David Dvorkin

At first I was severely critical of this book—are you really going to bring back Magna Roma? Magna Roma, from "Bread and Circuses," one of the cheesiest and silliest TOS episodes?—but I actually ended up really liking it, and feeling that it would have been a great episode (if only it were possible to show feline aliens in the 1980s on screen without having them look completely dopey). I really enjoyed the elements of culture clash and the multiple different martial cultures represented.

A very odd Trek book: published after TNG was already a Thing, it involves Kirk being kidnapped by Klingons who trick him into believing he has been thrown into the future—a future of peace between Klingons and the Federation. The most interesting part was the Manchurian Candidate-style Klingon sleeper agents, their personalities suppressed by drugs. I kinda need to chew on that whole idea: is it ridiculous? Interestingly believable when discussing truly alien beings? Both? In any case, I show more don't think I could label this book as "good" or "bad"—just "unusual." show less

"Chameleon" is the word that best describes Chic Western, an operative or "budman" for an elite U.S. internal security organization known as the Ombudsman Commission. Fresh from his most recent assignment, Western is sent undercover to Germany to ferret out a staffer in the U.S. Embassy who is leaking secrets to the dying insurgency in the remnants of the Soviet Union. There he experiences the wonders of a dynamic Third Reich forty years after the Second World War, a land of vibrant people show more and great material comfort. Yet as Western explores further, he begins to encounter the dark side of this supposedly perfect world, leading him to consider disturbing questions that ultimately lead him to a determined conclusion.

David Dvorkin's novel offers an intriguing portrait of an alternate Third Reich. Positing a successful plot to eliminate Adolf Hitler in 1942, he goes on to depict an empire of success and progress, one in which the guilt over the Holocaust is assuaged by the creation of a Jewish state. Equally interesting is the comparisons his character continually makes of a grim, repressive America, where a police state keeps a tight lid on racial tensions. Yet the novel is marred by a rather clumsy plot. For a supposedly elite agent, his central character seems anything but, being all too causal with his cover identity and ignoring some obvious clues from the start. It is as if all Dvorkin's energy went into developing his premise and settings, with the actual story itself developed as an afterthought. This mars what is otherwise an enjoyable presentation of an alternate world that avoids the typical dystopian stereotypes in favor of a more subtle depiction of evil. show less

It is a solid three stars for me. The usual characters are explored, and by this point the "canon" of Star Trek books has become solidified and this one is #40 in the series (just before "The Next Generation" starts its run).

The Enterprise finds itself in the same part of the galaxy where "The Tholian Web" took place and a similar jump through time occurs. This time, though, Kirk finds himself not in and out of the Enterprise but solidly on board a Klingon warship with a crew of strangely show more garbed Klingons. They are gentle and thoughtful, and tell him that he has jumped forward 100 years through a space-time disturbance.

As time passes, both onboard the Enterprise, on Earth, and on the Klingon new/old ship, bits of things start to occur that make the plot really start to evolve. Kirk, who has fallen in love with a Klingon woman, finds that she is out of consciousness for a while and his host is getting more short-tempered. Further, there are gaps in the history of which he is supposed to play a part. Spock finds strange occurrences between high-ranking members of the Federation and parts of Earth (and other planets) that were utterly destroyed, and a brilliant scientist is becoming unglued. These final plot twists really saved the book for me and helped it be out of the ordinary. show less