Customer Reviews

Planet of Judgment (Star Trek TOS)

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3 star:		(1)
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This is a fairly good scifi novel, but I never would have gotten through it if I wasn't re-discovering the characters at a time when only the films were being made and way before TNG. So it was nice to read it as fanfiction. However, as a scifi novel, it failed to envelop me into an alien world that I could believe, at least while I was reading it.

My standards for hard scifi are pretty high. This is a story about a plant on which things work differently, where normal technology and even the biology of the inhabitants are somehow askew, not acting in the way that they should. It is a pretty good mystery for a while, with some images like the crewmember who disappears and then is found walking towards the enterprise with his eyes gone and smiling, growing a covering of fur and in need of sleep. But when I arrived at the explanation for it all, I was underwhelmed, to put it mildly. It fell back to an old scifi explanation that is no different from magic.

Recommended as fanfiction only. If you want hard scifi, stay away.

This one is special. It's a quick read and a good one. The scifi is silly at first, but the slow revelation of some very creepy elements will leave you satisfied, spooked, and maybe even shaken. We drop into a detailed, hard-eyed look at the main characters in between plot progression. Several times we get dreamy, half-awake trips into their subconscious minds and memories. It's almost like a collection of short stories at times, some gut-twisting. There's also plenty of action (old-style, Prime-Directive-be-damned), and hints of humor and unrequited romance. Savor this one.

NEVER BEFORE...

Had the Enterprise been betrayed by its own technology. Never before had their systems, instruments and weapons failed to respond. And never before had Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the crew faced a total breakdown of science and sanity... until they stumbled on the mysterious world that couldn't exist...


IS IT IMMORTAL?

It was something like a cross between a huge insect and a centaur. It stood on four massive legs, intricately jointed, covered with shiny black chitin. It egg-shaped body was shiny brown, mottled with green and blue. A thorax rose from the front, covered with black bristles, supporting two arms and a head. The head was triangular, with eyes that looked like two clusters of pale red salmon eggs. The mouth was a small hole, through which a slender black tongue occasionally darted. It was about the size of a large horse. A thick barbed tail, like that of a scorpion, curved under its body.

PLANET OF JUDGMENT