The Starship Trap by Mel Gilden (Star Trek #64, April 1993).

The Enterprise crew is enjoying shore leave at Starbase 23 when called out on a mission. The reason for the mission galls Captain Kirk: they are ferrying a member of the Federation Council from one location to another. Annoying at having crew R&R interrupted for a stint as a cruise liner, Kirk is then surprised when a Klingon ship arrives to accuse the Federation of attacking Klingon vessels, and more surprised when Councilor Kent intimates that he knows something about the disappearence of the ships.

At their destination, Starbase 12, Kirk is ordered to take the Enterprise to investigate the disappearence of ships, which turns out to be not just Klingons, but Federation ships as well as Romulans. He is also ordered to take along Kent's aide, Helen Payton, as an observer. Kent is anti-Starfleet, and these moves are aimed at appeasing him. The first stop is to Professor Omen, noted weapons developer.

Omen turns out to know more than he lets on, and the encounter sends Kirk and the Enterprise crew on a strange journey that requires all their resources just to survive the experience, let alone triumph over a powerful adversary. And all the while, Payton records the events, watching for a fatal slip-up.

Mel Gilden is a fairly prolific author of youth-oriented fiction, especially science fiction. He also wrote a Next Generation novel, as well as a couple of kid-themed Deep Space Nine books. Gilden has also written many other books and short stories. He has an extensive publishing history.

In this book, Gilden chooses to write from the viewpoint of Captain Kirk. We see all the action from Kirk's perspective, and are privy to the thoughts inside his head. This is an interesting choice, as Kirk is the most-explored character in the original Star Trek universe, and only Spock comes close. There is little new territory to mine here, but as an author used to writing for a young audience, Gilden is used to focusing on the story's main character with a tight beam. Kirk is certainly the main character here, with a tightness that would make William Shatner proud.

There is an art mistake on the book's cover. Kirk and Payton are pictured, but Payton is drawn in an Enterprise uniform although she is not of StarFleet. As a civilian, she would not be wearing the uniform. She is pictured with the "enhancement chip" that she uses for recording, although it appears larger in the picture than the text seems to indicate. This may simply be a matter of perspective.

In an interesting twist, Kirk is presented with a beautiful woman on board who is renedered unreachable, as Payton is involved with Commodore Fevere of Starbase 12. Thus our lecherous Captain must deal with a woman on a person-to-person basis, something rarely seen during the TV series, or the movies for that matter. It makes for an odd dynamic in the story, but provides a different sort of dramatic tension.

The characters are generally well-handled. Kirk is always the toughest to bring out, and his POV status gives him center stage at all times. This is done with mixed results, but the outcome is not bad. Of the others, only Spock and Dr. McCoy get a lot of time "on stage," and they are competently handled. Their function as Kirk's "Greek chorus" is utilized here.

It is the original characters of Payton, Omen and Kent that carry much of the plot, and by design must fade from view afterwards. Gilden does an interesting job here of feinting with the official (Kent) as villain, then removing him from the stage for most of the action. Thus a Star Trek cliche' is largely avoided, though not completely. However, the return to the Starbase at the end provides a long coda to the story, extending it well past the climax. That is a questionable dramatic decision. One must also question the staging of much of the novel inside Kirk's head, as it makes for slow story development at times.

All in all, not bad, and certainly readable by even younger readers. However, the writing style is simply not good or distinctive enough to make this book stand out. It's OK, nothing more.

Shell Game by Melissa Crandall (Star Trek #63, February 1993)

Near the Romulan Neutral Zone, the Enterprise encounters a large object moving on impulse power, no life signs aboard. Further investigation reveals it to be a Romulan space station, the first of its kind, and apparently empty. New regulations discourage captains from leading landing parties, to Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Lt. Chekov, and three security guards beam over to take a look. Soon, the power of the landing party's gear and the starship begin to wane, and the explorers start to see little hints of movement in their peripheral vision. They must find the cause of the power drain before it takes their lives.

Set between Star Trek original movies I and II, with Chekov as Security Chief but in the semi-formal red uniforms, this is something of a Star Trek ghost story. An eerie space station with minimal power and long empty corridors, where eventually dead bodies, dead Romulan bodies, are found evokes spookiness. Crandall uses this to some effect, but about 3/4 of the way through when she does the "reveal" of the cause (which has already been telegraphed several pages before) the book becomes a race against the clock. This is stressed even more when a Romulan ship shows up a couple of chapters later to amp up the tension. The theme is therefore lost.

The plot itself is not bad, though it is also not particularly noteworthy. A Romulan space station is an interesting idea, and an abandoned site does make for a moody setting for a story. Crandall doesn't do that much with the idea, at least not as much as a superior writer might have. There are a number of editing problems, such as nagging misspellings, and a paragraph that gets repeated in the middle of the book. Details, but bothersome details.

Crandall makes a decent enough first effort, but this was apparently her only ST novel. She wrote a couple of other licensed product books, for Earth 2 and Quantum Leap, but seems to have little other output. She may have written under another name, and Melissa Linbacher/Limbacher is listed as an alternate name for her at amazon.com for some reason, but I dont' really know.

The title is a curiousity as well. I have no idea what a "Shell Game" has to do with the plot of this book. Perhaps I am being obtuse, but I see no relationship here. At any rate, I'll listen to one of Scotty's ghost stories anytime, but Crandall's need a little work.