Published by: Timescape/Pocket Books/Paperjacks
Published: March 1983 (Physical)/September 2000 (Digital)
Plot: Kirk and Spock become involved in a love triangle with a Free Agent of the Federation as the Totality swoops down on the galaxy to consume it.
Review: So it's been 8 years since I last read The Prometheus Designby Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, and 20 years since I read The Price of the Phoenix by them as well (and I have yet to read The Fate of the Phoenix considering how much of a trainwreck and long-winded novel Price was). And now I am reading my Canadian copy of Triangle right now (not to be confused with Peter David's Triangle: Imzadi II).
So it's clear from numerous references in the first ten chapters of the book that Triangle is set maybe a year or two after Star Trek The Motion Picture I've recognized references (and when they reference the previous Trek episodes/novels, Marshak and Culbreath tend to do an information dump and try to reference six or seven things in one place!) to episodes like "Amok Time" (apparently Spock is going through Ponn Farr in this book with no mention of something having sped up his need to mate), "Plato's Stepchildren", and "All Our Yesterday's", as well as both the movie and novel of Star Trek The Motion Picture. And this I found really bizarre for an early-1980's book, but the authors even brought in the life support belts from The Animated Series (although they call them bio-belts and mention that they some how tap into the nervous system to give the wearer literal "eyes in the back of their head"!)
Of course when Kirk, Spock and McCoy meet Sola Thane, it seemed like the Marshak and Culbreath were trying to make a call back to The Animated Series episode "The Ambergis Element" where Kirk and Spock were attacked by those flying pteradactyls and other animals. That scene (I think it was Chapters 6 & 7) had a very Animated Series vibe. I mean, Spock calls for the Enterprise to beam them up, and yet no one responds (did someone smuggle those spore plants from This Side of Paradise on board without anyone's knowledge? Or did Uhura take an unexpected bathroom break just when Spock tried to call, and no one else could answer the call?) to beam the four up, so they need to fight off the creatures in order to reach Thane's crashed ship and then get it flying somehow up to the Enterprise!
Just looking at the cover, this is one of those early Pocket screwed up covers where they feature elements of TOS/TAS and TMP. In this case, we see the Enterprise of TOS/TAS front and center, with Kirk and Spock from TMP, in their TMP uniforms, in the bottom corner. It's also interesting that on my Timescape copy, I can see that Spock, or at least his uniform, is mirrored for some odd reason, since the delta on his shirt is on the right side of his uniform, when it should be on the left side. You can see it better on the first Heyne Verlag German language cover, where Heyne Verlag zoomed the cover waay out to show the full artwork as the artist painted it. The second cover by Heyne Verlag used parts of the original 1983 cover art, but they added the correct TMP era Enterprise.
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Published: March 1983 (Physical)/September 2000 (Digital)
Plot: Kirk and Spock become involved in a love triangle with a Free Agent of the Federation as the Totality swoops down on the galaxy to consume it.
Review: So it's been 8 years since I last read The Prometheus Designby Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, and 20 years since I read The Price of the Phoenix by them as well (and I have yet to read The Fate of the Phoenix considering how much of a trainwreck and long-winded novel Price was). And now I am reading my Canadian copy of Triangle right now (not to be confused with Peter David's Triangle: Imzadi II).
So it's clear from numerous references in the first ten chapters of the book that Triangle is set maybe a year or two after Star Trek The Motion Picture I've recognized references (and when they reference the previous Trek episodes/novels, Marshak and Culbreath tend to do an information dump and try to reference six or seven things in one place!) to episodes like "Amok Time" (apparently Spock is going through Ponn Farr in this book with no mention of something having sped up his need to mate), "Plato's Stepchildren", and "All Our Yesterday's", as well as both the movie and novel of Star Trek The Motion Picture. And this I found really bizarre for an early-1980's book, but the authors even brought in the life support belts from The Animated Series (although they call them bio-belts and mention that they some how tap into the nervous system to give the wearer literal "eyes in the back of their head"!)
Of course when Kirk, Spock and McCoy meet Sola Thane, it seemed like the Marshak and Culbreath were trying to make a call back to The Animated Series episode "The Ambergis Element" where Kirk and Spock were attacked by those flying pteradactyls and other animals. That scene (I think it was Chapters 6 & 7) had a very Animated Series vibe. I mean, Spock calls for the Enterprise to beam them up, and yet no one responds (did someone smuggle those spore plants from This Side of Paradise on board without anyone's knowledge? Or did Uhura take an unexpected bathroom break just when Spock tried to call, and no one else could answer the call?) to beam the four up, so they need to fight off the creatures in order to reach Thane's crashed ship and then get it flying somehow up to the Enterprise!
Just looking at the cover, this is one of those early Pocket screwed up covers where they feature elements of TOS/TAS and TMP. In this case, we see the Enterprise of TOS/TAS front and center, with Kirk and Spock from TMP, in their TMP uniforms, in the bottom corner. It's also interesting that on my Timescape copy, I can see that Spock, or at least his uniform, is mirrored for some odd reason, since the delta on his shirt is on the right side of his uniform, when it should be on the left side. You can see it better on the first Heyne Verlag German language cover, where Heyne Verlag zoomed the cover waay out to show the full artwork as the artist painted it. The second cover by Heyne Verlag used parts of the original 1983 cover art, but they added the correct TMP era Enterprise.
Triangle (novel)
For other uses, see Triangle. Triangle is a Star Trek: The Original Series novel by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath. It was published in March 1983, the 9th book in the Pocket Books series of numbered TOS novels. This would be the second and final Pocket Books Star Trek release from Marshak...
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