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Star Trek: The Next Generation
Dark Mirror
Set in the universe of Star The Next Generation, a doorway is opened from another universe and the crew of the U.S.S Enterprise must battle their toughest enemy yet—themselves.One hundred years ago, four crewmembers of the U.S.S EnterpriseTM crossed the dimensional barrier and found a mirror image of their own universe, populated by nightmare duplicates of their shipmates. Barely able to escape with their lives, they returned, thankful that the accident which had brought them there could not be duplicated, or so they thought. But now the scientists of that empire have found a doorway into our universe. Their plan is to destroy from within, to replace a Federation Starships with one of their own. Their victims are the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, who now find themselves engaged in combat against the most savage enemies they have ever encountered, themselves.
345 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 15, 1993
84 people are currently reading
1216 people want to read
About the author
Diane Duane
167 books2,413 followersDiane Duane has been a writer of science fiction, fantasy, TV and film for more than forty years.
Besides the 1980's creation of the Young Wizards fantasy series for which she's best known, the "Middle Kingdoms" epic fantasy series, and numerous stand-alone fantasy or science fiction novels, her career has included extensive work in the Star Trek TM universe, and many scripts for live-action and animated TV series on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as work in comics and computer games. She has spent a fair amount of time on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has picked up various awards and award nominations here and there.
She lives in County Wicklow, in Ireland, with her husband of more than thirty years, the screenwriter and novelist Peter Morwood.
Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."
(From her official website)
Besides the 1980's creation of the Young Wizards fantasy series for which she's best known, the "Middle Kingdoms" epic fantasy series, and numerous stand-alone fantasy or science fiction novels, her career has included extensive work in the Star Trek TM universe, and many scripts for live-action and animated TV series on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as work in comics and computer games. She has spent a fair amount of time on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has picked up various awards and award nominations here and there.
She lives in County Wicklow, in Ireland, with her husband of more than thirty years, the screenwriter and novelist Peter Morwood.
Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."
(From her official website)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
January 12, 2022
An interesting look at the alternate universe versions of the crew of the Enterprise.
January 6, 2016
I love this book! Easily it's one of my personal top ten of the best Star Trek novels that I ever read. Sadly, when on the TV Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, they developed episodes using the angle of the Mirror Universe, the way that they developed how the Mirror Universe was like then, it left this novel in a non-canonical status. The canonical value of any novel is questionable, but luckily almost any novel of any Star Trek series can fit into the canon of each one. There are some talking about that the "Mirror Universe" used here, it's yet another parallel universe, very similar to the known Mirror Universe but definitely another. I like that thinking and even now takes more strength taking into account the "Abramsverse" that it's a canon parallel universe of Star Trek, so if there can be two "good" Trek universes, why not two "evil" Mirror universes?
After so many years of having read this novel, some element that still strikes me was the fear that the "Mirror Deanna Troi" inspired me. I love the regular Deanna Troi, it's a wonderful character, and when I read in this novel about this twisted version of Deanna, I felt quite uneasy since the "Mirror Deanna Troi" is indeed an intimidant character. Obviously, there are another "mirror" versions of the rest of the crew (no Data by the way, he didn't exist in that mirror parallel universe) and indeed they were evil, each one on its own way, but with the one that I really felt uneasy and with real fear was the "Mirror Deanna Troi". Also, this novel has a really great guest character developed by the author, that it's an alien from a Dolphin-like species, and he is pivotal in the story. The novel is a truly great direct sequel to the events on "Mirror, Mirror" from the Original Series, set in the time of The Next Generation. So, canon or not, I highly recommend this novel.
After so many years of having read this novel, some element that still strikes me was the fear that the "Mirror Deanna Troi" inspired me. I love the regular Deanna Troi, it's a wonderful character, and when I read in this novel about this twisted version of Deanna, I felt quite uneasy since the "Mirror Deanna Troi" is indeed an intimidant character. Obviously, there are another "mirror" versions of the rest of the crew (no Data by the way, he didn't exist in that mirror parallel universe) and indeed they were evil, each one on its own way, but with the one that I really felt uneasy and with real fear was the "Mirror Deanna Troi". Also, this novel has a really great guest character developed by the author, that it's an alien from a Dolphin-like species, and he is pivotal in the story. The novel is a truly great direct sequel to the events on "Mirror, Mirror" from the Original Series, set in the time of The Next Generation. So, canon or not, I highly recommend this novel.
March 31, 2024
This was pretty decent. I loved having John De Lancie. He does a pretty good job doing subtle impressions of the characters without losing his own absolutely charismatic voice. Except O'Brien. That one was not as good.
But the real issue was that even though the story clipped along, the whole premise -- sigh...
But the real issue was that even though the story clipped along, the whole premise -- sigh...
May 30, 2012
Captain Picard and the Next Generation crew find themselves stranded in the Mirror Universe. In this alternate world, the Federation does not exist. Earth is head of an evil Empire. The society is totally totalitarian--thought police, assasinations,cruelty, survival of the fittest in its worst form.
This had happened once before by accident--the episode "Mirror, Mirror" from the original Star Trek series. Now the Empire's scientists are trying to creat the transfers between universes--deliberately.
After a bit more physics about "hyperstrings" than I cared for, Diane Duane gets to the meat of the story. Geori LaForge, Counselor Troi and Captain Picard must infiltrate the duplicate enterprise. They need the data which the Empire use to bring them to the Mirror Universe--so they can reverse the effect and get home.
Atypical Star Trek adventure in some ways. But the author really does an excellent job of describing the pyschological difficulties "our" characters have on the alternate Enterprise.
Picard is chilled when he pulls up the record of his other self and finds a record of brutality and murder. He cannot imagine a system where instead of depending on your second in commad, you have to watch out that he does not murder you--that's how you advance in rank in the Empire! And in this universe, 'their' Couselor Troi is the chief security officer--using her mental powers to coerce and terrify the crew. Geordi and the real Troi have similar, disturbing experiences. These scenes are the better parts of the book. Once they escape with the data it is the usual ST chase and escape rountine.
Recommended mainly for Star Trek fans, of course. But non-fans, if they like science fiction, might also enjoy it.
This had happened once before by accident--the episode "Mirror, Mirror" from the original Star Trek series. Now the Empire's scientists are trying to creat the transfers between universes--deliberately.
After a bit more physics about "hyperstrings" than I cared for, Diane Duane gets to the meat of the story. Geori LaForge, Counselor Troi and Captain Picard must infiltrate the duplicate enterprise. They need the data which the Empire use to bring them to the Mirror Universe--so they can reverse the effect and get home.
Atypical Star Trek adventure in some ways. But the author really does an excellent job of describing the pyschological difficulties "our" characters have on the alternate Enterprise.
Picard is chilled when he pulls up the record of his other self and finds a record of brutality and murder. He cannot imagine a system where instead of depending on your second in commad, you have to watch out that he does not murder you--that's how you advance in rank in the Empire! And in this universe, 'their' Couselor Troi is the chief security officer--using her mental powers to coerce and terrify the crew. Geordi and the real Troi have similar, disturbing experiences. These scenes are the better parts of the book. Once they escape with the data it is the usual ST chase and escape rountine.
Recommended mainly for Star Trek fans, of course. But non-fans, if they like science fiction, might also enjoy it.
August 22, 2023
A surprisingly good entry in the Mirror Universe that admittedly had a bit too much technical mumbo jumbo that I did not care for and also did not impact the story in any way.
Unfortunately, this novel was made non-canon, thanks to some Mirror Universe episodes of Deep Space Nine.
The book was very reminiscent of a Quantum Leap episode, as Captain Picard goes undercover on the Mirror Universe's Picard's ship to try and find a way home, after his Enterprise was transported to this universe.
The writing was really well-done and it earns its spot as one of the best Trek novels out there.
Unfortunately, this novel was made non-canon, thanks to some Mirror Universe episodes of Deep Space Nine.
The book was very reminiscent of a Quantum Leap episode, as Captain Picard goes undercover on the Mirror Universe's Picard's ship to try and find a way home, after his Enterprise was transported to this universe.
The writing was really well-done and it earns its spot as one of the best Trek novels out there.
November 10, 2019
ST TNG gets the evil mirror universe treatment, with evil Picard and evil Troi taking the spotlight. Meh.
October 22, 2008
3.5 to 4.0 stars. I am a fan of Star trek the Next Generation and always liked the concept of the "Mirror Universe" since it first was depicted on the the original series. Here the STNG crew gets the "evil" treatment and it is a lot of fun. Not great literature, but a good read.
January 18, 2015
One of the rare instances that something I loved in my childhood holds up as well as I remember! Dark Mirror was a page-turner then, and it was just as compelling now. Diane Duane has a way of crafting a fascinating story that often has high stakes as well as great character moments, examining an important facet of the human condition along the way. Although the conclusion of the story relies heavily on technobabble (and stars... Duane often uses ship maneuvers involving stars in the climaxes of her novels! Why is that?), Dark Mirror is still a great read.
Both disturbing and entertaining, Dark Mirror will always have a reserved place on my bookshelf.
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2015/01/D...
Both disturbing and entertaining, Dark Mirror will always have a reserved place on my bookshelf.
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2015/01/D...
July 19, 2025
This was much better than I expected and honestly a great stand-in for the TNG Mirror Universe episode we never got. Focusing on Picard, Troi, and Geordi as a team was a nice change of pace and gave the story a fresh feel. The pacing was tight, and the tone fit the darker world really well.
That said, the ending leans way too hard into Star Trek technobabble. It pulls you out of the story, and the solution feels like it could’ve been anything. Still, a strong read overall and a must for TNG fans.
That said, the ending leans way too hard into Star Trek technobabble. It pulls you out of the story, and the solution feels like it could’ve been anything. Still, a strong read overall and a must for TNG fans.
July 2, 2021
TNG along with Voyager are the only two Star Trek incarnations that never had a Mirror Universe episode. Its one of the biggest missed opportunities of TNG, and something I've always longed to see. So I was absolutely thrilled to find Dark Mirror, and penned by one of the best Trek authors at that, Diane Duane.
It doesn't disappoint either. The Enterprise gets sucked into the Mirror Universe at the hands of the evil alternate crew - who having few worlds left to conquer have decided to venture into parallel universes. They plan to kill their real world counterparts, then return into our space, masquerading as as them, then subtly begin galactic domination this side of the mirror.... Geordi, Troi and Picard infiltrate the Mirror Enterprise and have to foil their plans.
This is an exceptionally focused novel with a very meaty story - If this was televised it would have almost certainly been a two parter. Unlike most Trek novels, there are no sub-plots or multiple strands/character focus - we sometimes jump over to Riker on the Enterprise proper but for the most part this is very linear as we follow the main action of our Away Team trying to survive their evil counterparts. I particularly loved the Sadistic evil Troi who is nasty indeed. And the fact that Picard wishes The Borg on this lot tells you just how evil they are.....
Episode wise the main reference point is TOS: Mirror Mirror, which it helps to have seen before reading this. It's also got some nice literary references from Xenophon to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice - Anyone who dismisses Trek fiction for being 'fluff' needs to read this one, its well written, intelligent, giving both fan service and an excellent story.
Characterisation is good but I also like the new alien Hwiii - basically a dolphin. Visually that's really nice, to have a non-humanoid alien scientist aboard, if gives this some added colour.
Needless to say I adored this one. It's one of the best Trek novels I've read in ages. TNG Mirror Universe was something we really needed to see, so there was a real point to this having been written, and I thought Diane Duane did an excellent job with it. Wesley trying to assassinate Picard, Troi torturing Geordi, Picard psychologically abusing Beverley... Its a brilliant rendition of What if....
It doesn't disappoint either. The Enterprise gets sucked into the Mirror Universe at the hands of the evil alternate crew - who having few worlds left to conquer have decided to venture into parallel universes. They plan to kill their real world counterparts, then return into our space, masquerading as as them, then subtly begin galactic domination this side of the mirror.... Geordi, Troi and Picard infiltrate the Mirror Enterprise and have to foil their plans.
This is an exceptionally focused novel with a very meaty story - If this was televised it would have almost certainly been a two parter. Unlike most Trek novels, there are no sub-plots or multiple strands/character focus - we sometimes jump over to Riker on the Enterprise proper but for the most part this is very linear as we follow the main action of our Away Team trying to survive their evil counterparts. I particularly loved the Sadistic evil Troi who is nasty indeed. And the fact that Picard wishes The Borg on this lot tells you just how evil they are.....
Episode wise the main reference point is TOS: Mirror Mirror, which it helps to have seen before reading this. It's also got some nice literary references from Xenophon to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice - Anyone who dismisses Trek fiction for being 'fluff' needs to read this one, its well written, intelligent, giving both fan service and an excellent story.
Characterisation is good but I also like the new alien Hwiii - basically a dolphin. Visually that's really nice, to have a non-humanoid alien scientist aboard, if gives this some added colour.
Needless to say I adored this one. It's one of the best Trek novels I've read in ages. TNG Mirror Universe was something we really needed to see, so there was a real point to this having been written, and I thought Diane Duane did an excellent job with it. Wesley trying to assassinate Picard, Troi torturing Geordi, Picard psychologically abusing Beverley... Its a brilliant rendition of What if....
March 31, 2025
At the edge of the galaxy, the Enterprise is pulled into the mirror universe by its predatory counterpart. This is my first time reading a spin-off novel for any franchise, which can't help but color my experience; seeing a franchise adapted to text is as interesting as the story itself. A novel allows for significantly more interiority and infodumping. Of the latter there's plenty, not delivered with exceptional grace but building a more thorough view of the mirror universe, particularly its history; it feels somewhat reductionist, but given context perhaps it has to be, and it does satisfy the itch for more information. The interiority is welcome, and is most robust in Picard but especially Troi, whose double is the best developed and most compelling; this is where the concept graduates from the broad fear of one's own worst tendencies and develops into a conflicted admiration/jealousy/fear of the selves one might have been--especially interesting in a character so association with emotions as is Troi. I wish this pushed further, but it's a strong attempt.
Novel length also allows for subplots, and they're well-intended (especially the non-humanoid alien) but rarely complement the larger narrative. The best minor addition is the downtime, the anxious waiting, the technical difficulties which would kill the pacing of an episode but here make the setting feel enjoyably realistic. It helps that I didn't have high expectations and that the sheer novelty is a selling point, because the quality here is just so-so--but the experience is engaging and gratifying; I'm surprised by how much I liked this.
Novel length also allows for subplots, and they're well-intended (especially the non-humanoid alien) but rarely complement the larger narrative. The best minor addition is the downtime, the anxious waiting, the technical difficulties which would kill the pacing of an episode but here make the setting feel enjoyably realistic. It helps that I didn't have high expectations and that the sheer novelty is a selling point, because the quality here is just so-so--but the experience is engaging and gratifying; I'm surprised by how much I liked this.
March 27, 2016
While I found the start of this book enjoyable, I found the meat of the it a little too mired in pseudo-technical jargon that made little to no sense, as well as the nagging feeling that the story directly conflicts with the mirror universe episodes from DS9. The climax did not endear itself to me, since it took the earlier issues and squared them, but I did enjoy the resolution.
August 2, 2018
Another brilliant book by Diane Duane she knows the characters very well absolutely spot on even the mirror universe counterparts as well it was good to see the evil Troi and geordi and Picard great at the end when our enterprise d is being chased by the mirror universe enterprise d very enjoyable couldn't believe this book is 25 years old and it's still a great read
July 23, 2022
An old favourite!
November 9, 2025
For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I haven't felt like reading basically anything at all in a long time, and definitely not novel-length fiction. But lately I have started to feel like my brain can hack it, and then I spent a while thinking I just wanted to read something I already loved, and then I stared guiltily at my TBR pile, and then I thought, fuck it, I'm just gonna read Dark Mirror again. Probably haven't read this in, like, fifteen years. So here I am.
Diane Duane is, no contest, hands-down, my favorite author in the world (and I'm still not over the fact that apparently she follows me back on Tumblr). She's the kind of midlist SF/F author who is primarily known for her Star Trek tie-in novels, which was how I discovered her work. Her other work is great too, of course. But her Star Trek novels are fucking amazing.
If you aren't familiar with licensed SF media tie-in novels, you may be imagining that picking the best ones is a matter of ranking which ones have the best PEW PEW SPACE LASERS. I must therefore inform you that the scene that makes this book, for me, absolutely iconic, is Captain Picard sitting in his evil mirror-universe counterpart's quarters, going through his book collection, and discovering that all the literature in this universe is also evil. He realizes this while looking for something to read that will comfort him, and he settles upon the "quality of mercy" speech from The Merchant of Venice, which ought to be nice. Welp. Turns out that in the mirror universe, Portia makes a lovely persuasive speech about how Shylock deserves justice and we should just immediately kill Antonio. Which is what happens. Diane Duane gives us the entire speech. It goes on for a few pages. Yep. Shakespeare pastiche in full-on iambic pentameter. To illustrate the amorality and general evil of an alternate universe in which everyone is only looking out for their own interests and the furtherance of their own ambitions. Yes, a media tie-in novel can go this hard.
Anyway. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Dark Mirror is a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel. It was originally released in 1993 -- yes, while TNG was still airing. Pocket Books was releasing the Trek novels at the time, and they had a line of shorter, numbered novels, and then longer, unnumbered novels that were sometimes blurbed as "giant" novels, most (all?) of which were released in hardcover. This was one of the hardcover ones.
The actual plot, if you haven't guessed from the title and the brief description in the previous paragraph, is that this was basically TNG getting to experience the alternate universe first seen in the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror," in which everyone is evil. Other, later Trek shows have had canonical run-ins with the Mirrorverse -- I think DS9's happened before this novel was published, but presumably after it was written -- but TNG never did. So this is the TNG version, not taking into consideration any later events (or earlier DS9 events) that may have happened, the same way that Duane's TOS Romulan novels are about a version of the Romulans who never ended up existing by the time TNG aired, except she kept on writing them anyway.
In the original "Mirror, Mirror," a transporter accident leads to some of the Enterprise crew swapping places with their Mirrorverse counterparts. The Mirrorverse versions in the original universe get found out pretty quickly; the originals in the Mirrorverse can hide a little better. Yes, this is the one where Evil Spock has a goatee. Here in Dark Mirror, the Mirrorverse has had some time to reflect on this, and decided it would be great if they sucked the good Enterprise into their universe, killed all the crew, took everyone's place, went back, and went to conquer a whole new universe. The Enterprise crew are not fans of this plan.
I read this book in 1993 when it came out in hardcover, which I know because I was already a big fan of Diane Duane's Star Trek novels and so I was extremely excited when my dad bought it for me at the Waldenbooks at the mall. I hope anyone else reading that sentence feels old too. I have an extremely vivid memory of reading it in bed, staying up late, finishing it, and then immediately going back to the beginning and reading it again, the same night. (I read very fast. I used to read even faster.)
So, yeah, I was, like, 12 when I read this, and I feel like, reading this as an adult, I probably should... not have been 12? I'm not saying this because it is excessively Inappropriate For Children, although there is some torture and also some mention of the fact that characters occasionally are or would like to be sleeping with each other; none of the Trek novels, that I am aware of, ever get any more explicit than that. The reason I think I should not have been 12 is that a major theme of the novel is how art -- painting, literature, and music -- reflects what we value as humans, and appreciation of art can bring us together as people and help us learn what it means to be human and celebrate the kindness which we are capable of showing to others. And when you're like 12 and you haven't read a lot of Important books, this maybe doesn't strike you as meaningful in the same way, especially because a lot of this theme is illustrated by giving particular examples. I know I didn't even read The Merchant of Venice until sophomore year of high school. And I still don't know enough about opera to appreciate the opera bits!
(I thought that the literature theme worked very well; it makes sense that the literature of the Mirrorverse would have been different, and I appreciate that the book was willing to devote a lot of time to showing this, and I think it's also fun that it's a trick that basically only would have worked effectively because this was a book. I don't think an episode where we watch someone perform Evil Shakespeare would have worked as well, and also a lot of this exposition worked very well with capsule literature summaries, painting the picture of a universe full of people who would basically fuck over anyone in order to survive, and now that they'd built an empire based on expansion and run out of room to expand, they weren't going to be able to keep surviving the way they were and they were terrified of it. The book goes to some effort to show how they could have felt this way, bringing in a disquieting element of empathy, rather than just making them cartoonishly evil. I mention this because I am honestly surprised that Diane Duane refrained from bringing us Plutarch -- you know, "Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.")
And then, alas, I get to the bits where now I feel like I know at least some of the source texts better than Diane Duane did while writing this. One of the many literary excursus this book goes on is describing Picard's feelings while reading Xenophon's Anabasis. Now, my Greek is not actually good enough that I have read the Anabasis but I know vaguely what it's about because it's one of the standard beginner texts. There is a very famous bit where they finally see the sea again and run toward it yelling, "Sea! Sea!" which this book quotes as Thalassa! Thalassa! which is all very nice except this time through this book I stared at it and I was like "I don't think that's right."
I know no one else cares about this point, but Xenophon wrote in Attic Greek, and I know for a fact that there is a sound change in Attic that means that [ss] in other dialects ends up as [tt] in Attic. (I remember that this exists by reminding myself that the name of the dialect is not "Assic." I don't actually know if the sound change has any kind of conditioning environment that would prevent this from being the word, but also: lol.) So, while the word is "thalassa" in Modern Greek and in a lot of Ancient Greek dialects, this is not the case in the dialect Xenophon wrote in. And since the word for "sea" does in fact end up in beginning Attic Greek textbooks, I can tell you that I am 100% sure in Attic it's θάλαττα and not θάλασσα. The Wikipedia entry about this quotation confirms that it is "Thalatta! Thalatta!" although it does seem to have been misquoted in literature for a while. Anyway! It's also misquoted here! So there was that minor disappointment lurking for me, although if that's the only place the Suck Fairy has visited this book, I guess I should be grateful.
Luckily, you can still understand the point about the importance of art if you, the reader, are a small nerdy child who has read a lot of SF novels, because Diane Duane's willing to be self-referential about it. Dolphin crew members are IIRC canonical on-screen now as of Lower Decks; I believe at the time this book was written, they were either prop-canon or mentioned in the Technical Manual, something like that. And therefore one of the major supporting characters of this book, who really steals the show a lot of the time, is a visiting physicist named Hwiii who is of course a dolphin. He's great. If you've read any of Diane Duane's Young Wizardry books, you know that non-human wizards feature heavily in the series, with a bunch of whales and dolphins in Deep Wizardry specifically, which IMO is the best book.
Anyway, there is a plot point in Dark Mirror here where Hwiii, in a moment of great stress, begins singing bits of the Song of the Twelve, and then later on explains to the Enterprise crew what the Song of the Twelve is (sort of a play, sort of an opera, sort of a religious ritual) and how there are parts in it that might occasionally be fatal for the performers, and why people choose to sing them anyway. This is, literally, the plot of Deep Wizardry, although he's obviously describing a reenactment that was not the one Nita took part in. Yep. Secret crossover! So, I mean, I don't know that Hwiii himself is a wizard, but given that we know that the cetaceans of Earth are astahfrith, odds seem pretty good that Hwiii at least knows a few wizards.
So, yes, you can definitely get the point that Art Is Important if you've just read Deep Wizardry and have zero familiarity with classic literature. At the time I was originally reading this, it was very convenient for me.
One of the moral/ethical themes in all of Diane Duane's work generally that has really resonated with me is the importance of doing good in the universe. This isn't some kind of dualistic view about how good must defeat evil -- I mean, I know I described the mirror universe as evil, but I was being deliberately reductive, and I also don't know that I would describe, say, the Lone Power or the Shadow as evil -- at least, not in the sense that there are those who are good and those who are evil. But it's really more of the sense that people are capable of treating each other with both kindness and unkindness and that you should just strive to treat others well. And sometimes other people might be scary because they're different, but it's worth reaching out to people and trying to understand them and help them out and just generally try to help make the universe a better, kinder place, and take delight in all the different and wonderful ways that people can be people.
In this particular novel, this is exemplified due to the nature of the plot itself. While the original Mirror, Mirror plot featured the crew switching places as an accident and just needing to figure out how to get back, this one is done deliberately. The mirror Enterprise pulls the original Enterprise into their universe with, as I said, the intention of supplanting the crew entirely. So the good guys have to stop this, and basically what happens is that three Enterprise crew members (LaForge, Troi, Picard) end up infiltrating the mirror Enterprise and going undercover as their own alternate selves in order to find out as much as possible about the plan and about the science that brought them to this universe so they can figure out how to go back. So, basically, they have to be the worst versions of themselves, on a ship surrounded by the worst versions of their fellow crewmates, most of whom would happily kill them and take their jobs. So they might just get themselves murdered anyway, totally independently of the part where they will probably get murdered if they are found out as spies, or the part where they will all definitely get murdered if the mirror Enterprise's plan goes off as designed.
Like a lot of Trek novels, this one has multiple POV characters -- mostly our three undercover agents, of course, and then back on the Enterprise, mostly Riker, to keep us updated on how the good guys were doing and also his feelings about Troi. I feel like this book wanted to be about Picard, and the structure and general theme of the narrative is such that the POV character clearly wanted to be Picard (because who else in this crew is going to love literature as much?). Picard gets shoved into the plot in a pretty obvious way; he's clearly not the original choice for the mission, but Mirrorverse paranoia means that the data that they need to get home is all password-protected, and he's the only one who's going to be able to order anyone on that ship to give them the data. Except then a bunch of the plot was then dependent on him being really good at computer programming, which, what? Maybe that could have gone to one of the science characters.
This means it feels sort of like Geordi was mostly there to make the science scaffolding part of the plot work because there was really only so much Picard could believably know (and even then it was hard for me to believe), and Troi there to help facilitate espionage with her empathic skills. I mean, it was nice that they got to do stuff -- I like them both a lot -- and it was nice to see them work together; I don't think they're canonically a pair of people we see a lot of together (like, we usually get Riker & Troi and Data & Geordi) so it was an interesting exercise to watch them both make their way through the plot. But reading this book is like, "Come on, I can tell you really just wanted this to be a Picard book."
The other character-based letdown for me was an element of the ending. When Picard finds about the general greed and rapaciousness of the Mirrorverse, at first he hates them, then is appalled at himself, and then says, no, I should think of a way to help them be better than this. You know how "Mirror, Mirror" ends with Kirk telling Mirror Spock that he could maybe work on changing this? Picard basically tries the exact same shit with Mirror Worf. This is weird because (1) I already saw "Mirror, Mirror," and (2) Picard learns enough about the Mirrorverse's history to find out that Spock started trying to get some social change moving and then, you know, got killed. So that didn't work for him. And yet, the only thing that Picard can think of to do, really, is be nice to Mirror Worf, because at this point the Klingons are essentially an enslaved population -- they surrendered in the hope that if they were alive they could fight back, which did not end up working for them at all yet -- and I guess he thinks that telling Mirror Worf that in his universe the Klingons are doing great, actually, will give him something to fight for? It seems weird. I mean, optimistic, sure, that's very nice of him. But Worf has even less status in the Mirrorverse than Spock did and Spock still got himself killed, apparently, so I can't imagine any way that Worf is able to effect meaningful change. Because I feel like the Mirrorverse has a lot of practice at stopping revolts. But I am clearly more of a pessimist than Picard.
But, yeah, overall, still a good book! Diane Duane didn't do a lot of TNG tie-ins -- maybe just this and Intellivore, which I don't even remember reading -- so this is for sure my favorite TNG work of hers. (I mean, in addition to the actual canon TNG episode, that was good too. Not as good as this, though.) The Merchant of Venice scene is still great.
Diane Duane is, no contest, hands-down, my favorite author in the world (and I'm still not over the fact that apparently she follows me back on Tumblr). She's the kind of midlist SF/F author who is primarily known for her Star Trek tie-in novels, which was how I discovered her work. Her other work is great too, of course. But her Star Trek novels are fucking amazing.
If you aren't familiar with licensed SF media tie-in novels, you may be imagining that picking the best ones is a matter of ranking which ones have the best PEW PEW SPACE LASERS. I must therefore inform you that the scene that makes this book, for me, absolutely iconic, is Captain Picard sitting in his evil mirror-universe counterpart's quarters, going through his book collection, and discovering that all the literature in this universe is also evil. He realizes this while looking for something to read that will comfort him, and he settles upon the "quality of mercy" speech from The Merchant of Venice, which ought to be nice. Welp. Turns out that in the mirror universe, Portia makes a lovely persuasive speech about how Shylock deserves justice and we should just immediately kill Antonio. Which is what happens. Diane Duane gives us the entire speech. It goes on for a few pages. Yep. Shakespeare pastiche in full-on iambic pentameter. To illustrate the amorality and general evil of an alternate universe in which everyone is only looking out for their own interests and the furtherance of their own ambitions. Yes, a media tie-in novel can go this hard.
Anyway. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Dark Mirror is a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel. It was originally released in 1993 -- yes, while TNG was still airing. Pocket Books was releasing the Trek novels at the time, and they had a line of shorter, numbered novels, and then longer, unnumbered novels that were sometimes blurbed as "giant" novels, most (all?) of which were released in hardcover. This was one of the hardcover ones.
The actual plot, if you haven't guessed from the title and the brief description in the previous paragraph, is that this was basically TNG getting to experience the alternate universe first seen in the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror," in which everyone is evil. Other, later Trek shows have had canonical run-ins with the Mirrorverse -- I think DS9's happened before this novel was published, but presumably after it was written -- but TNG never did. So this is the TNG version, not taking into consideration any later events (or earlier DS9 events) that may have happened, the same way that Duane's TOS Romulan novels are about a version of the Romulans who never ended up existing by the time TNG aired, except she kept on writing them anyway.
In the original "Mirror, Mirror," a transporter accident leads to some of the Enterprise crew swapping places with their Mirrorverse counterparts. The Mirrorverse versions in the original universe get found out pretty quickly; the originals in the Mirrorverse can hide a little better. Yes, this is the one where Evil Spock has a goatee. Here in Dark Mirror, the Mirrorverse has had some time to reflect on this, and decided it would be great if they sucked the good Enterprise into their universe, killed all the crew, took everyone's place, went back, and went to conquer a whole new universe. The Enterprise crew are not fans of this plan.
I read this book in 1993 when it came out in hardcover, which I know because I was already a big fan of Diane Duane's Star Trek novels and so I was extremely excited when my dad bought it for me at the Waldenbooks at the mall. I hope anyone else reading that sentence feels old too. I have an extremely vivid memory of reading it in bed, staying up late, finishing it, and then immediately going back to the beginning and reading it again, the same night. (I read very fast. I used to read even faster.)
So, yeah, I was, like, 12 when I read this, and I feel like, reading this as an adult, I probably should... not have been 12? I'm not saying this because it is excessively Inappropriate For Children, although there is some torture and also some mention of the fact that characters occasionally are or would like to be sleeping with each other; none of the Trek novels, that I am aware of, ever get any more explicit than that. The reason I think I should not have been 12 is that a major theme of the novel is how art -- painting, literature, and music -- reflects what we value as humans, and appreciation of art can bring us together as people and help us learn what it means to be human and celebrate the kindness which we are capable of showing to others. And when you're like 12 and you haven't read a lot of Important books, this maybe doesn't strike you as meaningful in the same way, especially because a lot of this theme is illustrated by giving particular examples. I know I didn't even read The Merchant of Venice until sophomore year of high school. And I still don't know enough about opera to appreciate the opera bits!
(I thought that the literature theme worked very well; it makes sense that the literature of the Mirrorverse would have been different, and I appreciate that the book was willing to devote a lot of time to showing this, and I think it's also fun that it's a trick that basically only would have worked effectively because this was a book. I don't think an episode where we watch someone perform Evil Shakespeare would have worked as well, and also a lot of this exposition worked very well with capsule literature summaries, painting the picture of a universe full of people who would basically fuck over anyone in order to survive, and now that they'd built an empire based on expansion and run out of room to expand, they weren't going to be able to keep surviving the way they were and they were terrified of it. The book goes to some effort to show how they could have felt this way, bringing in a disquieting element of empathy, rather than just making them cartoonishly evil. I mention this because I am honestly surprised that Diane Duane refrained from bringing us Plutarch -- you know, "Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.")
And then, alas, I get to the bits where now I feel like I know at least some of the source texts better than Diane Duane did while writing this. One of the many literary excursus this book goes on is describing Picard's feelings while reading Xenophon's Anabasis. Now, my Greek is not actually good enough that I have read the Anabasis but I know vaguely what it's about because it's one of the standard beginner texts. There is a very famous bit where they finally see the sea again and run toward it yelling, "Sea! Sea!" which this book quotes as Thalassa! Thalassa! which is all very nice except this time through this book I stared at it and I was like "I don't think that's right."
I know no one else cares about this point, but Xenophon wrote in Attic Greek, and I know for a fact that there is a sound change in Attic that means that [ss] in other dialects ends up as [tt] in Attic. (I remember that this exists by reminding myself that the name of the dialect is not "Assic." I don't actually know if the sound change has any kind of conditioning environment that would prevent this from being the word, but also: lol.) So, while the word is "thalassa" in Modern Greek and in a lot of Ancient Greek dialects, this is not the case in the dialect Xenophon wrote in. And since the word for "sea" does in fact end up in beginning Attic Greek textbooks, I can tell you that I am 100% sure in Attic it's θάλαττα and not θάλασσα. The Wikipedia entry about this quotation confirms that it is "Thalatta! Thalatta!" although it does seem to have been misquoted in literature for a while. Anyway! It's also misquoted here! So there was that minor disappointment lurking for me, although if that's the only place the Suck Fairy has visited this book, I guess I should be grateful.
Luckily, you can still understand the point about the importance of art if you, the reader, are a small nerdy child who has read a lot of SF novels, because Diane Duane's willing to be self-referential about it. Dolphin crew members are IIRC canonical on-screen now as of Lower Decks; I believe at the time this book was written, they were either prop-canon or mentioned in the Technical Manual, something like that. And therefore one of the major supporting characters of this book, who really steals the show a lot of the time, is a visiting physicist named Hwiii who is of course a dolphin. He's great. If you've read any of Diane Duane's Young Wizardry books, you know that non-human wizards feature heavily in the series, with a bunch of whales and dolphins in Deep Wizardry specifically, which IMO is the best book.
Anyway, there is a plot point in Dark Mirror here where Hwiii, in a moment of great stress, begins singing bits of the Song of the Twelve, and then later on explains to the Enterprise crew what the Song of the Twelve is (sort of a play, sort of an opera, sort of a religious ritual) and how there are parts in it that might occasionally be fatal for the performers, and why people choose to sing them anyway. This is, literally, the plot of Deep Wizardry, although he's obviously describing a reenactment that was not the one Nita took part in. Yep. Secret crossover! So, I mean, I don't know that Hwiii himself is a wizard, but given that we know that the cetaceans of Earth are astahfrith, odds seem pretty good that Hwiii at least knows a few wizards.
So, yes, you can definitely get the point that Art Is Important if you've just read Deep Wizardry and have zero familiarity with classic literature. At the time I was originally reading this, it was very convenient for me.
One of the moral/ethical themes in all of Diane Duane's work generally that has really resonated with me is the importance of doing good in the universe. This isn't some kind of dualistic view about how good must defeat evil -- I mean, I know I described the mirror universe as evil, but I was being deliberately reductive, and I also don't know that I would describe, say, the Lone Power or the Shadow as evil -- at least, not in the sense that there are those who are good and those who are evil. But it's really more of the sense that people are capable of treating each other with both kindness and unkindness and that you should just strive to treat others well. And sometimes other people might be scary because they're different, but it's worth reaching out to people and trying to understand them and help them out and just generally try to help make the universe a better, kinder place, and take delight in all the different and wonderful ways that people can be people.
In this particular novel, this is exemplified due to the nature of the plot itself. While the original Mirror, Mirror plot featured the crew switching places as an accident and just needing to figure out how to get back, this one is done deliberately. The mirror Enterprise pulls the original Enterprise into their universe with, as I said, the intention of supplanting the crew entirely. So the good guys have to stop this, and basically what happens is that three Enterprise crew members (LaForge, Troi, Picard) end up infiltrating the mirror Enterprise and going undercover as their own alternate selves in order to find out as much as possible about the plan and about the science that brought them to this universe so they can figure out how to go back. So, basically, they have to be the worst versions of themselves, on a ship surrounded by the worst versions of their fellow crewmates, most of whom would happily kill them and take their jobs. So they might just get themselves murdered anyway, totally independently of the part where they will probably get murdered if they are found out as spies, or the part where they will all definitely get murdered if the mirror Enterprise's plan goes off as designed.
Like a lot of Trek novels, this one has multiple POV characters -- mostly our three undercover agents, of course, and then back on the Enterprise, mostly Riker, to keep us updated on how the good guys were doing and also his feelings about Troi. I feel like this book wanted to be about Picard, and the structure and general theme of the narrative is such that the POV character clearly wanted to be Picard (because who else in this crew is going to love literature as much?). Picard gets shoved into the plot in a pretty obvious way; he's clearly not the original choice for the mission, but Mirrorverse paranoia means that the data that they need to get home is all password-protected, and he's the only one who's going to be able to order anyone on that ship to give them the data. Except then a bunch of the plot was then dependent on him being really good at computer programming, which, what? Maybe that could have gone to one of the science characters.
This means it feels sort of like Geordi was mostly there to make the science scaffolding part of the plot work because there was really only so much Picard could believably know (and even then it was hard for me to believe), and Troi there to help facilitate espionage with her empathic skills. I mean, it was nice that they got to do stuff -- I like them both a lot -- and it was nice to see them work together; I don't think they're canonically a pair of people we see a lot of together (like, we usually get Riker & Troi and Data & Geordi) so it was an interesting exercise to watch them both make their way through the plot. But reading this book is like, "Come on, I can tell you really just wanted this to be a Picard book."
The other character-based letdown for me was an element of the ending. When Picard finds about the general greed and rapaciousness of the Mirrorverse, at first he hates them, then is appalled at himself, and then says, no, I should think of a way to help them be better than this. You know how "Mirror, Mirror" ends with Kirk telling Mirror Spock that he could maybe work on changing this? Picard basically tries the exact same shit with Mirror Worf. This is weird because (1) I already saw "Mirror, Mirror," and (2) Picard learns enough about the Mirrorverse's history to find out that Spock started trying to get some social change moving and then, you know, got killed. So that didn't work for him. And yet, the only thing that Picard can think of to do, really, is be nice to Mirror Worf, because at this point the Klingons are essentially an enslaved population -- they surrendered in the hope that if they were alive they could fight back, which did not end up working for them at all yet -- and I guess he thinks that telling Mirror Worf that in his universe the Klingons are doing great, actually, will give him something to fight for? It seems weird. I mean, optimistic, sure, that's very nice of him. But Worf has even less status in the Mirrorverse than Spock did and Spock still got himself killed, apparently, so I can't imagine any way that Worf is able to effect meaningful change. Because I feel like the Mirrorverse has a lot of practice at stopping revolts. But I am clearly more of a pessimist than Picard.
But, yeah, overall, still a good book! Diane Duane didn't do a lot of TNG tie-ins -- maybe just this and Intellivore, which I don't even remember reading -- so this is for sure my favorite TNG work of hers. (I mean, in addition to the actual canon TNG episode, that was good too. Not as good as this, though.) The Merchant of Venice scene is still great.
August 29, 2022
Great book! I love the technical jargon, and also loved the character Hwii...
February 10, 2013
Diane Duane's 1993
Dark Mirror
is one of the select Trek novels to have its own Wikipedia article. That speaks to the high quality of this novel, the first to take a look at (a) Mirror Universe in the 24th century.
Dark Mirror is set largely in the mirror universe of the original series, where the benevolent Federation was a genocidal Earth-dominated empire and the personalities of the crew were twisted to match. Deep Space Nine took the mirror universe in a rather different direction from Dark Mirror, what with Earth by the 24th century being a conquered holding of the joint Cardassian-Klingon hegemony and all. In Dark Mirror, the empire is quite intact, thank you very much, having spared the Klingons to serve as warrior slaves (but as we learn in passing, having obliterated the Romulans and countless other unmentioned species). All of the crew of the Enterprise-D save Data (Soong died in a purge) have their counterparts on the I.S.S. Enterprise, and yes, they are very twisted, as our Picard discovers to his horror when he reads this ship's record (the destruction of an alien lifeform menacing Farpoint Station, the prejudicial terraformation of the Ferengi homeworld, the sterilization of Ligon II's secondary continent in response to an attempted hostaged-taking, et cetera). Oh, and the Empire is looking to our universe as ground for conquest, and has abducted the Enterprise-D.
Dark Mirror depends on a single twist for much of its effectiveness: What would the characters we know from ST:TNG be like if they were evil? It's proof of her genius that Duane makes the evil be the product of some of their good versions' personal aspirations. Does Deanna Troi wish she had stronger telepathic powers? She does here; what she does with them, now ... Do fans wish that Crusher and Picard had a relationship? They do here; what happened to Jack, though ... Are Deanna and Riker together? Yes, and they're horrible together and to each other. Is Geordi a powerful figure commanding respect? Yes, and he's a monster. Probably the most compelling of Duane's alternate-universe characters is the amiable monster Picard, the Worf who quietly maintains as much dignity as he can in trying circumstances, and the Security Officer Deanna Troi whose inquisitive steely viciousness prefigures Deanna's televised appearance as an undercover Tal Shi'ar officer. (I read somewhere that Duane received multiple requests from fans asking for pictures of her mirror universe version of Deanna.) Duane's original character on our side, the dolphinoid scientist Hwiii, did work for me, although friends have told me otherwise.
The broader plot, depicting the skill and bravery of the Enterprise-D's crewmembers as they infiltrate their Imperial counterpart and foil their dastardly plans, is equally entertaining. Somewhat surprisingly, I actually enjoyed the technobabble: the depiction of the multiverse as a sheaf of universes moving at varying speeds in relation to each other, some easier to reach than others, sounds plausible, while mining the idea of cosmic strings likewise worked for me.
Dark Mirror doesn't fit in with televised canon on the Mirror Universe--the Terran Empire that was crushed by the Klingon-Cardassian alliance thrived here--while the physics of interuniversal transfer and the consequences likewise differ. More subtly, knowledge of the Mirror Universe is much more widely known in the televised canon than in Dark Mirror, where knowledge of the Mirror Universe has been strictly classified for a combination of strategic and ethical reasons. That still doesn't mean Dark Mirror mightn't be wedged in. There's a very large number of universes out there, after all, including multiple iterations of the Mirror Universe, while the specific mechanics of interuniversal transfer chosen by this universe could well be much more traumatic. Even if it isn't, Dark Mirror still stands as a very good novel written by a talented novelist at the height of her powers.
Dark Mirror is set largely in the mirror universe of the original series, where the benevolent Federation was a genocidal Earth-dominated empire and the personalities of the crew were twisted to match. Deep Space Nine took the mirror universe in a rather different direction from Dark Mirror, what with Earth by the 24th century being a conquered holding of the joint Cardassian-Klingon hegemony and all. In Dark Mirror, the empire is quite intact, thank you very much, having spared the Klingons to serve as warrior slaves (but as we learn in passing, having obliterated the Romulans and countless other unmentioned species). All of the crew of the Enterprise-D save Data (Soong died in a purge) have their counterparts on the I.S.S. Enterprise, and yes, they are very twisted, as our Picard discovers to his horror when he reads this ship's record (the destruction of an alien lifeform menacing Farpoint Station, the prejudicial terraformation of the Ferengi homeworld, the sterilization of Ligon II's secondary continent in response to an attempted hostaged-taking, et cetera). Oh, and the Empire is looking to our universe as ground for conquest, and has abducted the Enterprise-D.
Dark Mirror depends on a single twist for much of its effectiveness: What would the characters we know from ST:TNG be like if they were evil? It's proof of her genius that Duane makes the evil be the product of some of their good versions' personal aspirations. Does Deanna Troi wish she had stronger telepathic powers? She does here; what she does with them, now ... Do fans wish that Crusher and Picard had a relationship? They do here; what happened to Jack, though ... Are Deanna and Riker together? Yes, and they're horrible together and to each other. Is Geordi a powerful figure commanding respect? Yes, and he's a monster. Probably the most compelling of Duane's alternate-universe characters is the amiable monster Picard, the Worf who quietly maintains as much dignity as he can in trying circumstances, and the Security Officer Deanna Troi whose inquisitive steely viciousness prefigures Deanna's televised appearance as an undercover Tal Shi'ar officer. (I read somewhere that Duane received multiple requests from fans asking for pictures of her mirror universe version of Deanna.) Duane's original character on our side, the dolphinoid scientist Hwiii, did work for me, although friends have told me otherwise.
The broader plot, depicting the skill and bravery of the Enterprise-D's crewmembers as they infiltrate their Imperial counterpart and foil their dastardly plans, is equally entertaining. Somewhat surprisingly, I actually enjoyed the technobabble: the depiction of the multiverse as a sheaf of universes moving at varying speeds in relation to each other, some easier to reach than others, sounds plausible, while mining the idea of cosmic strings likewise worked for me.
Dark Mirror doesn't fit in with televised canon on the Mirror Universe--the Terran Empire that was crushed by the Klingon-Cardassian alliance thrived here--while the physics of interuniversal transfer and the consequences likewise differ. More subtly, knowledge of the Mirror Universe is much more widely known in the televised canon than in Dark Mirror, where knowledge of the Mirror Universe has been strictly classified for a combination of strategic and ethical reasons. That still doesn't mean Dark Mirror mightn't be wedged in. There's a very large number of universes out there, after all, including multiple iterations of the Mirror Universe, while the specific mechanics of interuniversal transfer chosen by this universe could well be much more traumatic. Even if it isn't, Dark Mirror still stands as a very good novel written by a talented novelist at the height of her powers.
July 4, 2016
What is one thing that every Star Trek fan that has watched every series would want to see (besides Worf winning a one-one-one battle)? A Mirror Universe Enterprise D! Explored for all of one episode in the Original Series and fleshed out especially well in a couple of Deep Space Nine episodes, the Mirror Universe shows us the alternate lives of our beloved characters in a more barbaric galaxy. In The Next Generation, we got to see several alternate Enterprises, including a desperately outnumbered wartime version in "Yesterday's Enterprise." But how would a scientific vessel on a mission of peace--one carrying officers' families, no less--translate into the flagship of the evil Terran Empire?
There were one or two predictions this book made that felt right. One was that the (overly sexual) alternate Deanna Troi was practically the ruling force on the ship, given the creative license that the author took with the idea that her abilities reached beyond those of our Troi: alternate Deanna could not only extract specific information from her victims' minds, but she could cause severe mental pain doing so. If she wasn't going to be captain (which, with that kind of power, how could she not be?), being the chief security officer was a logical place for her.
The other prediction was Wesley Crusher attempting to exact his revenge on Captain Picard for his father's murder (which, in this parallel, it was cold-blooded murder). Even with that, though, I found it hard to believe that Captain Picard (however ruthless, which he totally was) was still captain with Deanna Powerhouse Troi and the younger Will Riker around. With the back-stabbing that goes on in the Terran Empire, I figured Will could easily have taken Jean-Luc in a fistfight.
Although the book monopolized on an exciting and previously unexplored aspect of TNG, its hammy writing and two-dimensional characterization were too reminiscent of the first 2 seasons for me. Transporters were always dramatic, LaForge's dialogue was composed almost completely of one-line zingers (compounded by alternate LaForge's sex jokes), and we have what is essentially a French ambassador if he were a dolphin in the beginning of the story. Easily the best part for me was the fact that John De Lancie narrated it.
There were one or two predictions this book made that felt right. One was that the (overly sexual) alternate Deanna Troi was practically the ruling force on the ship, given the creative license that the author took with the idea that her abilities reached beyond those of our Troi: alternate Deanna could not only extract specific information from her victims' minds, but she could cause severe mental pain doing so. If she wasn't going to be captain (which, with that kind of power, how could she not be?), being the chief security officer was a logical place for her.
The other prediction was Wesley Crusher attempting to exact his revenge on Captain Picard for his father's murder (which, in this parallel, it was cold-blooded murder). Even with that, though, I found it hard to believe that Captain Picard (however ruthless, which he totally was) was still captain with Deanna Powerhouse Troi and the younger Will Riker around. With the back-stabbing that goes on in the Terran Empire, I figured Will could easily have taken Jean-Luc in a fistfight.
Although the book monopolized on an exciting and previously unexplored aspect of TNG, its hammy writing and two-dimensional characterization were too reminiscent of the first 2 seasons for me. Transporters were always dramatic, LaForge's dialogue was composed almost completely of one-line zingers (compounded by alternate LaForge's sex jokes), and we have what is essentially a French ambassador if he were a dolphin in the beginning of the story. Easily the best part for me was the fact that John De Lancie narrated it.
February 12, 2010
Overall, this is a pretty great novel, and the author is pretty amazing, but I have one downer point to mention.
This is the first 'Next Generation' novel to approach the Mirror Universe first explored in ST:tos. That is more than enough to raise interest and when I first read it, I thought it was excellent. Unfortunately, it does not hold up well. You see, this novel came long before we returned to the mirror universe in ST:ds9 and it never really addresses the fallout from the original series episode. In fact, the whole novel reads as more of a "What would happen if that episode happened on Next Generation...".
Very little emphasis is placed upon the characters in the other universe which is darned unusual for a novel by Duane. I suppose you can see most of her character skills utilized in the main characters themselves, and how they react when trying to infiltrate the mirror universe Enterprise - e.g. Picard choosing a uniform of the day from his mirror universe counterpart, he picks the one he despises most in hopes he'll remain in character.
Unfortunately, since the television programs return to the mirror universe, later books will do the same, and they even carry on the format of the Enterprise Episodes, all inclusive of the Mirror Universe. These later novels explore the characters as real people, who are evil because of circumstance. They try to show that being the good guy does take a great effort, and that being a good guy in the mirror universe just isn't always an option. Often times, the good guys in the mirror universe are just that much better at being bad.
Compared to these later works, Dark Mirror is almost cartoonish in its portrayal of the antagonists. If you are a fan of the current run of Star Trek, you may not like this one much. I do however strongly recommend this novel as a fun bit of reading and a must if you are exploring some great and prodigious authors in the Star Trek universe.
This is the first 'Next Generation' novel to approach the Mirror Universe first explored in ST:tos. That is more than enough to raise interest and when I first read it, I thought it was excellent. Unfortunately, it does not hold up well. You see, this novel came long before we returned to the mirror universe in ST:ds9 and it never really addresses the fallout from the original series episode. In fact, the whole novel reads as more of a "What would happen if that episode happened on Next Generation...".
Very little emphasis is placed upon the characters in the other universe which is darned unusual for a novel by Duane. I suppose you can see most of her character skills utilized in the main characters themselves, and how they react when trying to infiltrate the mirror universe Enterprise - e.g. Picard choosing a uniform of the day from his mirror universe counterpart, he picks the one he despises most in hopes he'll remain in character.
Unfortunately, since the television programs return to the mirror universe, later books will do the same, and they even carry on the format of the Enterprise Episodes, all inclusive of the Mirror Universe. These later novels explore the characters as real people, who are evil because of circumstance. They try to show that being the good guy does take a great effort, and that being a good guy in the mirror universe just isn't always an option. Often times, the good guys in the mirror universe are just that much better at being bad.
Compared to these later works, Dark Mirror is almost cartoonish in its portrayal of the antagonists. If you are a fan of the current run of Star Trek, you may not like this one much. I do however strongly recommend this novel as a fun bit of reading and a must if you are exploring some great and prodigious authors in the Star Trek universe.
April 9, 2014
Thanks to the Amazon class action suit about ebook price fixing, and a lovely $60 payout, I’m catching up on many, many Star Trek novels that I missed during the years when I wasn’t reading them for whatever reason.
One such acquisition was the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Dark Mirror, by Diane Duane. It’s TNG’s chance to experience the “mirror universe” we got to see on-screen in both TOS and DS9, and, as I expected it to be, it was well written, with a few moments that really delighted me.
One was the introduction of the dolphin, Hwiii, a hyperstring researcher who ‘swims’ through the ship in a sort of water skin. Another was when Data, meeting Hwiii, tilts his head for a moment and then ‘speaks dolphin,’ because, of course he does.
I liked that Geordi and Deanna were the initial away team to the mirror Enterprise, and that they both got to use the knowledge they gleaned both from study and experience. Some of my favorite episodes were when Troi actually got to be a psychologist, and in this novel, she uses that training as much as she uses her innate empathetic abilities.
Similarly, Geordi’s incredible depth of knowledge is highlighted in this book, as he works, sometimes with colleagues, and sometimes alone, to figure out a way to save, not just the ship, but the universe itself.
I’m not sure when this was originally written but it felt like early TNG-fic. Data is very ‘sciency’ but doesn’t have as much depth as he does in later novels – even in later pre-emotion-chip ones. It’s obviously before the contemporary push for continuity within the novels, but it’s still an entertaining read.
Trek fiction is my crack. This was a delightful fix.
Goes well with Sashimi and tempura and Kirin beer.
One such acquisition was the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Dark Mirror, by Diane Duane. It’s TNG’s chance to experience the “mirror universe” we got to see on-screen in both TOS and DS9, and, as I expected it to be, it was well written, with a few moments that really delighted me.
One was the introduction of the dolphin, Hwiii, a hyperstring researcher who ‘swims’ through the ship in a sort of water skin. Another was when Data, meeting Hwiii, tilts his head for a moment and then ‘speaks dolphin,’ because, of course he does.
I liked that Geordi and Deanna were the initial away team to the mirror Enterprise, and that they both got to use the knowledge they gleaned both from study and experience. Some of my favorite episodes were when Troi actually got to be a psychologist, and in this novel, she uses that training as much as she uses her innate empathetic abilities.
Similarly, Geordi’s incredible depth of knowledge is highlighted in this book, as he works, sometimes with colleagues, and sometimes alone, to figure out a way to save, not just the ship, but the universe itself.
I’m not sure when this was originally written but it felt like early TNG-fic. Data is very ‘sciency’ but doesn’t have as much depth as he does in later novels – even in later pre-emotion-chip ones. It’s obviously before the contemporary push for continuity within the novels, but it’s still an entertaining read.
Trek fiction is my crack. This was a delightful fix.
Goes well with Sashimi and tempura and Kirin beer.
November 13, 2013
Star Trek Dark Mirror by Diane Duane does a great job encapsulating the mirror universe. In Dark Mirror, The Enterprise is transported into the mirror universe by their darker counterparts. Picard, Troi, and La Forge must travel to the other Enterprise and defeat the mirror crew. This story has a dark tone fitting the use of the mirror universe, though the alien dolphin helps make some lighter moments (it makes sense in context). In this story we get to see the characters forced to deal with seeing their close friends as well as themselves in a twisted horrifying way. Diane Duane creates great tension and makes you worry for the crew. There are some good references to the show like when Picard thinks about Q and the Borg. The books version of the mirror universe is very different then the version that would come out months later in the Star Trek Deep Space 9 episode, "Crossover". In the book, humanity is thriving and powerful while in the show, it was revealed that humanity was conquered by the Klingon-Cardassian alliance. Themselves being enslaved in a twist of irony. This book is not canon to the show so fans don't need to get to worked up about it. One of the highlights of the book is the moment where Picard faces his double. It is what you would expect with any Picard, CONVERSATION. I would consider reading more of Diane's books, especially if they are Star Trek related. I give Dark Mirror 5 out of 5 stars.
March 15, 2015
Dark Mirror was a very fun book to read. It reads as an episode would air: major plot twists and cliffhangers at every commercial (chapter) break! I have always been a fan of the Mirror Universe episodes on Star Trek. And this made me pick up this book the moment I saw it at the used book store. Having watched the DS9 Mirror episodes before reading this book, and realizing that this book was written before those episodes aired, was a shock to see how different the cannon can be.
I enjoyed how each character was paralleled with their own traits and flaws, then magnified and twisted to be complete polar opposites of themselves. Seeing each thrown into, and having to act and react, to situations that were completely alien to them was wonderfully written.
The story was paced very well. There was no sense of "downtime" to me between the action. The action was always being twisted and turned around to keep me interested. The techno speak was also well done. Having watched pretty much every episode of Star Trek myself, and hearing hundreds of crazy scientific terms that would make your head spin, I was not put off by them in this novel.
With all that I must say, if you enjoy Star Trek, then you should give this book a read, you will not be disappointed.
I enjoyed how each character was paralleled with their own traits and flaws, then magnified and twisted to be complete polar opposites of themselves. Seeing each thrown into, and having to act and react, to situations that were completely alien to them was wonderfully written.
The story was paced very well. There was no sense of "downtime" to me between the action. The action was always being twisted and turned around to keep me interested. The techno speak was also well done. Having watched pretty much every episode of Star Trek myself, and hearing hundreds of crazy scientific terms that would make your head spin, I was not put off by them in this novel.
With all that I must say, if you enjoy Star Trek, then you should give this book a read, you will not be disappointed.
August 24, 2015
The Next Generation never got a Mirror Universe show but DS9 did. However the DS Mirror Universe isnt as good IMHO as the universe written in Dark Mirror. Imagine an Enterprise D crew that is like of the TOS episode "Mirror Mirror". Its a very fun read and I love Diane Duane's portrayal of the characters for TNG both normal and the mirror universe.
November 21, 2011
I liked how Diane has written the same characters with different characteristics - a challenge in itself, I believe. The story intertwines two universes working against each other and it perfectly laid out. Excellent book.
August 16, 2012
This was more intellectual than a couple other Star Trek novels I've read and the author captured quite a bit of technical babble that sounded very convincing. This book highlights Picard, Troi, and La Forge but I'm looking for a book that incorporates more of the full crew.
June 1, 2015
The first Star Trek book I ever read (when I was in third grade!) It took me two years to finish it. After that, all things Star Trek became my drug of choice. Still addicted! Yay!
December 14, 2022
I’m a bit torn on this one honestly. I absolutely loved the tng mirror universe comics and what they decided to do with that universe. They expanded on it in such a cool way, it felt like a natural progression from the original mirror universe episodes. This kind of feels like it’s trying to replicate the original feeling of the tos “mirror mirror” episode very specifically, which isn’t always bad but I feel like it holds it back in a lot of ways. The action scenes are still really fun to read, especially that Wesley and Picard one, I really liked that, but overall it’s kind of drowned out by a little too much technobabble for me (which I understand is a huge part of trek but I just couldn’t get into it here). I will always enjoy seeing the mirror universe, it’s one of my favourite parts of trek, so overall I would say I had fun with it, but I’m glad to be moving on to a new trek book after this.
On a personal note I guess, Data is my favourite character and I LOVE his mirror universe counterpart from the comics, so I was really mad at his dismissal in this book. He only has a few scenes and is relegated to a very minor side character, being completely removed from the mirror universe all together. He is written off about halfway through the book in a very nonchalant (kind of lazy tbh) way, and after that I kind of lost my drive to read it. I understand that this is super subjective though so don’t take this too seriously, it was just kind of clear to me that the author has a few specific favourite characters that she wanted to write about.
On a personal note I guess, Data is my favourite character and I LOVE his mirror universe counterpart from the comics, so I was really mad at his dismissal in this book. He only has a few scenes and is relegated to a very minor side character, being completely removed from the mirror universe all together. He is written off about halfway through the book in a very nonchalant (kind of lazy tbh) way, and after that I kind of lost my drive to read it. I understand that this is super subjective though so don’t take this too seriously, it was just kind of clear to me that the author has a few specific favourite characters that she wanted to write about.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 15, 2018
Dark Mirror takes one of the arguably most popular Star Trek casts, Next Generation, and thrusts them into the dark universe first introduced in the original series episode "Mirror, Mirror". The Next Gen series doesn't really explore this universe, so it's really fun to see how the characters interact with their and other counterparts. The book reads like an episode of the show, with the added bonus of getting a sneak peak into the heads of Captain Picard, Counselor Troi, Commander Riker, and Lieutenant La Forge as they embark on their dangerous mission. The writing is clear, concise, and changes with the shifting viewpoints, capturing each characters distinct voice. My biggest complaint would be the use of Troi. She is part of the away team that infiltrates the Mirror Enterprise, and isn't really utilized until right at the very end, so some portions of her narrative seem unnecessary. I also would have loved to see more interaction between her and her counterpart, who is written as a dangerous, crazy femme fatale, a la Mirror Kira Nerys from the Mirror Deep Space Nine. Those were some of my favorite Mirror scenes from Deep Space Nine, and I think a conversation between the two Trois would have been darkly fun and hilarious. Other than that, what a great look at how the crew of the Enterprise would deal with the threat of the Mirror Universe. A must read for any Trekkies!
July 6, 2024
I seem to take after my dad when it comes to the love of Star Trek. It had been a long while since my last Star Trek novel, and so I was already mentally prepared to read a new one. I could not have picked a better one to read.
The story begins with a slice of life on board the Enterprise, and it slowly eases into the plot. I was able to capture the reading experience in my imagination, and it had become as if I was watching a movie. But what I loved the most about reading this is the depth of thought that came with the situation, especially the moment that Picard decides to read a sample of Shakespeare's work from the alternate timeline. What truly influenced me to give this novel the fifth star comes from Picard's interactions with the alternate-timeline Worf and a callback to the Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror", in which the alternate-timeline Spock interacts with Kirk, encouraging him the influential power of one man.
This novel gave me the kind of experience I desire: a gripping plot, moments that give the characters personality, and humorous pieces in between to keep the reader relaxed and engaged. But most of all, it made me think about mankind itself, its best versus its worst. Hopefully, we will all find ourselves on the side of the mirror that promotes the growth of character, knowledge, and trust in our fellow man.
The story begins with a slice of life on board the Enterprise, and it slowly eases into the plot. I was able to capture the reading experience in my imagination, and it had become as if I was watching a movie. But what I loved the most about reading this is the depth of thought that came with the situation, especially the moment that Picard decides to read a sample of Shakespeare's work from the alternate timeline. What truly influenced me to give this novel the fifth star comes from Picard's interactions with the alternate-timeline Worf and a callback to the Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror", in which the alternate-timeline Spock interacts with Kirk, encouraging him the influential power of one man.
This novel gave me the kind of experience I desire: a gripping plot, moments that give the characters personality, and humorous pieces in between to keep the reader relaxed and engaged. But most of all, it made me think about mankind itself, its best versus its worst. Hopefully, we will all find ourselves on the side of the mirror that promotes the growth of character, knowledge, and trust in our fellow man.
November 21, 2021
"He closed the book and looked over at the painting again. The little scrap of light fluttered there among the trees, against the shadow. It needed the darkness to make that tiny bit of life look so bright: it would not have shown otherwise."
The Star Trek: The Next Genration mirrorverse episode we never got
So, this is the first ST: TNG novel I've read (except for the Autobiography of Picard) and it did not dissapoint. This book truly felt like another TNG episode but longer, not rushed and not limited by cgi and budget. Diane Duane made sure to keep true to the TV characters and made the mirror counterparts feel very convincing. One of the main characters in focus was Troi and her Betazoid abilities in particular, which were depicted really well. The balance between the philosophical aspects of TNG and the hard/tech sci-fi was kept as well (plus there was some humour and romance). The book also explored the mirrorverse in great detail and there was clear continuity with the TOS "Mirror, Mirror" episode and many references to it.
In general, this was a fun and fresh read, there was a lot of things I loved about this book, though some paragraphs felt a bit lengthy but not that hard to get through. I definitely will be coming back to it.
The Star Trek: The Next Genration mirrorverse episode we never got
So, this is the first ST: TNG novel I've read (except for the Autobiography of Picard) and it did not dissapoint. This book truly felt like another TNG episode but longer, not rushed and not limited by cgi and budget. Diane Duane made sure to keep true to the TV characters and made the mirror counterparts feel very convincing. One of the main characters in focus was Troi and her Betazoid abilities in particular, which were depicted really well. The balance between the philosophical aspects of TNG and the hard/tech sci-fi was kept as well (plus there was some humour and romance). The book also explored the mirrorverse in great detail and there was clear continuity with the TOS "Mirror, Mirror" episode and many references to it.
In general, this was a fun and fresh read, there was a lot of things I loved about this book, though some paragraphs felt a bit lengthy but not that hard to get through. I definitely will be coming back to it.
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