The Sci Fi Guy

The second book of Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell’s Trigon Disunity trilogy is titled Enigma, which is a fitting title for this novel. Essentially, it begins where Emprise left off, however detached from that story by about 150 years of advancements. Where Emprise is a story about the descent into and out of a devestated mankind, Enigma shows a future where mankind has finally figured out what it wants to do - discover the stars, and search for our other colonies from millenium past.

Enigma, is unlike Emprise in it’s narration as well. Where Emprise shifted the focal character of the story as the situation developed, we begin Emprise with an unlikely character to follow - Merrit Thackery. Thackery is, by all accounts, a beauracrat in the making - he attends Georgetown to become a government worker, and hopefully become a secretary to one of the leaders of the world-unifying Council. Most of these ambitions are his own devices, though we soon discover that it’s in fact more an appeal of his mother, Andra.

However, for Merrit, everything changes as he takes a lottery-won journey to Jupiter. From there, he stands in an observation bubble and becomes enthralled by the majesty of the world below him. For him, experiencing Jupiter is akin to a drug that he yearns to become addicted to. And from that moment on, he pushes himself to leave the world of government service, and applies to join the space-going USS (Unified Space Service). He leaves Georgetown to further his space-exploration career, and is driven by a madness to be included on one of the Survey ships that are seeking out new colonies. Along the way, Thackery discovers that he must create alliances with the right people in power, and he must work himself harder than anyone else to reach the level he wants to be at - a colony lander. He parallels his experience over Jupiter to the experience of landing on an alien planet and discovering the true nature of that place.

Enigma is aptly-titled because the overriding question posed in this novel is simple: Where did the first colony come from; and what happened to it? There are obviously more colonies than just the Journians (which conclude the first book), but what happened to the First Colonists (FC)? And why have they discovered some colonies in ruins and others doing perfectly fine (albeit technologically inferior)? The enigmas posed by Kube-Mcdowell prompt the reader the push forward to each chapter to uncover answers.

Where Emprise took earth from a devestated world to a unified planet, Enigma takes mankind from a dim light on some edge of the galaxy to a powerful force sweeping across star systems. Aided by technological advancements that essentially shouldn’t exist (according to the physicists of the stories), man is now able to sweep across vast distances faster than light.

The story itself really does flow at a fast pace. There are numerous characters to follow, but again, Kube-Mcdowell made a great choice to fixate the story on a single main character, which means everyone of relevance flows to and from Thackery’s world. As with most 2nd books of a 3-part series, this novel ends with essentially a cliffhanger. Dozens of questions of answered, but just like with many great Science Fiction storylines, the answered questions only lead to bigger unanswered ones. If you enjoyed Emprise, you owe it to yourself to complete the trilogy. I’m not sure if the book would make sense or stand alone if you haven’t read the first, however.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 26th, 2007 at 11:32 am and is filed under Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell, Science Fiction Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.