Bloodthirst St#37

Responding to a distress call to an isolated research facility the Enterprise crew stumbles upon a horrifying discovery - vampires are real. Unfortunately they discovered this only after some of the Enterprise crew had been attacked. While McCoy frantically searches for a cure Kirk begins his own investigations into the origins of the problem, an investigation that will lead into the very highest levels of Star Fleet. Overall and despite it's rather unlikely theme BLOODTHIRST is one of the better enteries in this long-running tie-in series. The plot has enough twists to keep the reader guessing, even though it is a foregone conclusion that all the regular Enterprise crew will survive, and that McCoy and Kirk will be successful. The only flaws are an exchange between Sulu and Chekhov that portrays them as sophomoric idiots rather than superior junior officers on an elite ship, and tendancy to drag a bit towards the end. Dillard has introduced some interesting original characters and managed to strike a good balance between time spent developing them without ignoring the original crew.

A very fine job of combining the concepts of Star Trek and vampire fiction; this is a very well-written book, and was a very compelling read. There are a few caveats, however, which is why it was only given four stars, rather than five:First, if your interest in vampire fiction is in traditional supernatural vampires, this will disappoint you. The vampirism is treated in a very scientific way, and those "infected" show no supernatural abilities beyond seeing in the dark. It is a very interesting science fiction explanation of vampirism, however.Second, and most critically, we once again run into the overused plot device of the rogue conspiracy at the highest levels of Starfleet, and idea that would be interesting if it were rare, but has been overused so badly that it just can't be used anymore. Further, although for a good part of the book, this particular plot device was actually handled better than it generally is, toward the end of the book, it wasn't even handled well. The personality of the admiral at the center of the conspiracy was handled inconsistently and implausibly.Had it not been for the use of this plot device, I'd unquestionably have given the book five stars. A much better book than "Demons", Dillard's previous Star Trek novel, which also brought some horror concepts into Star Trek, but much less successfully.