Faces of Fire (Star Trek, Book 58)

 (7 customer reviews)

In Faces of Fire author Michael Jan Friedman develops multiple plots in different locations. On one planet Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy are called to assist with negotiations on a sensitive and seemingly impossible religious dispute. On another planet, Mr. Spock is assisting scientists with terraforming. One of these scientists happens to be Dr. Carol Marcus who had a relationship with Captain Kirk a number of years ago. Moreover, a Klingon power struggle spills over on to the planet where Spock is working. Of course, there are more details to this intricate story. It is fitting that Bibi Besch (1940-1996) narrates this story as she played the role of Dr. Carol Marcus in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. She does an excellent job of voice characterizations which are supplemented with music and sound effects. In sum, the audio version of Faces of Fire is a good Star Trek story you can enjoy listening to in your car or home.

Again, this is not great but not bad, either. It tries to tell the story of how Kirk came to know that he had a son named David. There is also the introduction of the Klingon Captain Krug (played by Christopher Lloyd in ST:III). This novel did not, however, keep my attention as others had. I found myself 'spacing-out' at times, as the novel failed to really keep my attention.

Not great, but not bad; this story purports to tell the tale of the first meeting between Kirk and his son David Marcus, as well as to establish the reason for some of the hostility displayed toward Kirk by David in "The Wrath Of Khan". It establishes the character of David fairly well, but the justification for the hostility is weak at best, and the subplot involving the political machinations of the Klingons seems decidedly spurious, merely an excuse for the Klingons behaving in odd and implausible ways later.A perfectly good adventure novel, which mostly fails at its attempts to a pretension to be more than that.