Shattered, Part 2

If you want to understand this review better read the first one first. If you have done so then feel free to continue. This lime I’m looking at the second book Excalibur: Renaissance. This book doesn’t happen after the first, it basically happens in parallel. The basic story lines in this one are Burgoyne and Selar having disagreements about how and where their child should be raised that creates quite an incident on Vulcan and Morgan and Robin go to Risa on vacation only to run into an old friend and more excitement than they ever wanted. And oddly several of The Original Series’ (TOS) characters make an appearance, to the glee of fan freaks. Little touches like that that tie into the television series are nice.

And speaking of tie-ins there is a good one in here that some people would miss. At the front of the book is a letter from Morgan Primus, Robin Lefler’s mother, to ‘Xana from “Aunt” Morgan. From the hinting you get the idea David means the reader to make the connection to Lwaxana Troi, Deanna Troi’s mother. In the book Robin and Morgan run into Scotty at Risa, and Scotty and Morgan react in shock to seeing each other. Scotty calls Morgan Christine. This and hints of Scotty talking about Christine leads one to link to Christine Chapel off TOS. What you have to realize at this point is that Morgan is supposedly nearly immortal. She never gets sick, all physical harm visited on her heals in minutes, and she has apparently been around for centuries. So she could indeed be Christine. Now what’s even funnier is that I have read a book that occurs later in the series, and Morgan, through some event, gets her consciousness trapped in the computer. She literally becomes the voice of the computer. If you haven’t made the connection yet, all of these characters and voices were or are portrayed by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the widow of Gene Roddenberry. That, is nice.