Like its predecessors (Delta Search, etc.), Shatner's fifth interstellar adventure of teenage superman Jim Endicott mixes fast action and bold characterization with lapses in logic. After Jim and the Stone Cowboy gang escape the doomed colony ship Outward Bound
in a stolen Kolumban ship, the Endeavour, along with Ur-Barrba, one of the gorilla-like Kolumbans, the first order of business is to establish the pecking order within the Cowboys and then transform them from a gang into a disciplined crew, with Jim as the captain, naturally. Jim later discovers that the Kolumbans are peddling lethal ship-destroying drugs as agents for another alien race, the Communers. On their home planet, the Kolumbans barely change sides in time to save Endeavour
and her people from the Communers' mastery of cloning. But Jim now understands that the Communers are also behind the Pleb Psychosis on Earth, which may in turn lead him to his destined confrontation with the mysterious Delta. The series' affinity to both Star Wars
and Dune
is abundantly clear, while ragged transitions leave many episodes undeveloped. The plot seems to be tying itself into one vast intergalactic conspiracy on which the Fate of Humanity hinges, a familiar SF theme, but the author's less than sophisticated handling will go over better with young adults and Trekkies than with more serious readers of the genre. (Nov. 12)
FYI:Shatner is also the author of several Star Trek novels and nine volumes in the Tekwar series.
