The Reeves-Stevens help William Shatner tell his next Star Trek tale, the third in his Shatner-verse stories. This time out, despite his continued work to make sure that James T. Kirk is still the smartest, bravest, strongest and most desirable man in the room, the story ties together a lot of interesting ideas and melds it solidly with the canon of the Star Trek universe.

Apparently, Kirk survived his encounter with the Borg that he and Picard were confronting at the climax of The Return, and returns to the planet Chal, introduced in Ashes of Eden, to discover that a virogen is spreading across the quadrant and may cause the collapse of the entire Federation.

On the other side of the quadrant Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E find themselves working on the same mystery as they begin to unearth evidence that the virogen may have been engineered by a splinter group of an ancient Vulcan eco-group, one that may have a connection to Ambassador Spock who is conducting an investigation of his own.

Tying into events from Kirk’s past on Tarsus IV and Governor Kodos, explaining why Spock’s father, Sarek, never melded with his son, and the idea that perhaps Sarek’s Bendii Syndrome was murder.

The story moves very fast, and there are a number of references to episodes, films, and established canon while Kirk seems to have too much of the limelight, and it’s eye-rolling how many women seem to fall for his charms,

There are some nice moments, but any character who isn’t James T. Kirk seems a bit restrained when compared to their portrayal on the screen. I have no problem that Shatner has brought Kirk back to life, and it’s science fiction so no one is ever truly dead, and I like the idea of Kirk and Picard working together and their crews intermingling and the adventures that spring up around them, and despite all of Kirk’s inner monologue about not wanting to be the hero anymore the way its written seems to argue with that.

It’s a romp, it’s big, occasionally bold, is well aware of the canon it’s playing with, and also has some important eco-themes at work in the story. Sure Shatner is all about making his alter-ego the main thrust of the story, but seeing characters from across generations and series interacting is on occasion a lot of fun.

Boldly go…