Spoilers TOS: The Antares Maelstrom by Greg Cox Review Thread

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Quite an adventure ride! I enjoyed this book because it felt like an episode.

I wonder who

Spoiler: Spock plot

Mars, Venus, and Mercury were.

I bet Mudd wanted to go to Baldur III, but robo-Stella poo-pooed the idea.

 

[Kertrats47]

A bit late, but I've just posted my video review of The Antares Maelstrom. I enjoyed this one, and liked that each member of the crew had something interesting to do. Always fun to see the non-Starfleet side of the 23rd century, as well.

 

[Reanok]

I enjoyed watching your vido review of Antares Maelstrom. I really enjoyed reading Greg Cox's novel awhile back.

 

[Ronald Held]

Finally done i rate it slightly above average.

 

[Kilana2]

I just finished it. Above average. Not Greg's best novel, but still entertaining....

 

[TJ Sinclair]

I listened to the audiobook a few months ago, and have recently been skimming through my dead-tree edition preparing the update related articles on Memory Beta. I really enjoyed the book. It's probably not my favorite of Greg's novels, but I really love the way it captures the feel of the original series so well. Of the three plotlines going on, I actually found Sulu's more compelling than what was happening on Baldur III or with Spock and Chekov. Still and all, the book made good use of all the characters, and has the right flavor for the era.

One question while I'm here, though... Deep Space Station S-8. Does anyone know if Greg intended in to be K-class, or just a broadly similar type? The description is just vague enough it could be read either way. Currently someone on Memory Beta has it listed as K-class based on the description, but the designation of "S-8" and the variation in what's described in the book make me think it's not.

 

[Christopher]

One question while I'm here, though... Deep Space Station S-8. Does anyone know if Greg intended in to be K-class, or just a broadly similar type? The description is just vague enough it could be read either way. Currently someone on Memory Beta has it listed as K-class based on the description, but the designation of "S-8" and the variation in what's described in the book make me think it's not.

I always took "K-7" to mean that it was the 7th in a series of outposts on the Klingon border, rather than the 7th of the "K class" of stations.

 

[TJ Sinclair]

I always took "K-7" to mean that it was the 7th in a series of outposts on the Klingon border, rather than the 7th of the "K class" of stations.

I suppose that's a fair assumption based on "The Trouble with Tribbles," but various tie-ins have used the class and K-designation inconsistently with that idea for decades. So for this particular station, it comes down to what Greg envisioned.

 

[Greg Cox]

The space station in that book was definitely modeled on the one in "The Trouble with Tribbles." I wasn't aware that the "K" had any special significance, so I just aped the "Consonant-Arabic Number" format used in the TV episode.

S-8 instead of K-7, in short. Could have just as easily gone with J-11 or Q-6.

 

[Christopher]

S-8 instead of K-7, in short. Could have just as easily gone with J-11 or Q-6.

You sank my battleship!

 

[DEWLine]

So long as it wasn't "Q-36".

 

[Charles Phipps]

I love every @Greg Cox novel I've read.

A CONTEST OF PRINCIPLES was my favorite Star Trek read last year and I think pretty far up my list of all time favorite Star Trek novels period. It was also perfect "election year' reading. Sadly, it seems that important elections will a running theme for the next few decades. Anyway, I was anxious to pick up THE ANTARES MAELSTROM once I saw his name. While it predates ACOP, I was sure it would be just the kind of book I liked. Which it was.

The premise of a "galactic gold rush" to a frontier planet that quickly becomes overrun with con men, crooks, supply shortages, and infrastructure issues is exactly what the book is about. The lack of a "big bad" or Star Trek-ism of a Mad Computer, Godlike Alien, or Secret Alien Race being exploited makes this an incredibly ingenius premise. The problems the Enterprise faces are systemic and exactly what they expected to find--but dealing with them is no less troublesome for our heroes.

I have a lot of praise for this book because it shows the Enterprise doing the kind of "grunt work" that I think would make fascinating books by themselves (and proves it). Scotty needs to deal with a ship's generators being used as a makeshift power plant that is close to meltdown due to its overuse by the colonists as well as poor maintenance.

Sulu gets a taste of command as he's put in charge of security of a space station. Spock does a undercover mission to root out tea smugglers (maybe it's my Bolivian friend's influence but the fact it's for the thin air/altitude made me think of coca tea. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_tea). Plus, Kirk doing his best just to try to figure out how to manage all of the logistics here.

As stated, the fact they're dealing with "macro-scale" problems rather than micro-scale separates this from most Star Trek books I've read over the years. I also like the sequel to "The Cloud Minders." I always wondered what happened to the Trogs and finding out they've basically gone on to be miners in the rest of the Federation (being their one skill and the rest of it not treating them like slaves) was a sensible answer.

Could it have been better? Ehhh, I dunno, I really liked it as is but I do think the criminals were a bit underdeveloped. They're just a bunch of scheming money-obsessed jerks with no real other motivation. Which is fine but I was hoping for more. Otherwise, though, an incredibly strong outing that I will recommend to my friends.

 

[Reanok]

I hope we'll get some more novels from Greg than just the short stories in the Star Trek Explorer magazine.