Trek to Madworld

This novel is a perfect example of a situation where just because you can doesn’t necessarily equate to meaning you should. The narrative here is perfectly in line with some of the more outlandish, but still frequent, episodes of the show. Clearly even as early as 1978 Star Trek had become suffused with nearly omnipotent beings, and I’ll admit that creating a sort of rogue Organian is perhaps preferable to adding another of this manner of being in the universe. This novel does not shy away from its acknowledgement that it is a variation on a theme as both “Squire of Gothos” and “Errand of Mercy” are referenced throughout. Admitting my bias up front, I’ve never been much of a fan of these types of stories as it tends to be an excuse for the writers to include whatever they want no matter how irrelevant or anachronistic while also having a built-in narrative trap door through which to escape poor plotting. This isn’t to suggest that all of these stories are poor, The Talosians, Q, entries from the novels like Ay-nab, and many others have been used to great effect creating some of the most memorable and impactful Star Trek moments. However, in many cases, and unfortunately here, it gives the author too much leeway to include whatever comes to mind while completely divesting the work of direction or consequence. 

The story opens with the death of a famous explorer and idol of Kirk’s, Kostas Spyroukis, who, along with his daughter Metika, had spent his last days trying to convince the Council to admit his final discovered world into the Federation. However, it turns out that a dangerous combination of radiation and high levels of argon gas in the atmosphere is poisoning the colonists, so the Enterprise is sent to evacuate. This acts as the ticking clock for the narrative and attempts to heighten the tension when the crew is delayed by the intervention of a rogue Organian name Enowil who has captured a Federation, Romulan, and Klingon ship in order to challenge them to a competition the prize of which is a wish granted by his limitless powers. Enowil claims that despite his complete control of his small pocket universe, there is something missing from the world he has created and he has asked that his visitors help him find what that is. The entire contest, which consists of the participants mentioning something and Enowil creating it as though it was already there, drags on interminably, amounts to nothing, and creates more than a few truly pedestrian moments, namely when Dr. McCoy is given the uncouth act of suggesting that Enowil’s world is missing sex and the entire cast spends the next few, blissfully undescribed, hours doing just that, “Despite McCoy’s hypothesis, there was indeed sex on the planet; each of them had had ample proof of that in the last couple of hours…not only had Enowil provided facilities for every known variation and desire, there were also things available that Kirk, for all his vast experience in the subject, could never have conceived of”(120). Beyond being tawdry and completely out of character for everyone involved, it is also completely gratuitous and has no bearing on the plot except to have the reader wonder why Kirk would take several hours out of his day to have sport sex with a manifestation of Organian mental energy while several hundred colonists are dying of radiation poisoning?

What’s worse is that the entire interaction with Enowil seems to be little more than an excuse to add dragons, orcs, pterodactyls, giants, skeletons, and other detritus which is all flash and no bang to essentially a story about interactions between Romulans, Klingons, and the Federation. Metika, ostensibly one of the protagonists, is convinced by the Klingon captain Kolvar to beam aboard the Romulan ship with a bomb in order to expedite the competition and rescue of the colonists. This is posited as an excuse for the attempted murder of the Romulan crew…Enowil prevents the explosion, as he does with every potentially dangerous situation in the novel, and pairs Metika with a Romulan lieutenant named Breccio in an attempt to create a love story with a newly introduced character in the final forty pages of the novel. 

The apparent climax of the novel involves Kirk chasing after Kolvar who is using a second bomb to try and destroy the Enterprise. The scene is completely devoid of tension as Enowil stops the phasers from working and turns the exploding bomb into a Joker-esque gag. The end suggests that all Enowil was missing was an audience for his creations and he grants Kirk’s wish to save the colonists and create a safe world for them to live on. Metika escapes prosecution for attempted murder, and Breccio for insubordination, apparently because of either the universal law of “no harm, no foul” or “true love” and everyone goes on about their business. 

The story is certainly in the vein of the early awkward steps of Star Trek. The love of the content and characters does show through. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, though largely irrelevant to the plot, are not done any grave injustice in characterization. The cover is exciting but with no relationship to the book beneath. I would not recommend this work to any but the most stalwart of Star Trek completionists.