Kirk: “You can’t run a society based on… comedy routines.”
Flyter: “You can’t? I thought it was rather a common thing. Not under that name, of course.”
“How Much For Just The Planet?” by John M. “The Final Reflection” Ford is a musical farce with a true Star Trek message. Like cilantro, you either love it… or love to hate it. It is a truly polarizing novel.
Star Trek has had its share of comedy and madcap absurdity (Remember the Tribbles? The big white rabbit in “Shore Leave”? Riley ordering that ice cream is served at every meal and singing sentimental Irish songs in “Naked Time”? The crew shut down the androids in “I, Mudd”?) Star Trek has had a zany musical episode (“The Way to Eden”). And finally, Star Trek has had an episode in which the feelings of animosity between the Klingons and the Federation were eased by laughing together in high spirits (“The Day of the Dove”).
Ford combined all of these elements, borrowed quite a few elements from the Animated Series episode “The Practical Joker,” and spilled a peppermint (n’gaan in Vulcan) milkshake on the lot. The resulting novel takes the biscuit for the Most Ludicrous Star Trek story.
Overture: Blue Orange Juice
Captain Kirk knows it’s going to be One Of Those Days on the starship Enterprise when he orders his perfectly
routine breakfast, chatting with Spock and Scott about the new inflatable rubber facsimiles of his starship, only to discover that his orange juice is not, in fact, orange, but stunning electric blue. Oh well, he thinks, shrugging as he takes a sip, at least it tastes like orange juice.
Onboard the Jefferson Randolph Smith (named for the trickster Soapie Smith) dilithium prospector, Captain Tatyana Trofimov is also nonchalantly sipping blue orange juice whilst her exceptionally untidy Vulcan science officer, T’Vau, plays chess against herself, the computer whistles George Gershwin’s “I Got Plenty O’ Nothin’” from Porgy and Bess, and the winged Withiki First Officer, Tellihu, eats eggs for breakfast because everyone eats eggs for breakfast in this book. I bet, Captain Trofimov thinks to herself, it’s never like this for starship captains…
And not far away from either vessel is the Klingon cruiser Fire Blossom, captained by Kaden, on patrol and bored stiff. Bound and determined not to draw the attention of the Organian “lightbulbs,” the crew are enjoying a breakfast of (green?!) batter toast and (blue?!) eggs when comm officer Proke, who has watched far too many old Earth movies, informs the Captain that there is a Federation vessel “sublight in the shallows.” His use of Terran naval lingo prompts Engineer Askade to mutter, aside, “That youth was raised wrong.”
This is the extraordinary cast of characters who are about to meet another extraordinary cast of characters on the Dilithium planet Direidi. They are watched over by Diplomatic Corp’s Ambassador Charlotte Sanchez, who owes Kirk a kick in the ass, and whom Kirk owes an ice cream soda.
Historical Interlude: Dilithium and You
As any Star Trek fan knows, an exposition dump around the conference table is an essential element to an episode. Ford chose to sidestep the officers’ briefings in favour of extracts from an educational filmstrip and the popular science show Dr. Wally’s Kitchen of Wonders to explain the significance of Dilithium.
Recitative: A Very Recalcitrant Salmon, and Other Crises
The human colonists of the planet Direidi welcome the landing parties from both the Enterprise and the Fire Blossom with fanfare and a Gilbert and Sullivan musical number. This welcome establishes that the colonists, who settled on a distant planet to get away from it all, are quite mad, quite paranoid that the landing parties will do something weird like blow up, and quite prone to bursting into song at the drop of a top hat. They assure the landing parties that there are no lions on the planet and invite them to dinner.
Suitably impressed that Kirk’s middle name is that of a Roman emperor, they seat the Starfleet captain next to his Klingon counterpart with the place card, James Caligula Kirk.
As is only to be expected, the nice dinner of beef Wellington is interrupted by wails of sirens from the kitchen and shouts of “bullets won’t stop it!” Evidently, a salmon has gone rogue, as is the habit of salmon on this planet.
Is it something in the air or water? Side effects from Dilithium radiation? Who knows? Stranger things have happened at sea.
The crews decide to settle in for an evening of fun and fellowship. Ambassador Sanchez settles in for an evening of girl talk and brandy with the female Klingon First Officer, Rish Arizhel, whilst Kirk settles in for an evening of space stories and beer with Kaden. Mad plots are plotted to bring together Princess Deedee, (guest star Diane Duane) and Pete Blackwood (guest star Peter Morwood, Diane’s husband).
Said plots result in Kirk wearing a leotard catsuit, Kaden wearing a tuxedo, innumerable trips up and down a fire escape, Kirk falling down a laundry chute and Kaden getting his foot stuck in a toilet before the pursuers and the pursued end up in the kitchen for the pie fight of the century. Because evidently, not even the Organians were forward-thinking enough to forbid warfare by pie. Especially blueberry.
Meanwhile, Sulu and McCoy are off on an adventure of their own, held captive with their Klingon counterparts by the beautiful and deadly Black Queen Janeka (guest star Janet Kagan). McCoy fulfils a prophecy of his own by demanding his coffee Now, and leads the kitchen kuve (servitors), those in bondage to flour and shortening, to take up their whisks and their rolling pins and revolt. With the battle cry “Remember the Maine!” (I’m not sure that anyone in the 23rd century does, in fact, remember the Maine), Sulu leads the chicken gravy and blood-spattered kitchen staff to overthrow the Queen.
Nor have the Organians forbidden a friendly game of golf to settle differences. A brawl nearly breaks out between Scotty and the Klingon security officer Maglus over whether the Enterprise is, or is not, made of chewing gum and cardboard. This is clearly a matter of honour that can only be settled by playing eighteen holes of golf in the original Klingon, with Chekov and Korth serving as caddies, whilst ducking machine gun explosions and splitting a chocolate bar.
Uhura has met her own Klingon counterpart, Proke, over plates of Adam and Eve on a raft and sinks ‘em, and they have embarked on their own adventure of re-enacting every classic film from The Maltese Falcon to Casablanca. They escape from Ilen the Magian, Proprietor of the theatre (guest star Neil Gaimon), haggle over the price of a miniature harp for Uhura, and finally say a Goodbye worthy of Bergman and Bogart.
Whilst the pie fight is in progress, the weary crew of the dilithium prospector Smith finds their way to Enterprise after wandering lost on the planet. Their sojourn began pleasantly enough, by a stream overlooking the mountains at sunset, but after twenty-four hours of listening to T’Vau, (who is not an old flame of Spock’s in spite of the n’gaan milkshake they split once) reciting Vulcan epic poetry on the Pythagorean Theorem, and Tellihu ruminating on how he wishes he could trade his brain development for the ability to fly, Captain Trofimov is ready for something more substantial to eat than lizard and bark.
They beam up to the Enterprise, encounter Crewman Ann Crispin (guest star as herself), and avail themselves of the food slot’s offerings before falling sound asleep in their retrieved milkshake-drenched escape pod.
Aria: Keep Your Eye Upon the Donut
Not only is every inhabitant of the Dilithium planet bursting into songs apparently composed for the occasion, musical fashion, everyone seems to know all the old classics.
The fence Uhura and Proke encounter alludes to “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” The Stage Manager (guest star John M. Ford himself) sings a line of “The Whiffenproof song”: “Two little lambs have gone astray, baa baa.” Preparing for an evening of shenanigans, Kirk whistles about putting on his top hat. Illen sings about “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” And a robot at the pub sings, as it falls to pieces, the 1915 classic “I Ain’t Got Nobody.”
Coda: Plan C
In the end, it is revealed that the cheerful insanity has all been an elaborate Plan C scripted by the eccentric Flyter to encourage the Klingons and Humans to laugh at themselves and one another, and thus learn to jointly mine the riches of Dilithium.
Farcical, zany, and subtly subversive as it is, “How Much for Just the Planet?” holds a true Star Trek message. The Organians prophesied that the Federation people would become fast friends with the Klingons and learn to work together. And they did.
I give this swell novel eight out of ten custard pies with a maraschino cherry on top.
