This week, Nogura promotes Kirk from construction foreman to media liaison, but it’s his marriage that could really use a little bit of good P.R. Meanwhile, a Klingon schoolteacher in New York has invented a super ball with a heck of a bounce, attracting the interest of some of his less savory brethren. What’s the deal with Timothea Rogers? Will Kevin Riley pull his self-esteem out of the toilet? And won’t someone think of the children? All this and more in A Flag Full of Stars, the book that still celebrates Columbus Day.
Category: TOS Page 11 of 25
(This week’s review requires a content warning for rape. Proceed at your discretion.)
This week, Kirk gets a raw deal on a Freaky Friday and doesn’t even get a Handbook for the Recently Deceased to help him cope. While he struggles to keep it together (literally), his body thief does a U-turn and heads back home with the goal of putting up the ultimate “No Soliciting” sign. What magazines do the senior officers read? What’s the most depraved film Sulu has ever shown in the rec room? What possible excuse could the future have for bad coffee? All this and more in Ghost-Walker, or, The Computer Wore Captain’s Boots.
This week, Kirk squares off with Totally-Not-Q, who banishes three of his officers to tumultuous moments in Earth’s past. While he learns how to play nice with the Klingons and work out the god-alien’s inscrutable morality, his missing crewmen struggle to reconcile their desire to return to their own time with the obligations they’ve committed to in their new surroundings. What’s a ghargh? Is Kirk always this whiny? Why don’t children ever just listen? It’s the book with a special appearance by John Larroquette!
(Hey there, readers, just a quick note prior to this review. Star Trek books rarely get too intense to merit content warnings, but there is a pretty brutal depiction of physical abuse in this book that is mentioned in this review. So, just a heads-up.)
This week, we return to one of the least revisited eras of Trek for a whodunit with the second-string team. An overbearing seductress causes problems for her daughter and her ex; the ship’s guests have a Gordian knot of ideas about harmony and balance and honor that need untangling; and a spy is sneaking around the ship trying to sabotage the negotiations. Why would Spock allow his captain to use a program he knows is unfinished? Have these people somehow not heard of shapeshifting? What is the Enterprise’s porn collection like? Does it actually have one? It’s the book that will at least have no trouble qualifying for the HOV lane.
This week, Kirk breaks Starfleet’s most well-known and revered regulation, and this time he can’t simply chalk it up to bad writing. But his senior officers insist that Starfleet doesn’t know the whole story, and they’re willing to punch admirals, serve jail time, and hijack Orion slave ships to prove their case. As the individual crew members converge on the blockaded world where it all went down, things indeed begin to smell fishy—or more accurately, mildewy. Is this an alternate continuity? Has Spock joined the DSA? Will Sulu ditch his friends and become a full-time pirate? It’s the book that’s infringing on your God-given right to lower gravity.