Space, the final frontier…

Not all the voyages of the starship Enterprise are going to entertain me, sometimes they are going to miss the mark, and for me, this one definitely felt like it missed the mark. There’s some big sci-fi ideas in the story, but it doesn’t feel like it’s told in a Star Trek way.

That, and just the visuals this one conjured in my head just seemed completely at odds with how I see the Trek universe. It felt like b-movie trappings, while tackling a big idea. And that could work, and has worked, but this one didn’t.

Not to mention some of the choices Kirk, as the captain makes.

All of it centres around the discovery of an artefacts left by a long deceased civilisation (who are pretty dark, even when compared to the usual baddies of the Klingons and Romulans) and the problems that arise when Chekov disappears into it, followed by Kirk who goes looking for him.

I get that Kirk needs to be an important part of the story, balancing with Spock and the rest of the crew trying to first figure out what happened to their missing crew members, and then trying to restore them, but he shouldn’t have been the one sent after Chekov, no matter what Kirk says.

I don’t want to give away too many of the plot points, and some of the twists, but it was those very things that would eject me from the story. It just didn’t feel right to me at all. I’m sorry to say.

I’m sorry to say that this one was a bit of a labour to get through, and it wasn’t one that I enjoyed. Usually I can slip into these adventures and delight in enjoying a new story featuring characters that I love, but this one kept pushing me out of the tale.

It ended up being a very frustrating read, because there are glimpses of real Trek moments in the story, and even brushing up against possible character moments that feel true, but it just kept falling short.

The story didn’t engage me, there was no real sense of wonder and discovery that, for me, is essential in the exploration stories that the Enterprise and her crew find herself involved in.

But that’s ok, not all of them are going to resonate with me, but for now, there’s always another one to come. So the Human Adventure will continue as Captain James T. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest boldly go…