|
The Enterprise travels
through a extreme gravitational anomaly, actually a 'fold' in the fabric
of space, and ends up about 300 parsecs away from their starting point
in a empty (no stars), unexplored section of the galaxy. The engines are
damaged and new supplies are needed. After an extensive search, they
find one star with one planet revolving around it. There is no sign of
life, but the strange thing about this planet is that there seems to be
thousands of transporter signals all over the planet at any given
second. When Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Rand beam down, they discover that
there is life on the planet that is not only intelligent, but humanoid
and quite similar to Vulcans, physiologically. They are captured by the Guardians
and brought before the Protectors. Another native has been captured and
is also brought before the Protectors and Kirk discovers he is part of
the Technic, a technological sect that is refuting some of the old ideas
that the Protectors hold to be true, like how they are the center of the
universe and no other life exists beyond their planet. The landing
crew's presence eventually leads Kirk to break Starfleet's number one
rule of not interfering with the progress of a civilization or people.
This in turn causes him great grief and he is not quite sure how to
proceed. There is also a problem with the sun, and Spock comes up with
an idea that will either save the crew of the Enterprise, or cause
the star to go nova. All this is going on while Kirk is being held
captive and cannot escape because of all the transporter signals.
This Star Trek book takes
place during the original 5-year mission. The
number of the book is 6. Don't let the cover fool you. The image of
Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise is reminiscent of the clothing and
design of the Enterprise in the original movie. Most of the story
takes place on the planet Mercan and deals with Kirk trying to get out
of the situation he has found himself in without breaking the Prime
Directive.
Something a good thriller
can do is make the user actually feel tense when they are reading the
story. This book did this for me for the first half of the book. I could
actually feel it in my chest as I was gobbling up the story and couldn't
see a way out of the situation that Kirk and the landing crew found themselves
in. To me, any book that can do that is definitely worth reading. Lee
Correy does a bang-up job of nailing the characters and creating a story
that is interesting and fun to read. Although there are a lot of
politics in this story, which can sometimes be kind of boring, the
author does a great job of keeping the story rolling and the reader
never has a chance to let their mind wander. This is a great Star Trek
book and should not be missed.
I rated this book a 8 out of 10. |
