Sean Randall reviewed The Kobayashi Maru by Julia Ecklar
Review of 'The Kobayashi Maru' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
"I am pleased to learn that eighteen hours of unnecessary confinement has not adversely affected your social skills." "Oh, get out of my way!"
mccoy and Spock, bickering as always. it seems really odd to see that again, especially as I went to see the 2009 Star Trek film yesterday. That, and the fact that the original series of Star Trek was never something I followed, really, and it's quite odd indeed.
But on to this story, then. Our intrepid heroes are stuck in a downed shuttle with nothing to do but talk. there's excitement as they try to attract attention to themselves for a rescue and horror as they are about to be smashed into thousands of little bits, but other than that the focus of the story is how each of the officers Kirk, Chekov, Scotty and Sulu) handled the Kobayashi Maru test whilst at Command School.
Kirk's …
"I am pleased to learn that eighteen hours of unnecessary confinement has not adversely affected your social skills." "Oh, get out of my way!"
mccoy and Spock, bickering as always. it seems really odd to see that again, especially as I went to see the 2009 Star Trek film yesterday. That, and the fact that the original series of Star Trek was never something I followed, really, and it's quite odd indeed.
But on to this story, then. Our intrepid heroes are stuck in a downed shuttle with nothing to do but talk. there's excitement as they try to attract attention to themselves for a rescue and horror as they are about to be smashed into thousands of little bits, but other than that the focus of the story is how each of the officers Kirk, Chekov, Scotty and Sulu) handled the Kobayashi Maru test whilst at Command School.
Kirk's approach to the test is nno surprise, we learn some about that in the Wrath of Khan movie and even if we hadn't it's absolutely in character. The method was modified slightly in the new time line as depicted in Star Trek (2009), although the essence remains the same.
Chekov's solution was different, but the focus of his telling is not on the test itself but rather a mission set afterwards. it might have given me more insight into the character but I don't know much about him. Armed with this new information maybe my further reading of TOS material will make more sense.
Sulu also talked about the test, but again, the focus was not the test itself, so much as his experience starting command school. There's a lot of great emotion going on with Sulu's dying grandfather and we see the young Sulu making some pretty tough realisations.
scotty was perhaps the most impressively technical of the four, which is probably to be expected given his Engineering credentials. Good to know that even unparalleled engineering students cannot hold a constitution-class ship against fifteen klingon warbirds, though, makes my in-universe integrity feel firm once more.
A good read for those hungry for character background, I think - although we do have to remember the novels aren't canon. when has that ever stopped anyone? As I've said I'm not too up on my original-series folk, I've read more of them (Spock, Scotty, Kirk in the main) shown in the future, through various contrivances. Still, although there's no major "in the present" action, this volume fills a tidy niche for character history and is well written, paced and thought-provoking throughout.
