The Great Starship Race by Diane Carey (Star Trek #67, October 1993).

The starship Hood discovers an as-yet undiscovered alien race at the far reaches of the galaxy, the Rey. The people are very friendly, and excited to become part of the grouping of races that make up the Federation. To get into the swing of things, they decide to have a party: or, more specifically, a race, a sort of rally with spaceships and a difficult to follow course.

Things are going well, although the four StarFleet ships entered in the race must agree to be powered down to make things fair. Then, a Romulan ship shows up requesting entry into the race. To Captain Kirk's chagrin, the Romulans are allowed into the party. Now, Kirk knows the race won't be fun anymore. At first, the Romulan motives are unclear. As the race unfolds, and their sinister plan becomes apparent, Kirk must race against time and the limitations of his own ship to save a planet from destruction.

Yet another novel from Diane Carey, and by now regular readers know what they are going to get. Carey, as someone who sails for leisure, tends to emphasize the naval aspects of the Enterprise. She is very knowledgeable about the sea and always works that into the books. The idea of a race, at sea, is probably one she has been a participant in many times. The checkpoints that are hard to find are an interesting plot point, and make the race more difficult and more about sailing prowess than sheer speed.

We also get the weak points of Carey the writer here, as the plot doesn't hold up well to scrutiny, and there are great stretches where nothing happens except inside the character's heads. Think of it as a "chick book" in science fiction form. There's an awful lot of pondering, and straining, and just plain-old emotion. For the reader, there's a lot of tedium, waiting for the writer to get back to the story. The characters do not gently reveal themselves by their actions, as happens in books by good writers, but instead the prose beats us over the head with their feelings inside of their minds. Over, and over, and over again.

The idea of a friendly new race is a good one, although their "secret" is one that you will guess a page or two after they first appear. It takes everyone else a while, though. As Dr. McCoy says, "They're antelope," creatures that were first-order consumers rather than predators. Carey, no biologist, doesn't cast this exactly right either, emphasizing the skittishness of deer and other plant-eaters, and not the nobility and courage.

I am not sure why the StarFleet ships have to be physically powered down. Why can't they just agree not to go above Warp 5, and use alternate sensors for the race? Why physically alter the ships? I know, it's important to the plot. When you have to start asking questions like that, it's a bad sign. It is a problem a book can overcome, but not if there are too many other problems.

All told, the book is interesting, and has enough good points to be worth a read. But be warned ahead of time that the book is about 20% too long. What took Carey a little over 300 pages to write, would have taken another writer, say Gene DeWeese, about 225 pages. It feels padded. For a summer beach book, that may not be a bad thing.