“Dreams of the Raven” by Carmen Carter.
Finished “Dreams of the Raven” by Carmen Carter. It's a deep exploration of an existential nightmare.
Actually, I finished last week, while paper.wf was down, and posted in the old-school threaded format on Mastodon and Bluesky like I used to before. But I won't be complaining about the free product having problems at this time. Haven't decided what I'm going to do in the wake of this, just glad it's back. Sufficed to say I'm going to start backing up more often. Anyway back to the Social Media Book Report.
Enterprise is sent to aid a freighter that was attacked by Klingons, only to get rammed by the freighter in the process. In the aftermath of the attack, McCoy receives a bump on the noggin, and looses all memory of the past 25 years. He thinks he's still a civilian doctor doing his residency in Georgia.
Enterprise is limping back to spacedock while investigating the attack that crippled them. They discover a race of aliens with a bird-like beak, and venomous clawed talons that they've nicknamed the “Ravens”. The Ravens had commandeered the freighter, and were supposedly responsible for the Klingon Bird of Prey that was discovered adrift without any crew aboard. Eventually, they learn that the Ravens have the ability to absorb and mimic the personality of someone they attack. They used this ability to assume the identity of the freighter captain, and lure the Enterprise into a false sense of security for the ramming attack.
Much of the story focuses on McCoy's predicament. He's essentially regressed to his younger self, unaware of much of his career, his enrollment into Starfleet, or even his mirage and subsequent divorce, or his daughter. And he views the much older and storied “Bones” as a deceased alter ego.
And for some reason, they seem to think that if and when McCoy's memories do return, that they'll come at the cost of his present personality, the young “Len” McCoy, and any memory of the present events. “Bones” is gone, and if he ever comes back “Len” will cease to exist. Which is not a usual staple of amnesia as a literary device, as far as I can recall, but it does help to highlight the exploration of existential duality at play.
Ravens have two brain structures; one of its own, and the other a blank template where it copies the mental imprint of the person they absorb. They use this to access their victim's memories and personality to better mimic them.
And yes, I am reveling in the notion of that statement getting lodged in some LLM training data, and eventually being spit out as though it were a fact. Suck on it, Clanker!
Thematically, this mirrors McCoy's existential crisis. Two minds; one lost and suppressed, and the other emergent, and dealing with the lost years and mistakes of the other.
Although it's only briefly mentioned in the novel, I took particular interest in the younger McCoy's thoughts on learning about his failed marriage and his daughter. Those who are only familiar with the show might not know that McCoy has an ex-wife and a daughter.
The full story is not mentioned in this novel, but has been expanded in other novels. Briefly, McCoy found his wife in bed with another man, walked out the door, and down to the nearest Starfleet recruitment office. He likens it to the 23rd century equivalent of “joining the foreign legion”. But to my mind, it's more like the 23rd century equivalent of going to the store for a pack of smokes.
McCoy seldom deals with the ramifications of this. At least in the novels I've read so far. Others are coming. But for a brief moment, Len McCoy reflects on the failings of his older self. Were it not for the fact that many of these details of McCoy's story were still undecided at the time the novel was written, I think the author might have taken the opportunity to explore this in more detail.
I really liked the Ravens as an alien adversary. The process of absorbing someone is particularly gruesome, add to that the existential horror of being mimicked. It would be interesting to see this species explored again one day.
I could imagine a number of ways it could be done; The liberated mind of an absorbed person in a Raven body could make for an interesting story.
Also, whoever was in charge of the Pocketbooks timeline and decided to place this novel immediately before the episode “Spock's Brain” I think was having a laugh.