Customer Reviews

Star Trek: Windows on a Lost World

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Windows on a Lost World is one of the more technical Star Trek novels. My background lies more with the humanities, so I felt the story dragged a bit, but even though I wasn't particularly interested in the anthropology, geology, and oceanography related issues that were dealt with, I recognized that it was well thought out and written.

A Trekker who is interested in such subjects will this a worthwhile read.

Star Trek novels are certainly not works of creative genius or high literary quality, but they are generally fun to read. "Windows on a Lost World," however, was not. Many of the beloved Star Trek characters, Dr. McCoy and Chekov in particular, behave in ways that run counter to their carefully developed personalities. The plot device of having main characters turn into crabs wears thin quickly. There are some fairly major holes in the plot as well.

My wife and I have read many Star Trek novels over the years, and we both agreed that "Windows on a Lost World" is by far the worst.

There are flaws; how the alien race can have a "name" for themselves that translates into a verbal sound (Kh!lict) when their language has no sounds, but is one of color and movement, is a question I find unanswerable. Still, there are relatively few such flaws in an otherwise exquisite story. Good pacing, good characterization, fascinating plot hook. One of the best. But in spite of the cover, don't expect Chekov to play a major role, he really doesn't. This is a classic Kirk/Spock story.

This is the story of an archaeological mission that goes spectacularly and uniquely wrong. The crew discover a transporter-like device that converts Kirk, Chekov and several others into the long-dead aliens that originally inhabited the planet. Kirk has to figure out how to contact Spock from inside an alien body while Spock must decipher the alien technology and change the converted crew back before they go insane. The scenes with Kirk in the alien body are very well written and the slow unravelling of the alien society is well paced and depicted. The archaeological investigations of Spock are also written, although others may find them to be lacking in events and with too much time on descriptions. Stories in which the crew actually spend their time in scientific exploration are fairly rare, and this is a very good and detailed one.

The novel starts out well, the Enterprise finds a major artifact on a distant world and investigates. Then they go through the window and turn into crabs.

Now, that in itself isn't a story killer. However, these crabs culture is explained over and over for the next hundred or so pages, with some salvation in short chapters where Spock can't understand the totally alien technology.

It gets boring very fast. I wanted to yell to the author, "enough! I get it...they are xenophobic and have color/movement based language!"

Speaking of boring, the story is very non-dramatic. Spock tries to decipher the technology while Kirk/crab slides down hills on his back chasing a female crab.

I would have given this story 2 stars because it was boring but not bad...until the end. The post story briefing is, to put it mildly, stupid. Without giving it away for those determined to read this, the ending is somewhat like if, having seen a horror movie and deciding that it was so bad you will never watch a movie again. There is a massive overreaction to the events in the story and to the artifacts. It also felt like the author was tired of his/her own story and decided to just be done with it.

There are tons better Trek novels, don't waste your time on this one.

I tried to read this book with an open mind, but really found it to be a hard read. I can't recommend this one at all. My suggestion? If you want to become totally immersed in an alien culture, read "Uhura's Song" by Janet Kagan.

An archaelogy team on Careta IV discovers a window-like transporter that sends Kirk, Chekov, an archaelogist with a superiority attitude, and several security guards to a time when the planet's original inhabitants were giant crabs. These crabs had the strange idea that they were the only intelligent species in the galaxy and therefore had the right to kill everybody else. Spock has to learn how to communicate with Kirk and feed him, so that the humans could revert to their original forms. Along the way, Spock's team learns of the inhabitant's culture, including the horrific sacrifices and the crabs' education. Giant or small, the only thing crabs are good for are eating them. A whole civilization of them is a nightmare!

This book is somewhat hard to understand. The Enterprise uncovers a window, and Checkov is sucked in with a few security guards. Then Kirk is sucked in too. It takes a long time for the crew to find out that they have been turned into giant crabs. The only way to get back to normal is to find the other window and go through it. This book is ok, if you like a lot of explaination, and confusion. I would only recommend this book to those who trully would read every Star Trek book out there.

I had hoped for an interesting archeological book, when I picked this Star Trek novel up. And (in the end) that's what I've got: the discovery of an ancient society, a race that lived before the first race known to man so far.

Unfortunately it's not all new there. The society closely resembles Aztec culture with it's sacrificial slaughter, although the motives of the Kh!lict are xenofobic, and not religious. More interesting is that the Kh!lict have a non-vocal communication in which colors are important; that the crab-like creatures evolve from male to female during their lives; that they live in a matriarchal society; and that the body of knowledge that this society wants their members to have, is imprinted in its adolecents during a rite of passage.

The Kh!lict society is long gone, but is discovered from the inside out, nevertheless. A strange divice turns several crew members into Kh!lict (yes: into crabs). Honestly, it took me some time to adjust to this plot device. But I must admit: it was one of the best ways of archeological exploration I've seen so far. I got used to it after a while.

So: my end conclusion is that I have mixed feelings about this book. If you like archeology, philosophy, sociology or antropology you'll like it. If you expect starships to boldly go - etcetera, this one's probably not for you.

Never judge a book by its cover. This books cover looks much better than the inside.