It’s been nearly two years since the season-two cliffhanger of Strange New Worlds, so thank goodness for Trek literature to keep us junkies out of withdrawal until July’s airing of season there. Asylum is a novel told across two periods of time, joined by Commander Una, Captain Pike, and a new planet of cat-people who are a bit racist.

The stage is set when Enterprise meets with the ambassador of the Racist Cats, and Una is taken back to her academy days when she met some Refugee Cats in San Francisco. New Cat Planet has a ‘civilized’ majority who live in cities, congregate at wine bars, and talk about their golf handicaps — but there’s also a minority population, nomads who prefer roaming in the mountain country. The Racist Cats regard this population as unevolved and in need of guidance, so the Mountain Cats are being forced to settle in cities and go to schools and such. Some of them have fled Cat Planet and become refugees, like the ones Una meets. The author is clearly drawing from experiences like that of Indian Schools in the American west, as well as the way the Han Chinese treat minorities like the Uighur in China. Una sympathizes with the Refugee Mountain Cats, given she she also has to hide her identity as a genetically modified human, but when she realizes the RMCs have a fugitive in their midst she backs away from the family, to her lingering shame. During the Enterprise & Racist Cat meet, political activism begins rocking the conference site to the annoyance and chagrin of Security Chief La’An, calling for justice for the Mountain Cats. The unrest begins with sprayed slogans, then a bomb threat that lands a member of the Racist Cat Staff — a member who is actually a Mountain Cat — in the brig as the only suspect.

The strongest part of the novel for me was Una’s growth as a character, seeing her stumble morally but haul herself back up again. I also liked witnessing the origin of her friendship with Captain Pike, who she meets when he is an ensign teaching a series of guest lectures. Her big-sis relationship with La’An, which we got to see a lot of in “Subspace Rhapsody“. is also on display. Speaking of, remember Una’s sung line that in another life she could see herself up on the stage, for three hours a night and to everyone’s delight, delivering renditions of Gilbert and Sullivan? One of the many things that keep Academy Una occupied is her role in a production of “The Mikado”! This is a fairly low-stakes novel, but being such a fan of SNW and its ensemble cast, I enjoyed it.