This was, unfortunately, not the best Star Trek book I've ever read. In fact, it was less than mediocre, despite the promising summary on the back of the book.
It starts out alright, McCoy and Spock supposedly "die" and Kirk can't locate them in a potentially hostile environment and the threat level is raised. But then it stops escalating into a good book and stays "poor" in my opinion. Throughout the book, Spock and McCoy try to get off the planet while the Enterprise computers continue to respond in an "off" manner. Each section didn't contain enough action to keep me hooked.
There was so much whining by the planets' inhabitants I was really put off. Plus, the plot is so technically complex, I found myself putting the book down and not wanting to continue further. There is little interaction between Spock and McCoy and little time to mourn them by their captain. It was more about the "story" aspect and had very little to do with the characters themselves. The book brought in a lot of facts from the original series, even going as far as to involve an old "enemy" of Kirk's in this plot. That could be viewed as "sticking to the original story line" but I felt the author was so unimaginative that they had to take an enemy from the series and reuse him instead of giving me a fresh, new, inventive enemy.
I wouldn't suggest this unless you really want to try it for yourself and are a relentless reader through all the boring-ness.
It starts out alright, McCoy and Spock supposedly "die" and Kirk can't locate them in a potentially hostile environment and the threat level is raised. But then it stops escalating into a good book and stays "poor" in my opinion. Throughout the book, Spock and McCoy try to get off the planet while the Enterprise computers continue to respond in an "off" manner. Each section didn't contain enough action to keep me hooked.
There was so much whining by the planets' inhabitants I was really put off. Plus, the plot is so technically complex, I found myself putting the book down and not wanting to continue further. There is little interaction between Spock and McCoy and little time to mourn them by their captain. It was more about the "story" aspect and had very little to do with the characters themselves. The book brought in a lot of facts from the original series, even going as far as to involve an old "enemy" of Kirk's in this plot. That could be viewed as "sticking to the original story line" but I felt the author was so unimaginative that they had to take an enemy from the series and reuse him instead of giving me a fresh, new, inventive enemy.
I wouldn't suggest this unless you really want to try it for yourself and are a relentless reader through all the boring-ness.