Star Trek III: The Search for Spock movie novelization (Star Trek #17, 1984)

Once again, Vonda McIntyre tackles the movie novelization. Unfortunately, this story emphasizes her weaknesses, and plays against her strengths. McIntyre is a character writer, and creator of intricate plots. This story is an action story, with humor interwoven with spiritual considerations, and an extended climax. McIntyre fumbles the story badly.

The first three chapters are spent wrapping up loose ends from the last movie and novelization. This is somewhat necessary, and some of the scenes involve things in this movie's script that were cut for time. However, it slows the pace of the story terribly. It isn't until Chapter 4, on page 77, that we get the plot moving. While the author is understandably interested in tying up loose ends from her characters aboard the Genesis station, it walks a line close to wallowing and sometimes falls into the trap.

McIntyre is also without Spock, one of her favorite characters to write, and concentrates much attention on Saavik. This is not such a problem, but an aversion to Kirk in a story built around the Admiral is a problem. Scotty fares badly again as well. Sulu is played up at the expense of Chekov. And McIntyre's habit of having Kirk stick his foot in his mouth runs very thin.

You can get the sense of the movie from here. But the book plods, while the film clips along quickly. This is really just a book for those who want a prose complement to the film. I can't recommed it on any other basis.