There is one thing, and one thing only that is good about this Star Trek novel. It’s the last one written by Marshak and Culbreath.

Once again, this one seems as nothing more than an excuse to write some shoddy fan fiction. One could argue that all the Star Trek novels are fan fiction, as they aren’t considered canon, but there are levels of professionalism and solid writing in others that is lacking here.

Set between the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the book takes a cue from the novelization of the first film, referencing the New Humans. Here it seems they form a bit of a collective, a unity, a Totality.

Kirk finds himself representing freedom and choice, but when a Federation agent, Sola Than, a Mary Sue if ever there was one, comes along, and Kirk, surprise, surprise, falls for her in a big way. Fine, all well and good, but…

We know Marshak and Culbreath have slash inclinations when it comes to the Kirk-Spock relationship, so this certainly won’t be easy, in fact, right about now, Spock is about to go through the Vulcan mating drive known as Pon Farr, and consequently falls for the same woman as well.

With the ship in danger, and Kirk and Spock at odds, over a woman, and themselves, it’s obvious that the authors want nothing more than to put the three people together in a bi-sexual threesome. But the authors don’t push it that far, they had to get their book published officially after all.

They may have some good science fiction ideas, but their designs and intentions to push the characters outside of themselves to fit into the authors’ stories distracts from any real story they may want to tell.

In today’s day and age, I’m sure they would be writing slash fan fiction on a website somewhere, and it still boggles my mind that Paramount and Pocket Books okayed this book, or their others, to be published.

It really is like no one at either company read their work, they just wanted another Star Trek book on the shelves to rake in some more cash. Instead of treating the franchise with respect, something that took a long time to happen, they simply wanted a cash flow from the fans who would buy something with the Star Trek name on it.

Thankfully the next one looks a little better, in fact, it was the first Star Trek novel to hit the bestsellers list, which should hopefully let us forget that this one and their others were ever written.

Ugh.