The Wounded Sky is a 1983

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

novel (

Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing in ...

#13) by

Diane Duane Diane Duane (born May 18, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author, long based in Ireland. Her works include the ''Young Wizards'' young adult fantasy series and the '' Rihannsu'' Star Trek novels. Biography Born in New York ...

, featuring

James T. Kirk James Tiberius Kirk is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Originally played by Canadian actor William Shatner, Kirk first appeared in ''Star Trek'' serving aboard the starship USS ''Enterprise'' as captain. Kirk leads ...

as captain of the ''USS Enterprise''. The author would four years later adapt the novel's plot for the teleplay of the first season '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' episode "

Where No One Has Gone Before "Where No One Has Gone Before" is the sixth episode of the American science-fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', which originally aired October 26, 1987, in broadcast syndication in the United States. A high-definition, r ...

Plot

The ''Enterprise'', equipped with a radical new "inversion drive" which allows the ship to bend

spacetime In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why differen ...

and transit immense distances instantly, is sent on a mission to the

Magellanic Clouds The Magellanic Clouds (''Magellanic system'' or ''Nubeculae Magellani'') are two irregular dwarf galaxies in the southern celestial hemisphere. Orbiting the Milky Way galaxy, these satellite galaxies are members of the Local Group. Because both ...

just outside the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

, in order to place navigation beacons for future extra-galactic voyages using the new technology. The inversion drive is a product of the "creative

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

" practiced by the natives of the

Hamal Hamal , designation Alpha Arietis (α Arietis, abbreviated Alpha Ari, α Ari), is the brightest star in the northern zodiacal constellation of Aries. With an apparent visual magnitude of 2.0, it is the mean 50th-brightest star in the n ...

star system, a race of crystalline

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

-like beings. The chief designer of the drive is aboard, advising Captain Kirk, as the ''Enterprise'' makes its first "jump", after outmaneuvering a

Klingon The Klingons ( ; Klingon: ''tlhIngan'' ) are a fictional species in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''. Developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon in 1967 for the original ''Star Trek'' (''TOS'') series, Klingons were swarthy humanoids c ...

squadron which was sent to capture the new technology. Unknown to anyone on the starship, however, the use of the drive destabilizes spacetime itself on a fundamental level, creating a rift or tear through which another, external universe penetrates and begins to mix with the ''Enterprise''s own, with rapidly spreading, potentially fatal consequences for all life everywhere. The denouement of the novel follows as Captain Kirk and the ''Enterprise'' crew, experiencing bizarre, dream-like experiences of other times and worlds during the use of the drive, realize that something is dreadfully amiss. Arriving near the rift and observing the destruction it inflicts on nearby star systems, they discover that the price for traveling distances that would take centuries to cover with

warp drive A warp drive or a drive enabling space warp is a fictional superluminal spacecraft propulsion system in many science fiction works, most notably ''Star Trek'', and a subject of ongoing physics research. The general concept of "warp drive" was i ...

may be the loss of their own universe. Deliberately using the drive one, final time, they cross the "boundary" between external "reality" and their own collective inner consciousness, where they must together draw on mental, emotional and spiritual strengths to heal the wound that they have caused. The novel deals intensively with the question of whether reality is an objective thing in and of itself, or a product of conscious perception by humans and other intelligences. Like Duane's other Star Trek novels, it incorporates both real physics and speculative extensions thereof to support the plot. Like most of Diane Duane's TOS-era novels, this one includes several scenes in the ship's recreation room, one of which quotes a Star Trek

filk Filk music is a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction, fantasy, and horror fandom and a type of fan labor. The genre has existed since the early 1950s and been played primarily since the mid-1970s. Etymology and defin ...

song based on

John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...

's " Calypso".

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wounded Sky, The Novels based on Star Trek: The Original Series 1983 American novels American science fiction novels Fiction set in the Magellanic Clouds Novels by Diane Duane Pocket Books books