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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A little-known gem, January 11, 2001
When I was younger I was a big fan of the ST:TOS and ST:TNG series of novels. But if you read these series for any length of time you soon come to realize that most of these books are poorly written crap. "The Kobayashi Maru," however, is a hidden gem that stands the test of time. I own about 40 Star Trek novels and this is the only one I've read more than once. I recently read it for a third time after many years and it's still as good as I remember. What makes this book so special is that it relies on character rather than plot to keep you entertained. Whereas most Star Trek books assume everybody knows about the characters and concentrate on interesting plot twists, this book goes behind the larger than life heroic aspect of the original crew and examines them as real people with real hopes and dreams and fears. The book is broken into four flashbacks of how Kirk, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov each managed in their own way to beat the Starfleet Academy's Kobayashi Maru combat simulation, the so called "impossible scenario," framed within the present day story of a shuttlecraft problem. What makes these stories so charming is that they each show something special about the four characters, who really come to life in new ways when we see them as cadets, but still ring true as the people we know them as in the "present" as Enterprise crewmembers. This book is true quality, and well worth buying even for casual fans of Trek.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Character studies of a quartet of Starfleet Cadets, October 13, 2000
Julia Ecklar does two things with the Kobayashi Maru simulation that was one of the most interesting sub-plots in "Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan." The first is that she goes back and tells the story of how Jim Kirk became the only cadet at Starfleet Academy ever to beat the "no-win scenario." The second is that she also tells the stories of the cadet encounters of Chekov, Sulu and Scotty with that same scenario. The framing story involves a freak shuttlecraft accident with gives the four officers and McCoy nothing to do but tell their stories. The four stories are quite different. Kirk's story, "The No-Win Scenario," is devoid of dramatic punch since we all know the outcome, but it does establish that the Kobayashi Maru test is less about tactical decisions and more about an individual's character. Obviously young Jim Kirk is going to have all the attributes that would make him "The Captain Kirk." Chekov's chapter, "How You Play the Game," spends little time on the Kobayashi Maru test focusing more on a survival exercise on the Moon base and Pavel's desire to be just like the great James T. Kirk. In "Crane Dance," Sulu tells the story of how he came to make the decisions he did during his taking of the test. The shortest and funniest tale is Scotty's "In Theory," which shows the engineer was not suited for command, even though he exhibited an unprecedented talent for destruction, when he could be bothered to pay attention to all those attacking Klingon war dragons. These are an interesting set of stories, not particularly insightful but certainly true to the characters. I have been surprised that the idea of the Kobayashi Maru as a standardized Star Trek Rorschach test has not been repeated in the other series. After all, what Star Trek fan would not be interested in finding out what Spock, Worf, Data, Sisko, and everybody else did when confronted with the no-win scenario?
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, December 20, 2003
This is one of my all-time favorite books. I received it as a gift ten years ago, and I still reread it from time to time. I enjoy it thoroughly each time. The Kobayashi Maru is a simulator exercise all command students at Starfleet Academy must go through to test how well they respond to losing. Decades after they took the test, several officers of the starship Enterprise leave the ship in a small shuttlecraft on what is supposed to be a routine mission. When the shuttlecraft is disabled, cutting off the craft's communications and other vital functions, they are left with nothing but time, and they end up telling each other about their experiences with the Kobayashi Maru exercise. My favorite of the four stories is that of Scotty, who is in command school at Starfleet Academy to please his mother but feels that he is "meant more for commanding machines than commanding people." My second favorite is the story of Sulu, who in his first year in command school learns painful lessons about life, death, and meaning from his great-grandfather. This story makes me cry every time. I also like the story of Chekov, whose passions, resentments, and blind spots will remind the mature of what it was like to be an adolescent pickling in emotional turmoil. I felt that the story of Kirk was the weakest of the four; Kirk can't accept the concept of losing and will do anything to avoid coming face to face with defeat. For a man who is supposed to be intelligent and skilled, this is an asinine attitude. Life is about losing, and the sooner one comes to terms with that, the sooner one starts to grow. On the whole, however, this book is outstanding.
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