Series
Genres
Publication
New York, NY : Pocket Books, 1987.
Description
In the twenty-first centruy humanity has united after countless years of warfare, and turns toward the stars. But when an alien spacecraft crashlands in the South Pacific bearing visitors from another world, the Vulcans, Earth must decide whether to extend the hand of friendship, or the fist of war. In the distant future, horrible dreams torment Admiral James T. Kirk, dreams prompted by his reading of "Strangers From the Sky, a book about that historic first contact. He dreams of an alternate reality where he somehow changed the course of history, and destroyed the Federation before it began.
User reviews
LibraryThing member leonardr
Nice near-fiasco first contact story. Pretty simplistic politically, but what do you expect from Star Trek?
LibraryThing member lycomayflower
A "giant" Star Trek book (it says so on the cover!) that delivers fairly well on the higher stakes and grander narrative that the long ST novels promise. This one is a book within a book and works fairly well as such. The plot involves Earth's First Contact with Vulcans (the book predates the TNG
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movie First Contact and tells a more interesting story, I think). A thoroughly enjoyable read with good characterization of ST staple characters and fantastic original characters but falls well short of five-star territory for a somewhat anti-climatic ending. Show Less
LibraryThing member Hamburgerclan
This is one of those rare times when I pull a beloved book off my shelf and end up thinking less of the tome than I did on my previous readings. Strangers is a Star Trek novel, telling of a first contact between Vulcans and Humans. (This was written before the movie Star Trek: First Contact, so now
--J.
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we know that this story never really happened.)(Well, you know what I mean.) Like the movie, it wasn't enough to simply present the tale of this event. The author also had to include time travelling members of the Enterprise crew, in this case, from the original series. In the past, I enjoyed the cultural anxiety of the encounter and the building drama of the story. This time around, I also (eventually) got caught up in the plot, but I spent far too much time noticing the clichés and two dimensional characters. I may hang onto the book out of nostalgia, but I really couldn't recommend that any one else pick it up outside of the waiting room.--J.
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LibraryThing member TheMadTurtle
Not my favorite Star Trek novel. I am giving it three stars here, though, due to the fact that the audiobook version is voiced by none other than Leanard Nimoy and George Takei. Definitely worth listening to!
LibraryThing member bobholt
Much better than Enterprise, in that the characters have adult points of view and reactions to other characters, even though much of it takes place in (roughly) the same era of Kirk's command.
The book is split into 2 parts: Book I and Book II. Book I felt like so much exposition and dead weight.
The book is split into 2 parts: Book I and Book II. Book I felt like so much exposition and dead weight.
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Jumping straight into the action of the far more interesting Book II would have made for a tighter whole. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1987-07 (eng.)
1990 (deu.)
Physical description
402 p.; 18 cm
ISBN
0671640496 / 9780671640491