”. We are not the center of the Universe, why should other people think and do as we do?

In the classic Buddhist text, the Dhammapada, are the following verses:

  1. One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.
  2. One who, while himself seeking happiness, does not oppress with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will find happiness hereafter.
  3. Speak not harshly to anyone, for those thus spoken to might retort. Indeed, angry speech hurts, and retaliation may overtake you.
  4. If, like a broken gong, you silence yourself, you have approached Nibbana,1 for vindictiveness is no longer in you.

[skipping for brevity…]

142. Even though he be well-attired [instead of dressed like a humble monk], yet if he is poised, calm, controlled and established in the holy life, having set aside violence towards all beings — he, truly, is a holy man, a renunciate, a monk.

translation by Acharya Buddharakkhita

Oftentimes, it is simply better to let go, let people be who they are, even if they are wrong or short-sighted, and wish them no harm.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu
Namu Amida Butsu

1 Nibbana is the Pali-style pronunciation of Nirvana. Both mean the same thing in a Buddhist context: liberation, unbinding, freedom. A Buddha’s awakening to the truth (e.g. enlightenment) leads to a state of letting go, unbinding. The Buddha Shakyamuni described it as a flame extinguished.

The Beast Within

Another post for the Fall Ohigan week. I was watching some classic Star Trek and wanted to share this quote:

Captain Kirk: Yes, well, those pressures are everywhere in everyone, urging him to what you call savagery. The private hells, the inner needs and mysteries, the beast of instinct. As human beings, that is the way it is. To be human is to be complex.…

Star Trek, “Requiem for Methuselah” (s3ep19), Stardate 5843.7

Being the homo sapiens that we are, we are indeed complex creatures. We are gifted with the capacity for logic and reason, and yet we are still savage in many ways. We still pattern ourselves in many ways our ancestors did, even if they are seemingly more modern and complex.

But also, from a Buddhist standpoint, we are capable of a great many things, both good and bad.

“We reach”

In Tendai Buddhism is a concept, later popularized in Nichiren Buddhism, called “3000 worlds in a single thought”, or ichinen-sanzen (一念三千). Broadly speaking, the idea is that with any moment in time, our thoughts and actions are capable of manifesting the highest levels of buddha-hood, or the very lowest, foul levels of a demon, and everything within that spectrum. There is certainly more to this, but that’s a brief summary.

Another way to look at it: we have within each of us that which is capable of being a bodhisattva or even a buddha, and yet we also have that within us that is capable of great evil. It comes down to things like environment, training, awareness and so on. We like to think other people as crazy and evil, but under the right circumstances we could just as easily slip down that path. In the same way, we see ourselves as hopeless, and yet with the right support and training, we can go on to do great things.

So, it helps to be a little vigilant of one’s own mind, especially when stressed, fatigued, or insulted. When times are good, it’s easy to behave kind and enlightened. The real test comes when under pressure, and given enough pressure anyone can crack and their brutal nature comes out.

On the other hand, when one does inevitably falter, it’s important to reflect and not flog oneself. Goodwill towards oneself is just as important as goodwill towards others. We are, afterall, human. It’s also why, especially in the Pure Land traditions, we acknowledge those faults and give thanks to the Buddha Amida for his goodwill towards us regardless.

P.S. More on the power of goodwill and the nembutsu.

Saturday Night Star Trek

Not my usual post, but something fun that I wanted to share.

I have been a fan of the classic Star Trek series since I was a kid in the 1980’s. My uncle was the “cool” member of the family and a first-generation Trekkie. He still fondly remembers when he saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the local theater, and keeps some old LP records on his shelf including this gem:

This is album also available online from streaming music stores and possibly other places. I bought my copy on iTunes.

My uncle was a big influence on me as a kid. I loved going to his house, and gaze at all the cool 1960’s science fiction goods he kept on shelves.

As a kid in the 80’s, I was raised on Star Trek: The Next Generation and had watched it from the pilot episode all the way to the series finale. I still enjoy Next Generation from time to time even today. I have also enjoyed both Voyager and Deep Space Nine, not to mention newer series like Strange New Worlds too. Each one of these series is great in its own way, and during the Pandemic I re-watched all of them at some point or another frequently late at night or very early in the morning when I had trouble sleeping.

But even so the original series (TOS) remains my favorite, and by extension, the lesser-known but endearing Star Trek: The Animated Series.

Star Trek TOS gets a lot of criticism over the years. It feels old, out of touch, flagrantly sexist, and the special effects don’t hold up to modern scrutiny. These are all valid criticisms and I won’t try to justify them. Gene Roddenberry was a visionary on the one hand, but also a pervy guy on the other.

But what I love about TOS so much is that it had a unique combination of bold story-telling, really fantastic acting, and willingness to explore weird ideas and concepts during a Cold War period of history.

Star Trek was silly and messy, but bold, and even the episodes that are frequently criticized, such as the “Space Hippies” episode still have a lot of rewatch value even after all these years.

During the early Pandemic, I discovered an online community called “TOS Sat(urday) Night”. The idea is that Star Trek TOS is best watched on a Saturday night, and so the community, a loose network of people, all watch the same episode at the same time every Saturday night and drop silly comments on this social media service or that: X, BlueSky, etc.1 The group follows either broadcast or production order, and usually it starts around 9pm or later depending on time zone. Sometimes we also watch a related Animated Series episode as well.

Saturday Night Trek is both a concept and a refuge from the usual frustrations in the world, an hour to explore a positive future where science and reason stand up to powerful gods, irrational machines, and crooked leaders. But also, have a good laugh about the show’s foibles, and discuss the finer points too.

So, if you are feeling burned out, and life has got you down, sit down on a Saturday night, fire up an old Star Trek episode and enjoy. May you live long and prosper.

P.S. I did not even know about Star Trek Day (September 8th) when writing this post. It was a happy coincidence.

1 You can find me on Xitter as @cool_spock, and on BlueSky as @coolspock. The story behind the name is long. These days I use BlueSky almost exclusively. I have almost totally abandoned X.

Realpolitik

Something that’s been on my mind lately is this quote from the original Star Trek series:

Dr. McCoy: Spock, I’ve found that evil usually triumphs – unless good is very, very careful.

Star Trek, “The Omega Glory” (1968)

These days, pretty much the entirety of the 2020’s in particular, it really feels like good has to extra vigilant, doesn’t it? Like wherever one turns, evil seems to always get the upper hand.

Different episode (“Bread and Circuses”), but same energy. RIP DeForrest Kelley …

This isn’t even just a statement of politics. We are definitely living through some pretty difficult times, and it brings out the worst in others.

Consider this iconic quote from the Buddhist text, the Dhammapada:


183. To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one’s mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas.

Trans. Acharya Buddharakkhita

The statement is pretty vague, but to me it feels like there’s an order and logic to this statement.

Avoiding all evil begins with things like the Five Precepts and is probably the first step as a Buddhist. It doesn’t solve everything, but it’s a good starting point. You’re stemming the worst instincts at least.

Next, one cultivates good through Buddhist practice such as dedication of merit, the four bodhisattva vows, and just good old-fashioned metta. The idea being that cultivating wholesome states of mind gradually sinks in and reinforces itself. Presumably.

Finally, cleansing the mind. This is where practices like meditation, mindfulness and such really come in handy. Having a good heart is not enough: one needs to balance it with wisdom and clarity.

In another episode of Star Trek, titled “The Savage Curtain” (the one with Space Lincoln), the founder of Vulcan philosophy Surak heedlessly goes alone to try and negotiate peace. His stubbornness costs him his life. Lincoln also tries to save him but gets killed as well.

“Space Lincoln” was awesome.

This theme repeats across multiple episodes: striving to do good not enough, one needs to vigilant. On the other hand, being passive and intellectual doesn’t accomplish much good either.

So, you need both.

Even in these difficult times, it’s helpful to maintain goodwill towards all beings (even the really awful jerks who might not deserve it), have realistic expectations, meet evil with good, but also meet ignorance with wisdom including your own.

Remembering the Dead

“Mercedes” is one of the nicest, sweetest characters in the game Fire Emblem: Three Houses (and Three Hopes)

It’s been about 18 months since my mother-in-law passed away, and my wife still pays her respects regularly. We have her picture setup with some flowers and incense, and per custom my wife will burn incense in the morning. The kids, who miss their “baba”, offer incense sometimes too.

We also started enshrining an old photo of my maternal grandmother, who passed away 33 years ago, and burning incense for her too. Obviously, this is not an American custom, but I felt that it was a good one to adopt. I briefly touched on honoring one’s ancestors in a past post about day to day Tendai Buddhist practice, and remembering this I decided to take up the practice.

My grandmother was pretty ahead of her time. She was a computer nerd in the 80’s, and would dabble a lot with old Tandy Color Computers, dial up on local BBS’es, and hung around Star Trek forums online. And, she would share all this with me as a kid. I have a lot of fond memories of staying overnight at her house on weekends.

Thanks to her, I developed a love of computers, and that love of computers helped me build a career from which I can raise a family now. Just as we owe my mother-in-law for her many ways of supporting us in our early marriage, my grandmother also helped us by inspiring me to learn some good technical skills.

The reason why I posted this though was to not just reflect on the past.

Through Buddhist custom, we’ve been honoring past ancestors, and expressing gratitude, but also it’s important not to get stuck in the past either. Conduct here and now matter too. The quote above from Fire Emblem: Three Hopes (the sequel to Three Houses), really expresses this point nicely:

Living in the present is the best we can do. We owe it to those who can’t come back.

Fire Emblem: Three Hopes

My wife strives to be a good mom the way her mother was, and I try to be a good dad, including working an honest career. We both look forward to being the “nice grandma and grandpa” for our grandkids someday. 😊

Of course, this isn’t just limited to raising a family. A person can also just “pay it forward” in helping others. Just as our parents (warts and all) sacrificed much to raise us, we can selflessly help others around us, or help future generations by making the world a little bit of a better place. But, even more simply, taking time to enjoy one’s life, the breath one takes, their continued good health and so on, these too can honor our loved ones who aren’t around anymore.

Namu Amida Butsu

Inequality

Spock sitting in an orange room, facing right, his fingers steepled as he meditates on a problem.

This troubled planet is a place of the most violent contrasts. Those who receive the rewards are totally separated from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership….

Star Trek: The Original Series, “The Cloud Minders” (s3ep21)

The classic Star Trek episode, “The Cloud Minders”, is a fun episode late in the third season that explores a society that is separated into two social classes: the intellectual class living in the clouds and a working-class that lives below in the mines.

Years later, in the Japanese game Chrono Trigger, a similar theme was explored with a society that lived around 12,000 BC that had an elite intellectual class living in the clouds, and a worker class that lived in the icy wastes below.

It’s fascinating, if not somewhat disturbing to see real-life examples of this too. As much as I admire the Heian Period of Japanese culture, it’s not hard to see parallels: an elite literati that sits around and writes poetry all day, and a much larger illiterate peasant class that toils in the fields for their benefit. The inequality is disturbing.

Indeed, this pattern repeats over and over again in human history, regardless of time or place. There is even a political theory toward this end call the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Are we not also living under some form of oligarchy even today?

Further, the more that people “in the clouds” become cut off, the harder it is to develop empathy for those who toil, and easier to just blame them for their own predicament. This is the very antipathy of metta in Buddhism, the goodwill towards all beings, big or small, smart or foolish.

In some ways, the early Mahayana-Buddhist texts such as the Lotus Sutra or Three Pure Land Sutras1 were pretty revolutionary texts. The famous 12th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, and its story of the Dragon Princess deserves a look. In this story, the daughter of the Dragon King under the sea is introduced as a being of great wisdom despite only being 8 years old. The Buddha’s disciple Shariputra, representing the conservative faction of the Buddhist community scoffs at this:

At that time Shariputra said to the dragon girl, “You suppose that in this short time you have been able to attain the unsurpassed way. But this is difficult to believe. Why? Because a woman’s body is soiled and defiled, not a vessel for the Law [the Buddha-Dharma]. How could you attain the unsurpassed bodhi [awakening]? The road to Buddhahood is long and far-reaching. Only after one has spent immeasurable kalpas [eons] pursuing austerities, accumulating deeds, practicing all kinds of paramitas [self-perfections], can one finally achieve success. Moreover, a woman is subject to the five obstacles….”

Translation by Burton Watson: https://nichiren.info/buddhism/lotussutra/text/chap12.html

The Dragon King’s daughter rebuffs Shariputra’s criticism and wows them all:

At that time the members of the assembly all saw the dragon girl in the space of an instant change into a man and carry out all the practices of a bodhisattva, immediately proceeding to the Spotless World of the south, taking a seat on a jeweled lotus, and attaining impartial and correct enlightenment. With the thirty-two features and the eighty characteristics [signs of a Buddha], he expounded the wonderful Law for all living beings everywhere in the ten directions.

Translation by Burton Watson: https://nichiren.info/buddhism/lotussutra/text/chap12.html

The intended message here may seem a little strange to modern audiences. This was written for a patriarchal society in antiquity, but it’s clear the Lotus Sutra taught all beings, regardless of gender, age, or even human vs. non-human status, are equally capable of Buddhahood (full enlightenment) if given the chance. When they are not, society is stifled and suffers.

In the same way, when society maintains inequality for the sake of a few, or for the sake of tradition, it degrades society by robbing it of vitality and well-being for all.

Namo Amida Buddha

1 More on the Pure Land Buddhist path and its egalitarian approach.

A Trek Dad’s Review of Yesterday’s Son

As a big fan of the original Star Trek series (hereafter TOS), I recently picked up a trove of old Star Trek novels and have been reading them one by one.

I had heard about Yesterday’s Son from fellow TOS fans and started with this one first. The novel is based on the penultimate episode of TOS: All Our Yesterday’s, and continues the story further implying that during Spock’s brief tryst with Zarabeth resulted in a son, quarter Vulcan, quarter Human and half…Sarpeidon-ese?

Anyhow, the story involves Spock using time-travel to reunite with his son, bring him back to Spock’s time, and helping him integrate to life in the Federation. Further, Spock and his son develop a difficult, strained relationship over their differing backgrounds. Meanwhile, the Romulans are (as always) up to no good, and have their sites on the Guardian of Time from the season 1 episode City on the Edge of Forever. The end is a dramatic conflict with the Romulans, and a nice heroic moment for Spock’s son.

As a novel, it was a fun read with good pacing. I felt the novel deftly balanced key references to TOS without being a blatant fan-service, yet at the same time also provided innovations that didn’t go too far off the rails of Trek canon. In other words, it stayed faithful to Trek lore while also expanding it in a sensible way.

I really enjoyed this book, and would definitely recommend for classic Trek fans.