Shell Game (Star Trek, Book 63) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ Melissa Crandall (Author) "THE CREW OF THE St. Brendan cautiously followed Captain Loughran over the railing and onto the derelict vessel they had discovered..." (more)
Key Phrases: Ensign Hallie, Captain Kirk, Lieutenant Chekov (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Shell Game

While on the routine mission to retrieve a research drone for recycling, the U.S.S. Enterprise™ encounters a Romulan space station adrift within Federation borders. Exploring the lifeless station, the crew finds ghostly apparitions flitting at the edges of sight.

Soon the U.S.S. Enterprise is also inexplicably without power. Captain Kirk and his crew must now solve the mystery of the strange apparitions before the Starship suffers the station's fate.

The situation becomes desperate when a Romulan warship arrives looking for the station, and the Romulan Commander accuses the Federation of treachery. Before Captain Kirk can save the Starship Enterprise from complete destruction, he must avoid becoming drawn into a deadly shell game -- a game that will leave no winners and no survivors...

From the Publisher

While on a routine mission to retrieve a research drone for recycling, the U.S.S. Enterprise^TM encounters a Romulan space station adrift within Federation borders. Exploring the lifeless station, the crew finds ghostly apparitions flitting at the edges of sight.

Soon the U.S.S. Enterprise is also inexplicably without power. Captain Kirk and his crew must now solve the mystery of the strange apparitions before the Starship suffers the station's fate.

The situation becomes desperate when a Romulan warship arrives looking for the station, and the Romulan Commander accuses the Federation of treachery. Before Captain Kirk can save the Starship Enterprise from complete destruction, he must avoid becoming drawn into a deadly shell game, a game that will leave no winners and no survivors.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 277 pages
• Publisher: Star Trek; 1St Edition edition (February 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671795724
• ISBN-13: 978-0671795726
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #120,183 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tolerably good plot., July 13, 2004

By	James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Somewhat poor execution.

Set in the period, as near as I can tell, between "Star Trek I: The Motion Picture" and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (based on the fact that the apparently original Enterprise is intact, and Chekov is security chief rather than navigator), the plot of this story is something of a cross between the original series episode "The Immunity Syndrome", in which the Enterprise encounters a giant, energy-eating space amoeba, and the pilot episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", in which Picard and crew meet and witness the birth of alien creatures at Farpoint Station. As such, it is pretty standard "Trek" fare, and the characterizations are handled pretty well, but the actual writing itself (and its concommitant editing) gets a bit sloppy at times; never mind the use of "suppose" instead of "supposed" (as in "what's that suppose to mean"); that's such a common error I suppose I should stop bothering to point it out any more. But there are the several points at which the author demonstrates that she is unaware that the verb form of "mold" is "molder", rather than "mold", and so we're told that food is "molding" on tables; unless the food is sentient and sculpting something, she meant "moldering". There's the point at which we are told that the doors "closed quietly as his back" when Kirk walked through them; unless for some reason, Kirk's back is supposed (suppose?) to be the epitome of silence, I must assume this to be a typo meant to say "AT his back". We are told at another point that "neither of them (McCoy and a security ensign) thought it prudent at this time to force way in" rather than "force THEIR way in" or "force A way in". We are told that "McCoy fought a smile but continued to watch the Chekov", as though Chekovs were a racial subgroup. We are told about an ensign who was "undermined by baggage from his past he probably hadn't even know he still carried". There is a reference to "unaccostumed energy sources" (energy sources not dressed for Halloween?) and a piece of dialogue in which McCoy tells Kirk not to ever tell him again that the transporter "isn't something to be worry about".

I realize that criticizing typos and editing, grammar and word usage in mass-market paperbacks is something like shooting fish in a barrel, but when the errors are this frequent, the story has to be better than mediocre to offset them. This one is, but only just.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not As Good As It Could Have Been, August 6, 1999

By A Customer

It was an OK book. Not great, but OK. The premise was not bad, but could have been done better. One thing I liked was the fact that, even though its another Kirk-Verses-Romulans book, theres some originality.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Enterprise and the Romulans play a deadly game., August 21, 1997

By A Customer

A typical Star Trek original novel with Kirk and company versus the Romulans.

Throw in a derelict space station for a plot twist.

Not as outstanding as others in the series.