Help
Steven Erikson's Willful Child is an hilarious, over-the-top, ridiculous spoof. It is right up there with Mel Brooks' Spaceballs and reminded me a bit of Get Smart! only with Star Trek the original series as the target of the parody. Erikson clearly knows and loves Star Trek and his reverent irreverence cackles loudly through on almost every page of this loving lampoon.
There are few books that make me laugh out loud while I am reading, and this is one. Make no mistake, this is a far cry from the serious fantasy that Erikson is better known for, and that change of style, tone and genre may throw a lot of readers.
I think it is probably a mistake to compare this to John Scalzi's Redshirts. While they both took Trek as the original inspiration for their stories, in terms of tone,style, focus and even type of story, they are wildly different novels. While Scalzi's novel certainly had moments of humour, it was more a meta-commentary on Trek and much of the humour was secondary to the story. Willful Child attempts to fire humour with both barrels on full auto from almost the opening chapter.I think the film 'Spaceballs' is a much more accurate comparison in terms of what Willful Child is and does.
In addition to the Trek parodies, which are plentiful, Erikson also takes aim at some other SF TV clichés like the fake viewscreen that doubles as a window, the exaggerated sound of special effects in space, and the use of beam/energy weapons.
There is a blend of farcical exaggeration and a believable SF future world as Capt. Hadrian (a man who takes hero worship of Kirk to new levels) blasts off on a series of adventures with his brand new ship and crew.
There is a cast of dysfunctional space misfits crewing the vessel under Hadrian's erratic command,and they encounter several alien races with varying degrees of success.
The novel itself is structured in a fairly episodic manner mimicking the tv show, and the point of view almost entirely rests on Hadrian's shoulders. Much like his hero, Kirk,Hadrian leaps into danger with a double fisted punch and a leaping kick. He leads from the front and hopes to hell that his crew is following him.
This might not be for everyone. Everyone has their own personal taste when it comes to comedy,but I for one thought this was brilliant.
On a more serious note, beneath a lot of the humour there are some very clever observations about contemporary society, criticisms of sf tropes and stories, and more than one comment on society's priorities.
But at the end of the day, much of this cleverness plays second fiddle to the comedy. If you want to read a fun, silly, entertaining parody of Star Trek, this is the book for you. If you want an exciting space adventure with doses of humour, read this.If you want a politically aware, socially conscious investigation of current society dressed up in SF clothing, there are a great many other books that would suit you better.
I would heartily recommend this to any fan of the original Star Trek, and to anyone who wanted an SF story full of silliness and laughter.
This post has been edited by Ribald: 13 October 2014 - 09:38 PM
