Timetrap by David Dvorkin

Timetrap by David Dvorkin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A distress call from the vicinity of Tholian space has the Enterprise warping to the rescue, they find a Klingon cruiser caught in a spatial storm which is ripping the ship apart and they refuse the offer of assistance from the Starfleet vessel. Kirk and a security party beam over equipped with some state of the art transponders but once on the bridge of the Klingon warship the storm intensifies and when Kirk awakes his is in the future in a galaxy where the Federation and Klingon Empire are at peace...
Timetrap is certainly an interesting read and well a century or so after TOS and the Organian prophecy as we've seen in TNG the two galactic powers are indeed co-operating on many fronts so is Kirk experiencing the future or is there more going on than meets the eye? I really enjoyed Spock more than anyone else in this novel, the pressure on his mental well being caused by the decision to abandon Kirk and the need to argue his decisions with Starfleet as well as the negative view of the crew for his choice to leave the area all come together to give us a view of Spock we rarely see. McCoy is written well as you would expect as so often being critical to how we view Spock, strangely enough Kirk as a character is less interesting despite his adventures away from his command.

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The Trellisane Confrontation by David Dvorkin

The Trellisane Confrontation by David Dvorkin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Enterprise is assigned to take some high value prisoners to a secure facility, they are a group dedicated to forcing a conflict between the Federation and Romulan Empire. During the pickup Captain Kirk is given access to a weak signal received from the planet Trellisane which is in a contested area of space. The message is vague and corrupted but seems to indicate a Klingon interest in the planet Sealon and the ongoing conflict between the two worlds. Kirk decides to investigate despite his standing orders and finds that the situation is far more advanced and dangerous then they first thought. The Klingons are indeed making a power play in the system but there are many secrets in the Trellisane society which could alter how the Federation feels about these people despite the strategic value of a presence in this area of the galaxy.
The Trellisane Confrontation is a solid run of the mill Star Trek adventure, some decent space combat and two stories running side by side, one on the ship and the other on the planet. I liked the idea of the Onetillian species, not quite sure how it would work but that's not an issue and some of the twists on Trellisane were unexpected and added a rather dark aspect to the story. Overall though a decent Trek story with a few good ideas but doesn't break any new ground.

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