Recovery by J.M. Dillard (Star Trek #73, March 1995).

Admiral Kirk is sent to supervise the testing of the rescue ship U.S.S. Recovery, a completely automated vessel meant to evacuate planets and preserve life on stranded vessels. Kirk's recommendations have led to a number of changes in the vessel, and since he has been the project's biggest critic, he is assigned to assess it's performance.

Recovery is set for a simulation, to evacuate personnel, and to deal with an attack from drones, as well as respond to a situation where one shuttlecraft fires on another. The ship is huge, meant to be large enough to evacuate whole planets, and not to require a single human on the crew. Klingon, Romulan, and Tholian observers are invited to see this test run.

Then, something goes wrong (of course). Kirk changes the preprogrammed simulatin plans, then Recovery fires on the attacking shuttle and destroys it, then moves to attack the observing ships and heads for Tholian territory. Dr. Myron Shulman, the main planner of the ship, appears to have become unbalanced and accuses Kirk of attempting to sabotage the test. On the ship, Shulman begins to hunt the people on board and kill them, while Recovery refuses attempts to call in or out. It's up to Kirk to save the day, and friend Dr. McCoy on board the Recovery.

This is the fourth book in the "Lost Years" trilogy. Yes, that sentence calls for an explanation. "Lost Years" was a planned three-book series to look at the time period between the end of the original TV show and the first movie. J.M. Dillard was to write the first book, Brad Ferguson the second, and Irene Kress the third. Dillard's book, simply titled "The Lost Years," was published as a hardcover without apparent incident. Ferguson's book, "A Flag Full of Stars," was delayed, then published as a paperback rather than a hardcover. It was also extensively rewritten by an uncredited Dillard, with an in-between draft by Gene DeWeese. Ferguson estimates that 7% of his book is in the published version. Kress' book was rejected and never seen. The next "Lost Years" book turned out to be a story by L.A. Graf (pseudonym for Julia Ecklar and Karen Rose Cercone) titled "Traitor Winds," followed by this volume by Dillard.

The book itself is all right, but suffers the problems common to a J.M. Dillard novel. At 277 pages, it is incredibly padded and tedious. A good editor could go through and judiciously remove the passages that are filled with "She looked at Kirk and thought about how..." and "He was transfixed with the image of...." and so on that do not add anything to the plot, the story, or the characters. A good editor could take this and pull out a tight, thrilling 200 page tale. But that's not this book.

This book concentrates on Dillard' versions of Admiral Kirk and Kevin Riley, StarFleet officer and his aide. This sets up Kirk's push for the Enterprise that occurs just before the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Riley's diplomatic career in the novels, and Dr. McCoy's "drafting" back into StarFleet, as well as some scenes showing Spock back on Vulcan. Other than a quick bit with Scotty, that is all the Enterprise crew we see, except for a few broad references. Mostly, we see a few characters Dillard has previously introduced in the series, plus a few more dreamed up for this book. There is nothing wrong with those characters, other than being rather two-dimesionally portrayed. But one wonders if Uhura, Sulu and Chekov couldn't have been brought along for the ride somehow.

The problem with this book is just Dillard. She is so slow to develop a story, and so clumsy at revealing a motivation, that the book often slows to a crawl. In a Dillard book, everything that can go wrong for the characters usually will, and then some, so there is always some suspense. Getting there can be very slow.