"Inception" (Star Trek) by S.D. Perry & Britta Dennison

There are literally hundreds of Star Trek novels - a gigantic library of books to choose from for anyone who just can't get enough of one of the most famous SF series. Some of these are actually pretty good, with even a few brilliant ones. But, having read quite a few of these tie-ins, I have to say that the majority are pretty weak; some even absolutely horrible. While "Inception" certainly doesn't belong to the latter category, I wouldn't recommend it - not even to the biggest Star Trek fan.

Lots of these original novels fill in the background of the characters, or expand on events that were only briefly mentioned in the series or the films. "Inception" does exactly that, although the authors have forgotten to write an engaging novel in the process. Carol Marcus is a young scientist who is on the verge of a breakthrough with her Inception project (a very early version of her terraforming Genesis project, which we would see in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). In that movie, we met Marcus as a former love interest of Admiral Kirk, and the mother of his son. In this book we see her and her lover Commander Kirk in those early days. Also part of Marcus' team is one Leila Kalomi, a love interest of Mr. Spock (at least, that's the way she would like to see it). This novel describes their meeting (which was briefly mentioned in one of the old TV episodes).

While both Kirk and Spock appear in this novel (and I have to say, the characterizations are pretty good), the two ladies are the leads. They do, however, not do very much. The major part of the novel is just the ladies talking and thinking. And thinking about what they're going to talk about. Sure, there's a thread about someone trying to sabotage the Inception project, but that doesn't kick in until the last quarter of the story. And it's too little, too late. This might be mildly interesting to fans who really want to know everything about Kirk's and Spock's love lives, but for most readers, there are far better books to choose from.

Title: Inception (Star Trek)
Authors: S.D. Perry & Britta Dennison
Publisher: Pocket Books
Year: 2010
Number of pages: 307 p.
ISBN: 9780743482509