Another formulaic, cliché-ridden, money-spinning novella, I suspect from the J.J. Abrams School of Writing. The plot was fair enough, although a little heavy-handed (pardon the pun), but Greg Cox is obviously one of those serial novelisation hacks who can quickly process a television series, picking up a handful of memorable episodes and character catchphrases, before spewing out a recognisable but soulless rendition in mass market paperback. He claims to have watched the original series during the 60s, and queued up to watch the films at the cinema, but his version of Captain Kirk et al reads like he merely surfed the Internet for half hour with pen and paper in hand, cribbing from YouTube and Memory Alpha. Kirk 'doesn't believe in no-win scenarios', Uhura quotes that 'risk is our business', and Scotty actually calls another crew member for stealing his 'line', 'They can't take any more!' Not to mention Cox's 'Name that Episode' score chart - when Scotty is taken to sickbay, I knew that his brush with death in The Changeling would be brought up, because Cox must have already name-dropped half of the original series by that point.

Sadly, for Cox and Abrams alike, recapping and quoting doesn't quite capture the spirit of the show or the characters for me. The dialogue was way off, not to mention completely infantile in places - Chekov sneers 'Dramatic much?' like a snarky teenager, and Kirk challenges an opponent with 'Bring it on!' - and none of the original characters sounded remotely familiar. Calling Kirk on his flagrant and constant abuse of the Prime Directive might have been amusing if handled with slightly more subtlety, but the moment was reduced to a long list of - you guessed right - old episode synopses. Kirk gets packed off to fight bare-chested, Spock performs a mind meld, the secondary characters take turns in the big chair, and Sulu earns a placeholder as a love interest. Been there, done that, returned it to the library. The only plus point is that this is a quick - and I mean two or three hours, tops - read.

Where are the writers who actually care about these shows and their characters? Please, rise up and defeat this army of mercenary robots! ( )

Another enjoyable, if somewhat predictable, entry in the Star Trek library by Greg Cox. Predictable, in the sense that (SPOILERS)...

the basic tableau established by the main factions early on plays out to the end. No great plot twists, except for a bit of minor trickery mid-story. Cox, as always, displays his grasp of knowledge of Trek Universe trivia, tossing in references to previous tales, both televised and literary. While this is one of the things I enjoy about Cox's work, he does sometimes appear to be squeezing references in for their sake.

Great to see Uhura showing her command chops in the captain's seat!

As for the overall story, fairly standard (if somewhat heavy handed) social commentary. In this instance, the target is religious fanaticism. Certainly, an engaging topic in any generation. All in all, a fun bit of light reading. ( )