Ecklar, Julia

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

3 out of 5

(1 book)

Star Trek: The Kobayashi Maru

Set following 'The Motion Picture' (novelised by Gene Roddenberry), this book sees Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov and Sulu trapped aboard a disabled and drifting shuttlecraft.  As they attempt to figure out a way of signalling Enterprise to rescue them, they pass the time by telling the tales of their time at Command Academy and their individual confrontations with the 'unwinnable' simulator scenario known as the Kobayashi Maru.

Once I knew the premise of this book, I assumed that the author would save Kirk's story for last but I was pleasantly surprised to see that she gets his out of the way first.  Ultimately anyone who's seen 'Wrath of Kahn' know how his turns out (and if you haven't seen it, I require that you immediately stop reading this review and go watch it), so although Kirk's is the definitive Kobayashi Maru, it's more interesting to learn how Chekov, Sulu and Scotty tackled the problem (McCoy never took it, just so you know).  It was interesting to see that each of them takes a completely different approach to the problem based on their particular talents and personalities, but each also, ultimately, is right in what they do.

The problem is that, outside of the specifics of how each scenario plays out, there's really not that much to this book.  Added to that is the fact that, for some hard-to-define reason, the characters presented here just don't quite gel with their onscreen personalities.  Chekov is the most off, being surly and uncommunicative, but all of the characters failed to feel like the 'real' thing to me.

3 out of 5

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Star Trek (here)