The Klingon Gambit by Robert Vardeman (Star Trek #3, 1981)

While mapping a new planet, the Enterprise receives a top-priority message from Starfleet Command directing them to a nearby star system, where all life signs aboard the Vulcan science ship T'pau have ceased. The science vessel was ferrying a group of Andorian scientists to the site of an archaeological dig on a planet where a large pyramid had been found, but no other structures or signs of artifacts. There is also a Klingon dreadnought, a powerful new warship, orbiting the planet. Kirk must investigate the Vulcans' deaths, engage the Klingons without beginning a war, and protect the scientists on the planet. To make matters worse, the crew begins to act oddly; crew members leave their posts, Spock is alternately irrational and coldly logical, McCoy begins to distrust all machines. Fights break out all over the ship over the smallest provocations, and Scotty scavenges the other ship systems in attempts to improve the performance of the warp engines. Did the Klingons kill the Vulcans? There is no obvious cause of death. A wrong step will mean a galactic war.

This novel is more of the length of a Bantam series book, about 150 pages. It is difficult to fault Vardeman for his characterizations, because the crew is supposed to be out of character here. Actually, they are supposed to be of heightened character, which doesn't always work. There are elements of the episodes "The Naked Time" and "Shore Leave" here, although this story is not as well handled as those. Vardeman makes one large error when Kirk leaves the conn, not once but twice, to Chekov when higher-ranking officers, specifically Uhura, remain on the bridge. It is important to his story, but the story could have been changed to a more sensible progression without harming the plotline.

McCoy's back-to-nature kick has been seen before, although it is taken a bit farther here. Other crew members have relatively uninteresting pursuits, and there is little science development. There isn't a lot to recommend this volume; it is merely another book, of interest for series fans but not a strong entry.

The Entropy Effect by Vonda McIntyre (Star Trek #2, 1981)

The first all-new novel published by Pocket in the Star Trek franchise was written by an accomplished science fiction novelist with a background in her own fiction and winner of a Hugo and a Nebula. One of the dangers of this type of author is a tendency to view the characters independently rather than to use them as established in series continuity. Every author will play favorites with the characters, writing up the ones they like and assigning secondary roles or completely ignoring those they do not like. This is evident in McIntyre's first outing with the Star Trek characters.

The Enterprise is dispatched to observe a singularity and discover the reason for its appearance. None like it has been observed previously, with no apparent explanation for its existence. Spock is the closest qualified observer and so he conducts the measurements as the Enterprise spends six weeks in close proximity to the dangerous gravity well and radiation output. As Spock is working on the confirming observations the Enterprise receives a top-priority call to a nearby starbase. The starbase personnel are confused when the Enterprise arrives but they do have one duty that must be carried out: the ferrying of a dangerous prisoner to a maximum-security facility.

The prisoner turns out to be a former physics teacher of Spock's and the Vulcan cannot understand the danger posed. All records of the trial have been sealed and/or expunged. Soon after the prisoner is taken on board he breaks onto the bridge and shoots Captain Kirk with a spiderweb bullet, a terrorist device which causes prolonged death with great pain. The crew is horrified. The new security chief, Commander Flynn, is also killed in the assault.

Spock finds that the dangerous nature of the prisoner, and his crime, is related to the professor's discovery of a simple method for time travel. This has also caused the singularity to appear, so the method is increasing the entropy of the universe and will cause its end in less than 100 years. Spock must travel back in time himself to repair the damage to the time continuum, save his captain and the universe.

McIntyre writes well, and the book has a good plot, so the problem here is mostly with characterization. So many of the regulars are out of character that it is often hard to take the book seriously. The author obviously likes Sulu, and to an extent Spock, while disliking Scotty and Kirk. Scott only gets "grumpy old man" stuff to do and shows no other side of his character, aside from a measure of loyalty to Kirk. The captain is killed off halfway through the book, and might have remained that way had this book been made only of McIntyre's characters (which would have made a better book). The author also is enamored with her own characters; Commander Flynn and her security crew, as well as Captain Hunter, an old lover of Kirk's and the captain of a border patrol ship. There is a strongly feminist bent here, despite the small amount of time given to Uhura.

The spiderweb bullet is a good sci-fi invention, a projectile with tendrils that grow and crush the nervous system, reaching to the brain. The problem is, at one point McIntyre writes about visible tendrils that Spock avoids on a near-miss shot. Tendrils small enough to infiltrate the nervous system would likely be invisible to the naked eye. And another thing: when Spock endeavors to go back through time, he tells only McCoy, and ostensibly leaves the Doctor in charge of the ship. At no time was McCoy ever shown to be a command officer, and it would have been procedure (which Spock would have followed) to inform Scotty, who both was the next ranking officer and thus should have been designated the conn as well as being able to help to engineer the necessary apparatus for time travel.

It's a good story. It just doesn't work, as written, as a Star Trek story.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture adaptation (Pocket Star Trek #1) (1979)

The first Star Trek novel published by Pocket was the adaptation of the first movie, written by Gene Roddenberry. Of course Roddenberry was intimately familiar with the details, having worked on the first movie proposal, turned into a series plan (Star Trek II) and then, after the success of Star Wars, plans for a movie once again. Roddenberry made much of his adaptation very personal and included a number of details not in the movie, so that the plot and flow of the book is much superior to the filmed version. No one, naturally, is more familiar with the cast of characters than Roddenberry so that is not in doubt. Word has it that Alan Dean Foster wrote the adaptation, as well as getting story credit on the movie as the movie story was largely adapted from one of his story ideas for the proposed "Star Trek II" series.

The book flows better than the filmed version, largely because it does not suffer from the annoying synthesized droning music during interminable effects shots of the inside of V'Ger. The book benefits from being able to explain things much more clearly and from leaving in details cut from the film version. The sexuality of Ilia's Deltan race is illustrated here, better explaining why Sulu and other men fell all over themselves around her. The first chapter is some fairly unnecessary business with Kirk, but it does go to motivation. Also explained is the identity of the second being killed in the transporter accident along with Science Officer Sonak. The ending scenes inside V'Ger are much clearer here in the book.

If the movie made no sense to you, the book will make things much clearer, but it is not much more exciting. It is overwritten (a symptom of both Foster and Roddenberry) and still has the same plot to work with, while not developing the secondary characters nearly enough. The plot suffers from being almost a replica of the original series episode "The Changeling" when Kirk faced Nomad, not V'Ger, and the whole thing was small enough to be inside the Enterprise, rather than the other way around.

It's not a great book, but it is of interest to Star Trek fans. It is also of interest as the first paperback published by Pocket Books, which they later numbered as #1 in their series.

The last Bantam paperback published was Death's Angel, by Kathleen Sky. I do not have that book either.

The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold (1980)

The next to last, and by far the best, of the Bantam paperbacks. The author is Star Trek veteran David Gerrold, who by this time had already written scripts for the series ("The Trouble With Tribbles") and the animated series ("More Tribbles, More Troubles" and "BEM") as well as written a book about the series with both praise and criticism ("The World of Star Trek"). Gerrold was also one of the developers of the Next Generation series. So obviously he had an intimate knowledge of the characters. That knowledge shows and shines like a beacon.

Our story: While on patrol of the Klingon border, the Enterprise encounters an odd sensor reading. Closer investigation reveals a slower-than-light ship, built on a huge scale--a self-contained world. It is obviously a ship built to ferry thousands of colonists, for many generations, to a new star system. The questions follow: who built it? Where did they come from? Where were they going, and how long have they been travelling? Contact with such a ship is problematic, because they may not be aware that any other civilizations exist to contact them and to do so may be a violation of the Prime Directive.

Soon that point becomes moot, as they are found to be on a collision course for the Galactic Whirlpool: a twin black hole, rotating slowly through the galaxy and drawing everything in its path into the immense gravity well. If the Enterprise crew do not interfere the ship will be destroyed in a matter of months. Now the problem becomes one of how to interfere, so as to cause the least panic and disruption to the peoples' lives.

Gerrold handles the characters expertly here, and finds a full role for Kevin Riley, an officer who had major roles in two TV episodes. Gerrold also impresses some of his own ideas about the series, many of which were also used in the Next Generation series. Gerrold has also researched his science and brings us many tidbits about the 22nd century and the events that led up to it. He fills in many details that cannot be used in a TV show due to time constraints. He even places himself into the story in the person of an historian nicknamed "Specks."

This is a wonderful novel to read, not just a good Star Trek novel. I can recommend this one highly.

Perry's Planet by Jack Haldeman (1980)

The crew of the Enterprise is dead-tired and badly in need of shore leave. As they pick up scientists for transfer, they prepare to head to Starbase 6 for needed rest and repairs. While stopped briefly to make some adjustments to the failing dilithium crystals they are suddenly attacked by a Klingon warship that seems to come out of nowhere. When the threat is averted the Klingon captain appears on the screen and swears a blood oath to kill Kirk in revenge for killing his brother.

With that now hanging over his head, Kirk must divert to a planet in an unsurveyed sector that has sent an application for admission to the Federation. As it is deemed that this call must be answered without delay, the Enterprise is diverted there. After beaming down Kirk and company find themselves unable to commit the smallest act of a violent nature. A virus has been created on Perry's Planet which acts to disable the individual when the biochemical buildup to violent action is begun. With the Klingon ship in wait for them the consequences could be disastrous.

Jack Haldeman is the older brother of Joe Haldeman, noted science fiction and Star Trek author, and an accomplished short-story writer on his own merits. Haldeman crafts a strong if short tale here, which seems to have been padded some from a short story length. Haldeman effectively uses the characters, and keeps them IN character, including giving some time to Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. The writing is not soaring but it is solid, and the story will keep the reader interested.

I will also not be reviewing the other 1979 book, "World Without End" by Joe Haldeman. Haven't read it either.

Hey, I can't read all of them. If I read it at a later date, I will update this entry. Next up are the 1980 books. I will defer the 1979 adaptation of the first movie until after the Bantam novels, to keep those together, since it is labelled #1 in that series.

Devil World by Gordon Eklund

Eklund's second ST novel, following "The Starless World," it involves a Federation traitor, his daughter, and creatures that resemble the "devils" or "demons" of folklore. It also examines some religious issues.

At shore leave on Starbase 13, Kirk encounters a young woman who follows the philosophy of Jainism---to harm no living creature no matter how small. To this effect, she wears a face mask so as not to inadvertently swallow an insect and kill it. The woman is searching for her father, who turns out to be a Starfleet officer who left the Federation for the Klingon Empire some years before. In the meantime the starbase commander asks Kirk to take on his son as a personal steward, as the young man has washed out of Starfleet Academy, and needs direction in his life.

Through the commander Kirk also learns more of the story of the woman's father: he had been stranded in space in only a survival suit for nearly a month before being rescued, and had moved to the Empire on promises of his own planet since contact with any creatures is now painful to him.

Now, it is learned that the man has travelled to Heartland, a quarantined planet, where the colony started 40 years ago had withdrawn with every colonist turned mad. The inhabitants of the planet, a dying races called the Danons, resemble satanic creatures with reddish skin and forked tails. Kirk takes the Enterprise to retrieve the unauthorized personnel; complications ensue.

This is a somewhat better outing than Eklund's first but still a bit stiff as well as short. Kirk is again out of character while Spock and McCoy are portrayed satisfactorily, but other characters such as Scotty and Sulu show little character at all. Chekov at least tells Russian stories, but there are few telling character touches, as if the author is unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the characters.

Again, the plot is interesting enough but the writing is mediocre. Story elements are introduced then not seen again. What happens to the "demons" conjured by the stage magician in the opening scene? Are they meant to signify something? I kept waiting for the payoff but it never came. The writing is weak in that way.

Don't spend a lot of money on this one.