Star Trek Pocket Novel #26: The Pandora Principle (#49)

Star Trek Pocket Novel #27: The Covenant of the Crown (#4)

We are back on mission at Star Trek CineMcCollough, going way back to the earliest days of the Pocket Books novels for number four, "The Covenant of the Crown." Written by Howard Weinstein - this is our second book review for Weinstein, who also wrote Deep Domain, after becoming famous for having a story produced for The Animated Series in 1974 when he was just 19 years old (!!!), Weinstein this time delivers us a tale of a dynasty in exile for eighteen years from a critically important planet that is also contested by the Klingons. It has a familiar feel to it, but isn't that what we like about watching reruns of Star Trek? Tune in to our podcast episode and find out what we though of Weinstein's first novel!

Star Trek Pocket Novel #26: The Pandora Principle (#49)

Your friends at CineMcCollough are kicking off our third season of Trek Novel Madness today with the next randomly-selected novel from the pool of the first 50 Pocket Books novels -- what we call "Is That a Trek in Your Pocket?" The only Star Trek novel ever published - heck, the only novel of any kind ever published - by Carolyn Clowes. "The Pandora Principle" takes place between The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan, and Clowes really knows how to fill in the correct details to paint the picture of a new Romulan plot to overcome the Federation... this one involving a secret research base that is the origin story of Saavik, the cinema-only Star Trek character from the three early 1980s movies. Join Butch and Rob as they discuss this book and see if you agree!

Star Trek Pocket Novel #25: Black Fire (#8)

Now, at last, we reach the Season 2 Finale, which finishes off the first half of our FIFTY BOOK mission through the Pocket Books Universe - what we call Is That a Trek in Your Pocket? -- before we begin the cruise through the second half we will take up the lone book by author Sonni Cooper (who was a name of note within the early Star Trek fandom, being part of the community that kept that fandom alive with newsletters and conventions and other such activities). Her contribution is the novel "Black Fire," which was published in January 1983. If you wondered how everyone's favorite Vulcan, Spock (yes, this IS a Spock-centric novel, as was inevitably the case for someone so involved in early Trek fandom) can go from first officer on the Enterprise to court martialed to prison to escapee from prison to pirate to subcommander in the Romulan Star Empire, all in one single novel, then buckle your seat belts (if your vessel as them) and prepare for quite a journey - albeit one that may strain credulity a bit. Who WOULDN'T want to see what Spock looks like as a pirate, am I right? Well let's see what Rob and Butch think. Then leave us a review and settle in for some well-deserved down time as they produce more content for your listening pleasure.

Star Trek Short Audio Treks #5: To Starve a Fleaver

One last brief bit of shore leave to take care of before we get to our final mission of Season 2... and that mission takes us back to the Peter Pan Audio and Book collection of stories from the 1970s for the fifth episode of that series, the 1975 short story "To Starve a Fleaver." Once again written by legendary author Alan Dean Foster, you can probably tell from the title of this one that it is a play on words and provide an implication that someone will be scratching an itch at some point. A potential Federation application rides on this mission to Marpalou, and the denizens of that planet live in a symbiotic relationship with microscopic beings that live on their skin... and, unfortunately, now on the skin of our crew! Rob and Butch may or may not have gotten a chuckle out of this story - join us for one last bit of shore leave and find out!

Cinematic Star Trek #6: Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country

The big stop on our final shore leave of Season 2 of our Star Trek novels multi-year mission takes us to Camp Khitomer and the last best chance for galactic peace - aka the 1991 theatrical release "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country." The final film featuring all of the main cast from the original Star Trek, the cast literally 'signs off' right before the opening credits... but first this is a great allegorical tale of the end of our own Cold War back in the early 1990s, as told through the Klingons coming to grips with the fact that they can no longer maintain the arms race with the Federation. Treachery, assassination, mind-rape, and a Klingon Bird of Prey that can fire while cloaked are the setting for a terrific movie! Rob and Butch could talk about it all day long, but you probably don't have more than three hours for it, so we will keep it close to that.