Undiscovered Country (Star Trek Movie 6)

From her first Star Trek novelization, "Star Trek V The Final Frontier," J.M. Dillard has been the "go to" author for Pocket Books when it comes to the novelizations for the movies and the novelization of Star Trek Deep Space Nines pilot episode, "Emissary." This is deservedly so, her work in the novelizations of such important events in the Star Trek genre have been exceptional, and this novel is no exception to that rule."Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country" as a film was an extremely well told story written by Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, with the screenplay being written by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn. J.M. Dillard's work in this extraordinary novel not only serves to novelize that original story, it enhances it beyond measure. She does a beautiful job of adding the characters personal thoughts of the events surrounding them and of adding to the story with "between the scenes" sequences that makes this one of her best efforts.The premise:The Klingons, having been long time rivals of the Federation whether through open war or unbridled skirmishes have suffered a great catastrophe when Praxis, A Klingon moon suddenly explodes, removing a key energy resource center for the Klingon Empire. Suddenly finding themselves facing too many problems, more or less of their own creation, in which they've spent too much on their military budget and not enough on environmental and other concerns, the Klingon Chancellor, Gorkon must make a decision to sue for peace between the Empire and the Federation.The main catalyst for that peace turns out to be Captain Spock, who has been working in secret negotiations with Chancellor Gorkon and is now ready to begin those talks in earnest. Spock has managed to secure the use of the Enterprise and Captain Kirk in order to rendezvous with Chancellor Gorkon and escort his ship back to Earth to begin those negotiations.Here is where the writing of the screenplay and J.M. Dillard's writing kicks into the high gear of intrigue when a conspiracy uncovers itself long enough to fire several torpedoes from the Enterprise and hit Chancellor Gorkon's ship, knocking out their gravity and then two conspirators beam over and murder Chancellor Gorkon and several other Klingons. Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy both beam over, hoping to be able to help Chancellor Gorkon, but he dies and they're charged with his murder.What follows from there is nothing less than one of the best stories written in the Star Trek genre and filmed, to date. From political intrigue and an extraordinary space battle to some very humorous moments, "Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country" hits on all points.I highly recommend this novelization as it is an excellent addition to your Star Trek library whether you're into the novelizations or not. {ssintrepid}

The movie version of this story was not bad, certainly not as bad as the movie version of "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier". Still, just as Dillard managed to turn that abysmal movie into a more than passable book by managing to plug a great many of the holes in the plot with better explanations of what was happening, so here, too, the same author manages, while MOSTLY remaining true to the plot of the movie, to turn a fairly good movie into an excellent book by explaining a couple of things that the movie failed to make clear. (Now if we could just turn this author loose on a few of the original-series episodes that made no sense, we'd be in business...)

I am not a TOS reader, but I found this book really exciting! It is by far the best Star Trek book I've ever read. The pace was ideal. There weren't unnecessary details. Everything was straight to the point. I really recommend this book.

to clarify the above review, this was merely the start of the epace process, it didn't begin with the destruction of the enterprise c, that was just the final push for peace, it was a long tedious process that took eighty years, good read too.

Klingons in the federation. Starving Klingons on top of that. A species to whom war is a way of life wanting peace. It seems far fetched but it's true. The klingons are on our side making room for the next generation in Star Trek. This book was actually quite good. Kirk who despite everything is not dead yet helps to bring about peace with the very people he has sworn to hate. The only hitch in an otherwise great storyline is that years later during the next generations second season we find out that peace with the Klingons began with the U.S.S. Enterprise 1017C responding to a distress call at the Klingon Kitomer outpost. The Enterprise C was destroyed protecting the Klingons. Needless to say this brought about peace. Otherwise this book is great reading for Trekies