Star Trek 795: The Crier in Emptiness

795. The Crier in Emptiness

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Crier in Emptiness, Power Records, 1975

CREATORS: Alan Dean Foster (writer), Russ Heath, Neal Adams (artists)

STARDATE: 5444.9

PLOT: A being made of living sound boards the Enterprise and cuts it off from its standard communications. Fearing that the creature would make everyone deaf, Kirk attempts to communicate with it. It's through Lt. Connors - a musician - and his Edoan Elisiar (a kind of super space organ) that he succeeds. After Connors is played almost to exhaustion, the creature leaves.

CONTINUITY: Arex from the Animated Series was an Edoan according to Alan Dean Foster's novelizations (see below).

DIVERGENCES: Though she's more herself on the cover, Uhura is one again a Caucasian blonde woman. Sulu is again a black man. And there's evidence that Connors was once meant to be the alien Arex from the Animated Series (awkward poses, scrunched up name in speech balloons and the origin of the organ).

PANEL OF THE DAY - Big hands, I know you're the one.
REVIEW: A natural concept for audio stories (which this accompanies) is that of a sound-based creature or threat. I think the Doctor Who audios have more than one, and this is Star Trek's. In the comic, it's a little strange. The sound is represented by a spiky psychedelic light and there are extended scenes of Connors playing music with this alien "jam partner", so it's definitely one that reads better with the accompanying sound. A much more solid sf story than the previous Moauv, with Uhura throwing in a thoughtful allusion towards the end, but it's too bad a random guest star like Connors had to save the day. (At least Arex appeared regularly on the cartoon.)