The Final Frontier Gets Proton Torpedoed

Who ever heard of a starship captain named Jean-Luc? Captain James T. Kirk would turn over in his grave if he ever found out about his successor--or about any of the nincompoops who make up the characters of Peter David's new novel, The Strike Zone.

Based on The Next Generation, a television series begun last year, the novel is a tale of the new and not so nice voyages of the crew of the hammer-head spaceship that has replaced the Enterprise of the original series.

Star Trek: The Next Generation #5, The Strike Zone

By Peter David

New York: Pocket Books

$3.95

And the book is one of many works that sprung up after Paramount Pictures reunited the cast in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Since that time, Star Trek fans have been bombarded with three movies, a series of some 45 novels and the new television series with its own set of novels.

Reading David's novel hurts: Imitation is not always the finest form of flattery, especially when it fails.

Star Trek novels were never science fiction classics. They were designed to be quick, simple, action-packed adventures that would sell to story-starved fans with an insatiable appetite for anything alluding to the '60s series. Usually, the books were as clever and absorbing as the episodes.

But David betrays that style, adding a shallow plot, unadmirable characters and a detached atmosphere. The Strike Zone is an insult to the fans' intelligence and devotion.

The book reads well, despite annoying parenthetical injections of "comic" editorial opinion. These appear only in the first few chapters--evidently the author later realizes he can incorporate them into the body of the text. But the story lacks the creativity of the original novels: Only dedicated fans will maintain an interest.

The Kreel, an alien race, discover an arsenal of superweapons on the planet DQN 1196, and they decide to use them for a violent rampage against their Klingon enemies. With interstellar war imminent, the Federation intervenes, offering to act as an intermediary. The Enterprise becomes the host for delegations from both sides, transporting them to the planet to discover the origin of the weapons.

Nothing happens until the next to last chapter, when the book, like a Miami Vice episode, explains everything in a single breath.

Even readers who can bear the plot will not be to handle the new characters.

CAPTAIN Jean-Luc Picard is simply a jerk. He is strict with his crew and makes his decisions by the book. He even twitches when he says the word "civilian." Kirk was always wise and likeable. His successor cannot even joke with his second-in-command, whom he insists on calling "Number One."

Spock is replaced by two characters in the new series, an android named Data and a Klingon called Worf. Neither is as fascinating as the pointyeared Vulcan. Data rattles off facts and makes bad jokes, while Worf struggles with his loyalty to the Federation, just as Spock questioned whether to ally himself with Vulcans or humans.

The other main character in the novel is a teen-ager with growing pains, probably included for the sake of young viewers. Wesley Crusher, who gets to work on the bridge, is a pathetic boygenius angry because he is not treated like an adult by the rest of the crew.

It is embarassing to see how silly the new Star Trek is. Here they drink synthehol, an alcohol-like substance whose effects disappear at will. They don't say "aye, aye" anymore but "I'll make it so." The Landing Party is now the Away Team. And to top it off, they are allies with the Klingons.

Some things just shouldn't change.