Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Asylum, by Una McCormack, is the third Star Trek audio book I’ve listened to this year. It is very much a character-based story, and features Una Chin-Riley in two time periods: on the “present day” Enterprise with Christopher Pike in command, and 25 years earlier, when Chin-Riley was a senior cadet at Starfleet Academy.

As an aside, I’m glad they gave Number One a name—really, they had to, didn’t they?—and I think they picked a perfect name, but after decades of knowing her as Number One, referring to her as Una is, well, a process.

Back at Starfleet Academy, Ensign Christopher Pike, who is on leave pending an investigation of an incident in which he was involved, is giving some lectures on what life is really like “out there.” Pelia, who is one of Chin-Riley’s instructors, encourages her to sit in on Pike’s lectures. She does so, and after a rocky start, they become fast friends.

Meanwhile, Chin-Riley’s roommate is involved with Federation asylum seekers, specifically, a family of Euxhana, a cultural and ethnic minority on Chionia. When Chin-Riley learns about them, she becomes interested and gets involved as well. In the present day, the Enterprise is hosting trade negotiations between the Federation and the Chionian government. And here is where the underlying theme of this book comes in. For the treatment of the Euxhana reflects the treatment of Indigenous peoples in North America, with the Chionians removing the Euxhana from their traditional territories, and attempting to erase their culture and language. The difference is that the treatment of our Indigenous peoples was much worse.

It is worth pointing out that, since the beginning, Star Trek has been a vehicle for exploring social issues of the day. At the time, they got away with it because it was set in space in the future, not Earth in the 20th Century. So, there were episodes dealing with racism, mutual assured destruction, the impact of artificial intelligence, and others. In fact, every time Uhuru appeared onscreen in the 1960’s, a Black woman on the bridge of a starship, that was social commentary. It’s also worth pointing out that “Asylum” isn’t the first Star Trek story to deal with the treatment of Indigenous peoples. This was also explored in the Next Generation episode, “Journey’s End.” To sum up, if you prefer your Star Trek to be free of social commentary, this isn’t the story for you. But if, like me, you feel that social commentary is at the heart of Star Trek, you’ll be well rewarded.

In the present day, Chin-Riley tries very hard to put right a bad choice she made in the academy with regard to the Euxhana refugees. This is the tension at the heart of the story and contributes to the immense readability of this well-written book.

Meanwhile, the audio version of Asylum is ably narrated by Robert Petkoff. Among his many voices, he captures the cool-under-fire persona of Christopher Pike particularly well. Also, believe it or not, he does an amazing Pelia. Overall, his narration is excellent and highly recommended, as is the book as a whole.