Looking for the name of a book?

[Idoliside]

I thought I would pass this question on from the trekbooks subreddit but someone asked the name of a book with only the following description.

"Around 1990 - during my mid-teens - I remember being down at the beach reading an even-then relatively old trek novel. The story centered on either Kirk or Spock (Kirk if I remember correctly) having lost his memory and the rest of the crew are searching for him.
It's been nagging at me for some time, now. I know definitely that it isn't Ishmael (by Barbara Hambly). Any suggestions appreciated."

Anyone have any ideas. The only one I could find that was close was Doctor's Orders by Diane Duane.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The story centered on either Kirk or Spock (Kirk if I remember correctly) having lost his memory and the rest of the crew are searching for him.
It's been nagging at me for some time, now. I know definitely that it isn't Ishmael (by Barbara Hambly).

Is it "Ghost-Walker", also by Barbara Hambly? Doesn't Kirk disappear between the bulkhead walls, due to an alien invader?

 

[Stevil2001]

Yes, but he doesn't lose his memory.

My first thought was "Mind-Sifter" in The New Voyages, where Kirk is stranded in the past without his memories, and the Enterprise goes on for a year without him.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

I thought of Mind-Sifter too... Hmm. Either we're both right or both wrong.

 

[Christopher]

"Mind-Sifter"'s the only prose story I can recall about the crew searching for an amnesiac Kirk (aside from the Blish adaptation of "The Paradise Syndrome," of course, though there's very little searching in that one).

 

[Biffette]

Was it Timetrap?
http://www.well.com/~sjroby/lcars/1988.html

Determined to discover what the Klingons are doing in Federation space, Kirk beams aboard their ship with a security team, just as the storm flares to its highest intensity. As the bridge crew watches in horror, Mauler vanishes from the Enterprise's viewscreen.

And James T. Kirk awakens... one hundred years in the future.
​

And . . . (spoiler)

He wasn't really time traveling, it was a Klingon ruse. I don't recall the book too clearly but he couldn't remember everything and he kept getting sick . . and wow I really barely remember this one. The Klingons were trying to fool him into thinking that they and the Federation were at peace so he would reveal strategic information that was "ancient history."
​

 

[captcalhoun]

that sounds like part of the plot to Future Imperfect!

 

[Turtletrekker]

^I was thinking the same thing.

 

[garamet]

An idea that was explored in 1965 in a movie called 36 Hours:

Germans kidnap an American major and try to convince him that World War II is over, so that they can get details about the Allied invasion of Europe out of him.

 

[Christopher]

^And Mission: Impossible did the occasional episode along the same lines -- trying to convince people they'd awakened in the future in order to convince them that their evil schemes had already succeeded/gone horribly wrong and that it was now safe/necessary to talk about secrets that were no longer current.

Although they did a strange inversion of that in a late episode with William Shatner; he played an aging gangster who was temporarily made to look and feel younger as part of a plan to convince him he was back in the '40s so that he'd re-enact a crime he'd committed at the time and lead them to where a body was buried. Why that actually worked was never explained.

 

[TheAlmanac]

I always thought Timetrap was a really clever premise for a book at the precise time it was released. In 1988, TNG was already out, but very little was known about the 24th century--besides the fact that the Klingons were now Federation allies.

As such, the reader could be temporarily led to believe that maybe Kirk really had travelled forward in time...

 

[Christopher]

^Yep. It definitely worked best at that particular narrow juncture in Trek history. In particular, it worked with the idea that was implicit in early TNG that Klingon society had actually undergone some reforms since the 23rd century -- as opposed to the later TNG and DS9 stuff that showed the Klingons were just as barbaric as ever, making the whole idea of an alliance with the Federation rather incongruous.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

Ack...anyone know how to get rid of the Axe Games ad? I've got two getting in my way...

Well, refresh did it for now.
I was actually going to say that plot from Timetrap et al. also appears in Stargate SG1.

 

[Idoliside]

SG-1 has many similar and overlapping plots to trek. But I think alot of science fiction tends to blur a bit.

 

[Christopher]

There are only so many stories, period. Every story's been told in many different ways.

 

[Stevil2001]

I always thought Timetrap was a really clever premise for a book at the precise time it was released. In 1988, TNG was already out, but very little was known about the 24th century--besides the fact that the Klingons were now Federation allies.

As such, the reader could be temporarily led to believe that maybe Kirk really had travelled forward in time...

If I remember right, Kirk is even told that there is a Klingon serving on the Enterprise these days! Which sealed it for me, even reading it in the 1990s.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Ack...anyone know how to get rid of the Axe Games ad? I've got two getting in my way...

**cough**Ad-Aware**cough**

 

[Idoliside]

I use <Removed by Moderator>, great way to actually do some net-fu without being distracted.

 

[LightningStorm]

I use <Removed by Moderator>, great way to actually do some net-fu without being distracted.

We take a hard stance against the blocking of site ads. This post has therefore resulted in an infraction.

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[Idoliside]

Ive passed on the suggestions to the person looking for the trek book. Hopefully he will get back to me soon whether it was the right book or not.