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A review by llamarama
McCoy: The Provenance Of Shadows by David R. George III
4.0
So first off, the best part of this book was when McCoy broke the hand of a racist guy with a tire iron.
Overall I really did like this book, but the ending was much better than the beginning and middle. The structure of the book is alternating chapters between the past timeline occurring after McCoy went through the Guardian of Forever and the “normal” timeline. Unfortunately, I felt like this book was much longer than it needed to be and dragged in the middle precisely because of this structure and the amount of time that was dedicated to the timeline that we all know. A number of scenes were just recapping scenes from the episodes and movies with very little new information or analysis from McCoy’s perspective. I doubt most people are going to be picking up this book without having seen at least most of TOS and the movies. I personally really didn’t need a recap of what happens. There were some characters/events that we didn't get to see fleshed out in TOS that I appreciated the author delving into here to varying degrees (Barrows being a prime example of this) but ultimately there much too much telling the reader what they already know. I would have been in favor of ditching the alternating structure in the middle and just focusing on McCoy’s time in the past because I enjoyed that much more. (As a writer, I know the feeling when you lock yourself into a back-and-forth structure and then realize that one part has more to write about than the other and I feel like that's what happened here). The point of how the events in the past affected the present timeline wasn’t really emphasized throughout the book as I was expecting it to be and didn’t fully come together until the very end. As another review noted, I really thought the M’Benga numbers were going to be something important but then they kind of just…weren’t.
The last 150 or so pages really flew by for me and was the only point in the book where I felt like I couldn’t put it down. I feel like the author did a good job in making me care about Lynn and the past timeline and I did enjoy when everything finally came together and the past timeline tied in with the other timeline. Despite some flaws, it still was an enjoyable read for me.
Overall I really did like this book, but the ending was much better than the beginning and middle. The structure of the book is alternating chapters between the past timeline occurring after McCoy went through the Guardian of Forever and the “normal” timeline. Unfortunately, I felt like this book was much longer than it needed to be and dragged in the middle precisely because of this structure and the amount of time that was dedicated to the timeline that we all know. A number of scenes were just recapping scenes from the episodes and movies with very little new information or analysis from McCoy’s perspective. I doubt most people are going to be picking up this book without having seen at least most of TOS and the movies. I personally really didn’t need a recap of what happens. There were some characters/events that we didn't get to see fleshed out in TOS that I appreciated the author delving into here to varying degrees (Barrows being a prime example of this) but ultimately there much too much telling the reader what they already know. I would have been in favor of ditching the alternating structure in the middle and just focusing on McCoy’s time in the past because I enjoyed that much more. (As a writer, I know the feeling when you lock yourself into a back-and-forth structure and then realize that one part has more to write about than the other and I feel like that's what happened here). The point of how the events in the past affected the present timeline wasn’t really emphasized throughout the book as I was expecting it to be and didn’t fully come together until the very end. As another review noted, I really thought the M’Benga numbers were going to be something important but then they kind of just…weren’t.
The last 150 or so pages really flew by for me and was the only point in the book where I felt like I couldn’t put it down. I feel like the author did a good job in making me care about Lynn and the past timeline and I did enjoy when everything finally came together and the past timeline tied in with the other timeline. Despite some flaws, it still was an enjoyable read for me.