Star Trek: How Much for Just the Planet? [Hardcover]

John M. Ford (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Pocket Books; Book Club (BCE/BOMC) edition (January 1, 1988)
• ASIN: B002K9TU0A
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trek meets the 3 Stooges?, November 26, 2000

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Chapulina R (Tovarischi Imports, USA/RUS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Much for Just the Planet? (Star Trek, No 36) (Mass Market Paperback)

This book has occasionally been called the sequel to "The Final Reflection". Actually, it is no such thing. But it is the book which *could have been* the sequel, had Paramount granted John M. Ford free rein to write another about the Klingon culture he had so meticulously developed in his first Trek novel. Instead, Paramount had begun to exercise tighter control over pro-novelists' creativity, and this book was Ford's response to such stiflement. And by Kahless' Hand, did he have fun with it! "How Much For Just the Planet" is not just a spoof of Star Trek, but a spoof of Paramount itself: "...Scott's eye was caught by an unusual constellation: a ring of stars haloing a distant peak. 'Look at that, now. Doesn't it awe you a little? To think there might be a higher power than us, arranging matters?'..." (To fully appreciate that passage, envision the Paramount icon.) So we get Kirk and the Klingons in a riotous quasi-musical Busby Berkely-type comedy production culminating in the intergalactic pie-fight. Trek purists tend to hate this novel as much as Paramount and Pocket do, but Ford's fans laugh along with him. Vengeance is a dish best served cold, and this one tastes sweet as a pink n'gaan milkshake!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Continuing the tradition of comedy in STAR TREK, August 2, 2003

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Joshua Rosenblum "Supergenius" (Ramadi, Iraq) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How Much for Just the Planet? (Star Trek, No 36) (Mass Market Paperback)

It seems like the people who detest this book (and there seems to be a lot of them) have forgotten that many of the original STAR TREK episodes were played for comedy. One of the appealing things about "The Original Series" (TOS) is that it wasn't particularly hamstrung by conventionality. Sure TOS did great drama (think "City on the Edge of Forever") but some of the most innovative and beloved episodes such as "A Piece of the Action" or "The Trouble with Tribbles" were flat out comedies.

"How Much for Just the Planet?" by author John M. Ford continues this tradition in style. This is Ford's second (and apparently last) STAR TREK novel, following up his outstanding "The Final Reflection." But, unlike that deadly serious book, Ford boldly takes us where no TREK novel has gone before, the final frontier of humour.

The plotline begins quite conventionally, with Kirk et al of the USS Enterprise making their way to the planet Direidi, a treasure trove of dilithium (crystals vital for warp travel) to represent the United Federation of Planets. The problem is that representatives of the Klingon Empire are also on-planet negotiating for mineral rights. Even more disturbing is that the indigenous population of the planet is behaving just a little bit, well...funny.

The rest of the story is a humourous adventure of mistaken identity, valuable mcguffins, mass distraction, misplaced jealousy, Gilbert & Sullivan songs, paranoid computers, peppermint flavored Vulcan milkshakes and yes, a pie fight.

The difficulty in reading "How Much For Just the Planet?" comes from the problem of trying to convey timing through the written word. Most of the impact of comedy comes not from the written word, but from the timing in the delivery. (This is likely why no other TREK novel has followed the humourous course.) It is not enough to simply read the text in this novel, you have to actively imagine how the actors (Shatner, et al) would precisely respond in their roles. You have to take your knowledge of how they've responded in the past, in TV episodes or movies, and actively integrate it into this story. This could be difficult to do even for a real TREK fan.

But for those willing to put the effort into it, "How Much For Just the Planet?" is an extremely rewarding novel. It's a pity that Ford seems uninterested in writing another TREK novel, as this one and "The Final Reflection" (the only TREK novel that I'd argue counts as real literature) shows a willingness to play with the franchise and break out of the conventional and boring approaches to STAR TREK in almost all the other books.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for everyone., March 28, 2002

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James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How Much for Just the Planet? (Star Trek, No 36) (Mass Market Paperback)

It was a difficult decision whether to give this novel four stars or five, and not because it was "somewhere in between". It was either very specifically four stars, or very specifically five.

There is a legitimate school of thought that says that it should get five stars, because it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish (being a hilariously funny spoof of Star Trek) near-perfectly.

There is another school of thought which says that Star Trek is at its best when it manages to maintain a sense of humor about itself, WHILE NONETHELESS TELLING A DRAMATIC STORY. This book succeeds gloriously in maintaining a sense of humor, but fails at actually telling a dramatic story. It makes for an enjoyable read, but it a flawed Star trek novel because it misses the balance between the two.

As you can tell by the fact that I ultimately rated it four stars, I'm of the second school of thought. Still, it is a marvellous romp, reminiscent in style of Robert Asperin's "Myth" series.

(Of course, there's a third school of thought, which maintains that "THAT'S NOT FUNNY! How dare they mock Star Trek?" But just ignore that school of thought. Unless, of course, you firmly believe that Star Trek should always be taken seriously.)