Book Review: Lost to Eternity (Star Trek The Original Series)

 

 

So heads up, my reviews between now and next fall will be a little shorter than normal. I am very, very busy planning the 4th international Philip K. Dick Festival in Fullerton, CA from August 20-23rd. It is going to rule, so join us there if you can. I am also working on a SF novella, and the final edits of the sequel to The Last Night To Kill Nazis.  Yeah, that is why the reviews have been a little shorter.

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 Lost to Eternity ( Star Trek: The Original Series) by Greg Cox

400 pages, Paperback
Published July, 2024 by Pocket Books/Star Trek

 I can start by saying that I was a big fan of Greg Cox’s work in Star Trek long before I got to know him a bit. My respect for him has grown, as we have podcasted together about Richard Matheson (Cox served as his editor) and CL Moore.  His trilogy about the Eugenics War was about as close to a magic trick you can do when writing a tie-in novel. Respecting the canon of a show while acknowledging the passing of the years is a needle the producers of SNW didn’t bother to thread. ( I like SNW, but think the handling of Khan was a head scratcher. ) 

I was excited to read this one in part because it has Savvik, a character I always enjoy seeing writers expand on. This is a GREAT novel, and yes, it is a Star Trek novel. It uses canon we know, and events of well-known episodes and movies to great effect.  It is a novel that explores the butterfly effect from the time travel in Star Trek IV The One with the Whales…uh Voyage Home as an inciting incident.

Built on three timelines, A peace conference around the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,  the third year of the Enterprise’s 5-year mission, and our current modern day. The modern story is about a podcaster, Melinda Silver, looking into the disappearance of Gillian Taylor after she left with the Enterprise.  

Cox builds a credible and intense villain around the scene played for laughs in Voyage Home, with McCoy giving a woman a pill that fixes her Kidney in a miraculous way. So we get a bad guy who is inspired by this to try to live forever, and is still causing nasty business centuries later. The story of the podcaster trying to solve the mystery of Gillian is excellently woven into the story and leads to a great and very satisfying ending.  The way the novel shifts between the three timelines is really well done, and rewards those of us who know lots of ST canon.  Big Thumbs up.