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Title: Star Trek The Kobayashi Maru (Star Trek: The Original Series) by Julia Ecklar, James Doohan ISBN: 0-671-04486-9 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Pub. Date: 01 January, 1999 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.98 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: This Book Rules
Comment: This book is four stories, three in the past and one in the present. Chekov, Kirk, Scotty, Sulu and McCoy are trapped in a ripped up shuttle and must stay alive (they live, DUH). They have nothing better to do than let Kirk, Sulu, and Chekov tell about their expirience with the Kobayashi Maru scenario (no-win scenario). The best story is od Checkov in a shootout in an abandoned space station with other cadets. That alone is worth the entire price of the book. The Next best story is of the actual fight to stay alive ion the shuttle. Then comes Kirk's story which is pretty good. The only part of story I didn't like was the big emotional story thing with Sulu. THIS BOOK IS WORTH READING!
Rating: 4
Summary: Character studies of a quartet of Starfleet Cadets
Comment: 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?
Rating: 5
Summary: Outstanding
Comment: 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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Title: Yesterday's Son (Star Trek, No 11) by A.C. Crispin ISBN: 0671038516 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: Faces of Fire (Star Trek, Book 58) by Michael Jan Friedman ISBN: 0671749927 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $5.50 |
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Title: The Wounded Sky (Star Trek, No 13) by Diane Duane ISBN: 067174352X Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 September, 1991 List Price(USD): $5.50 |
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Title: The Entropy Effect (Star Trek, No 2) by Vonda N. McIntryre ISBN: 0671836927 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 June, 1981 List Price(USD): $2.50 |
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Title: Time for Yesterday (Star Trek, No 39) by A.C. Crispin ISBN: 0671038575 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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