Crossover

Veteran Trek scribe Friedman (All Good Things...) delivers the goods again with the most interesting and ambitious novel to come from this complacent franchise in a while. Friedman assimilates characters from the original TV series into a rollicking adventure/rescue story. Ambassador Spock, still working toward reunification of the Vulcan and Romulan cultures, is captured with several of his proteges by a regional Romulan dictator with delusions of grandeur. Viewing Spock's capture as a security risk, the Federation sends Captain Jean-Luc Picard's Enterprise to negotiate Spock's release, assigning 140-year-old Admiral McCoy to the ship because of his familiarity with Spock. Meanwhile, Scotty steals a starship and engages in his own one-man rescue attempt. The interplay is fast and furious, as is the action, while the political intrigues are sufficiently interesting, if not very complex. Readers will have a fine time second-guessing some of Friedman's claims (Scotty went to the Academy?), while nodding in agreement with most of them. The prose, like several of the rescue attempts, lacks subtlety and grace but is suited to its task of telling a story that stars characters of whom most readers have already formed full and sympathetic portraits. (Dec.)