Sanctuary by John Vornholt (Star Trek #61, September 1992).

The Enterprise is pursuing the pirate Auk Rex, fleeing in a small but fast ship just able to keep ahead of the starship. Unable to shake the larger craft, the pirate heads for an uncharted region of space. It is rumored to be the location of the planet Sanctuary, supposed place of safety for the fleeing. The smaller craft can travel to the planet's surface, so Kirk, Spock and McCoy take a shuttlecraft to follow the pirate to the ground.

Once on the planet, Kirk and company find that Sanctuary makes a very effective prison...no one is ever, ever allowed to leave. That includes those that want to leave, so the Federation crew is effectively stuck, as a defensive screen prevents them from flying out, or Scotty from beaming them up or even communicating with them. It is up to Kirk, Spock and McCoy to find a way out, or spend the rest of their lives on their new home.

John Vornholt writes his first original series Star Trek novel here, after a couple cracks at the Next Generation crew. It's not a bad story, pretty interesting, playing a lot like some of the later TV episodes with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy down on a planet for almost the whole time, and little focus on the ship aside from a few scenes on Scotty's troubles with keeping the Enterprise there long enough to rescue the lost crew, wangling with the bounty hunters in orbit there, and trying to find a solution.

But this book, like so many TV episodes, is about the Big Three. The characters are handled reasonably well, but we get nothing new here. The story has no real depth to it. The most interesting aspect is the planet itself and its keeper, the Senites. An androgynous race, their method of procreation is a mystery until the heroes stumble onto it and become quite horrified. The situation provides the needed impetus to inspire the escape by a quite primitive means. It's quite ingenious, actually, and is the second most interesting part of the book.

Vornholt has been quite a prolific author, mostly for licensed books. He has written a number of Next Generation novels, as well as Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Dinotopia (no, really, Dinotopia). Vornholt also wrote other kid-oriented fare such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Spider-Man books. He wrote the adaptations for the Next Generation cast movies. He wrote just one other ST original series book, #82, Mind Meld.

The story is something of a romp, an excuse to put the characters through their paces. There is no special style here, nothing to make the book stand out. A couple of good ideas here, but generally this is just a time-passer, a book to read if you like the genre and have some time to kill, as it could be had cheaply. Get it from the library.