Star Trek: World Without End by Joe Haldeman (1979)

[Damian]

I just finished this novel over the weekend. Someone on another thread noted a lot of the old Bantam novels follows a familiar pattern where the crew waltzes into an unfamiliar place and bumbles around for a while until they figure things out. This book follows that pattern as well. However, that being said, this is one of the better Bantam era novels, which makes it about an average story in my book (I probably would rate all but 2 or 3 below average so that's pretty good ).

The Enterprise encounters a travelling spaceship that is a perfect sphere, known as Chattalia, and the inhabitants are unaware they are on a spaceship, and it is headed for an area of space it won't be able to survive in. Now this sounds an awful lot like "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", though no mention is made of similarities to that episode, though other details differ. The spaceship in some ways reminded me a bit of a Dyson Sphere as well, though that is not mentioned either (though a Dyson Sphere is featured in another Bantam novel "A Starless World"). The Enterprise sends down what they call a 'conflict team', which I assume is the same as a landing party (not sure why it's called a 'conflict' team). They discover the inhabitants are totally alien, and they are arranged in an unusual caste system, where the ones running the 'ship' are called magicians. The landing party, um, sorry, 'conflict team' is taken prisoner and they learn there is something unusual about the ship that allows transport in, but not out, something about how perfectly round the ship is. Anyway, with the help of an 'interpreter' they manage to escape and the Enterprise sends them additional weapons and tools to use as they try to find the lead magicians.

Meanwhile the Enterprise finds the wreckage of a Klingon vessel that crashed on the surface of the sphere hundreds of years prior. As they investigate they find out the ships crew transported into the ship and were eventually killed by the Chattalians. Meanwhile the Enterprise finds it's energy is being drained and they are slowly being pulled toward the ship, which will mean they will have the same fate as the Klingons. Most of the crew except for Mr. Scott beam into the ship and Scotty is left behind to try to destroy the bomb before all their energy runs out.

The lan….conflict team finds out the Chattalians believe the Starfleet team is just another variation of the Klingons, hence their hostility toward the team (don't forget, this was prior the TMP's new ridged Klingons so Klingons appeared superficially like humans). They make their way to the center of the ship and find out more about the Chattalians. That many do not really die, but are regenerated, and not by cloning (allowing them to retain their memories of their past lives). They also find many of the controls are plant based in origin, making it easier to regenerate parts. Also the Klingons intercept a distress signal sent by the Enterprise and they send what's called a 'nova' bomb to destroy the ship (and the Enterprise as well---though they have to be careful to do it in such a way that doesn't violate the Organian Peace Treaty). The Klingons are depicted in their earlier form of course, as sneaky and barbaric.

Now, while the story is a bit formulaic of other Bantam era novels, this novel does it in such a way that it does introduce some unique concepts and aliens. The ending was a bit abrupt--as if the author realized he was getting close to his quota (the book is about 160 pages long). It moves along pretty good, then suddenly everything is resolved. It's explained what happens but it feels like it skips a few steps. But still, it's not a bad book. It kept my attention throughout, and Haldeman does try to introduce a bit of science in his book and gives some relevant background at times. And it's always interesting to read Star Trek books written at a time, in this case, before even TMP was released (this book came out 02/1979).

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, it's not as good as Haldeman's first Trek book Planet of Judgment, and in some ways it's a familiar formula (sort of a middle ground between the earlier The Starless World and the later The Galactic Whirlpool), but there are some interesting details to the execution, thanks to Haldeman's distinctive SF vision and writing style. The fun thing about the Bantam and early Pocket novels is that the need to conform to a consistent vision of the Trek universe wasn't as strong and there was more room for individual writers to filter it through their own worldbuilding lenses, sort of like "This is the version of Star Trek I would've made." Haldeman's version, for instance, is partly influenced by his own military experience, which is why his approach to landing parties involves procedures, equipment, etc. that we never saw on the show but which make a lot of sense from a practical standpoint.

WWE was also an interesting exercise in Klingon culture-building, at a point when Klingon Kulture had barely been touched on and there was plenty of room for imagination.

 

[Damian]

Yeah, it's not as good as Haldeman's first Trek book Planet of Judgment, and in some ways it's a familiar formula (sort of a middle ground between the earlier The Starless World and the later The Galactic Whirlpool), but there are some interesting details to the execution, thanks to Haldeman's distinctive SF vision and writing style. The fun thing about the Bantam and early Pocket novels is that the need to conform to a consistent vision of the Trek universe wasn't as strong and there was more room for individual writers to filter it through their own worldbuilding lenses, sort of like "This is the version of Star Trek I would've made." Haldeman's version, for instance, is partly influenced by his own military experience, which is why his approach to landing parties involves procedures, equipment, etc. that we never saw on the show but which make a lot of sense from a practical standpoint.

WWE was also an interesting exercise in Klingon culture-building, at a point when Klingon Kulture had barely been touched on and there was plenty of room for imagination.

He also had an interesting acknowledgement section (I noticed it was unusual for those early novels--and even early Pocketbook novels to have acknowledgements at all, other than a sentence or two sometimes). He noted some of that there, and he also noted it would probably be the last Star Trek novel he ever wrote--which it was. Not sure if he knew at that point Pocketbooks was about to get the license or if it was something other. And he admitted he didn't see much of the original series because he was overseas at the time.

And his take on Klingons was pretty unique, even including a Klingon priest on the ship. It was definitely a more free wheeling time. Since there was very little background on Klingon culture in canon at that point they probably had a lot more leeway in what they wrote (though judging from books like "Price of the Phoenix" it doesn't seem like leeway was a big problem back then ).

I am kind of surprised he made no mention of "For the World is Hollow...." since there is at least some general similarities to the situation with the Fabrini there. I guess it's possible he didn't see that episode since he noted he didn't get to see the show much.

I still have "Devil World" "Perry's Planet" and "Death's Angel" to read in my Bantam collection--though I believe I heard at least 2 of those are not very good. And I want to do a re-read of "The Galactic Whirlpool" as it's been years since I read that (I believe sometime in the late 80's).

 

[TheUsualSuspect]

I remember liking this one well-enough back when I read it in 1979 (and at least one reread a few years later), but it's not as good as Planet of Judgment. I find the Bantam novels, as well as many of the early Pocket novels, fascinating for many of the same reasons Christopher mentioned. It's interesting to get writers' speculations about aspects of the Star Trek universe that hadn't been fleshed out yet.