Customer Reviews

Trek to Madworld: A Star Trek Novel

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The Enterprise takes Kostas Spyroukis and his daughter back to his new home planet. Spyroukis is an explorer and renowned colonizer of worlds, and has decided to settle on his final world. On the way home he collapses, and dies. Dr. McCoy discovers that the cause is a combination of argon in the planet's atmosphere, and zeton radiation emitted by the sun. Alone, neither of these things is harmful, but together they make up a slow poison. Captain Kirk sends the ship off on a mission to remove the colonists from the deadly planet, but on the way they are intercepted by a powerful being calling himself Enowil, who identifies himself as an Organian split with his fellows, and living in an uncharted region of space. He has brought the Enterprise, as well as a Klingon and Romulan ship to his home to help him answer the question of what he is missing. The first to discover will be given anything they desire. Kirk determines that he must participate, lest one of the others discover the answer and wish for an unbeatable superweapon.

The writing here is rather pedestrian, not what you would expect from a seasoned s-f writer such as Goldin. Too often I found myself saying, "Why don't they just.....?" The usual answer is, because then the problem would be solved and the book would be even shorter than it is (179 pages). Couldn't Kirk ask Enowil to intervene on the colony world, and set that problem aside? Eliminating the argon from the world's atmosphere would seem to be an effective method.

This book also suffers from a malady common to the Bantam paperbacks, which all seem to have a title with some variation of "world" in it. It involves an extremely powerful machine or being, which Kirk and crew must outwit, or persuade to their side, or some such. This was also a frequent problem on the TV series, and is a symptom of lazy plotting. With a nearly omnipotent agent, virtually anything can be accomplished, and any plot holes the writer puts him/herself in can be dodged. However, it also leads to many "why don't they" questions.

I can't recommend this book, unless you are a real ST novel completist. It's not bad, really, but there's not much to get excited about.

The bantam versions of these ST books are in general inferior to their pocket book competitors. The only need that this book would fulfill is to have something with the characters one knows, so that one can commune with them for a little while.

The plot of this is insipid and unoriginal: a superior being, who is nuts, is playing with them and gets them into danger. He happens to be an organian, those throbbing balls of light who enforced a peace with the Klingons.

This is nothing to remember, just a rehash of well known scifi and comic book traditions, however well it is executed. I was growing bored of these treatments at the time I read it, and looking at it again briefly, I have absolutely no desire to read it again.

Not recommended.

This book is totally terrible. Confusing. It doesn't make sense. It is full of inaccuracies.

For example, if Romulans in Goldin's pathetic excuse for a story are honorable, then why did the Romulan try to shoot a defenseless woman? Second thing is this book is racist stuff. If Goldin cited all Klinons are treacherous, then he must be implying all Germans are nazis, Irish are alcoholics and terrorists, etc. I would not say those words. I don't even imply them.

This is one of the pre Pocket Books Star Trek novels. Published in the late 70's as part of the ramp up for a second series, this is a new adventure molded in the shape of the TOS series.

i would not recommend it for reading, trust me.

I really liked this book. Goldin has done a great done putting our heroes in the path of a mad Organian. I liked the first part of the book before they met Enowil. But the trip through madworld is a bit tedious and the subplot between the girl and the Romulan is a bit bland. Overall though it was very entertaining. I really enjoyed it!