J. Andrew Keith (1958–1999)

I probably wouldn't have read this had it not been given to me by a friend who knows the author. I certainly wouldn't have finished it. It's not badly written, but it's just not my cup of tea. My idea of roughing it is a hotel without room service. The idea of a months long canoe/kayak trip is more or less abhorrent to me. The book lacked an overriding theme or focus ... too many uninteresting details and too many non sequiturs as well.

Primarily an outline for an adventure of the U.S.S. Hastings for its Star Trek RPG, this is the closest FASA ever got to releasing a sourcebook for the Gorn. The Gorn culture here is your typical honor-bound sf warrior race-- essentially the Klingons, though FASA can be excused for the overlap, as the Klingon culture hadn't really taken that form when this was published. There is some neat stuff, so it's a shame FASA never did the Gorn sourcebook that is teased within these pages, especially show more given their strong work with the also little-used Orions. The adventure itself is fine, a pretty typical trying-to-stop-militant-factions-from-sabotaging-the-peace-conference outing for the Hastings. Strangely, the adventure goes through great effort to set up the Hastings' security chief as a suspect and key player in events, and he promptly disappears one-third of the way through the adventure, being cleared pretty simply. show less

The thickest of the Dr. Who FASA adventures, it's full of information on portraying feudal Japan.