Across the Universe

Star Trek TOS novel. When the Enterprise discovers an early-exploration space ship drifting and powerless, Captain Kirk can't help but remember another sleeper ship and the peril it represented. But this one is a colonization ship stranded by an unforeseen malfunction, and its passengers are eager to continue their voyage.

The planet to which they are delivered, however, is facing a crisis of its own, and it's up to Kirk & Co to save not only their rescued space voyagers, but the quarter-million inhabitants of the planet they had anticipated making their new home.

I think the story was a good idea, but it doesn't quite get to where it was going -- not unlike the people in the ship rescued by the Enterprise in Chapter 1. That leads me to my other complaint, which is that the title is sort of misleading.

The Enterprise rescues a malfunctioning ship that left Earth two centuries ago, whose speed has caused the colonists to age only 30 years. Kirk's task is to help the colonists adjust as best they can, while helping them not to fall prey to the old hatreds, suspicion and violence that plagued the time they came from.