Here we are on Groundhog Day, and the second day of our 30 Day Book Challenge.
Today’s challenge is: A book that you’ve read more than 3 times.
Honestly, I have dozens of books which fit this category. I return from time to time to old favorites, to remind myself of why I love them, or just because I feel like it’s been too long since I last read them. They’re comfort food, for the most part.
Which is, honestly, why I picked today’s book. It’s the most comfortable of comfort foods — a media tie-in paperback which I read as a 15-year old, which I loved, and which I’ve read many times since.
THE FINAL REFLECTION by John Ford was the first attempt at creating a fictional culture for Star Trek’s villains, The Klingons. It’s a novel within a frame story, as Kirk sits down to read a “historical novel” about the Klingon Empire. What I love about this book is the detail given to the Klingon culture and language — remember that this book came out in 1984: Years before Star Trek: The Next Generation turned the Klingons into “Samurai Space-Vikings.” The culture that Ford presents here is unique, and, if I’m being honest, I like it a great deal more than what became canon.
Ford was also a tabletop RPG writer, and used the culture he created as the basis for the Klingon Sourcebook for the first Star Trek RPG, published by FASA. I also had the opportunity to work with Ford (I was his editor on GURPS Traveller: Starports), before he passed away in 2006.
I recently wrote the section on the Klingon Empire for the Beta Quadrant Sourcebook of the current Star Trek Adventures RPG, and I’m pleased to say that I included a small tribute to Ford in my work. Look for it when the Sourcebook is released later this year.
THE FINAL REFLECTION is available at Amazon. Click the image to be taken to the book’s page.