When this book is good, it's very good. When it's bad, it isn't awful, so on the whole, I suppose it isn't too bad. But it definitely has some weak points.

The "Star Trek Log..." series is a series of adaptations of the animated "Star Trek" series. This is the last of the series. The episode this book recounts is "Slaver Weapon", a story written by Larry Niven. One of the plus sides to this story is that, being written by Niven, we get a kzinti crossover. It's interesting to see the kzinti interact with the crew of the Enterprise. (For those not in the know, the kzinti are an alien race from Niven's writing, who resemble large bipedal cats and who are a warrior culture not unlike the klingons; the only thing that has kept them from taking over the known galaxy and enslaving humanity is that, being self-styled mighty warriors, they ALWAYS attack before they're ready. Suitable caution would be cowardly and dishonorable.)

Another interesting subplot in this book occurs when Kirk, Spock, Sulu, and Uhura have their personalities switched due to a transporter accident. Kirk finds himself in Sulu's body, Sulu in Spock's, Spock in Uhura's, Uhura in Kirk's. This happens, of course, immediately prior to a major diplomatic session, so the victims can't simply hide out in their quarters until the problem is ironed out. This was a clever plot complication, and it was handled well.

The bad news is, we have a reappearance of Captain Kumara, the Klingon who, according to the episode adapted in "Log Seven", knew Kirk well from their days in a failed "Interspecies Academy", an attempt at detente between the Klingons and the Federation when the two captains were both younger, junior officers. As I said in my review of "Log Seven", this "Interspecies Academy" never happened; something that major would have HAD to have been mentioned in the original series episodes involving Klingons, and it wasn't. Therefore, it is impossible, as is Kumara and his almost-friendly rivalry with Kirk.

Not a bad book, certainly. It's well-written, and handles the known characters well. If you like Star Trek, read it. If you're new to Star Trek, it's not the best book to start with.

Here we see three stories tied into one novel, each story more implausible than the other.

The whole story is based on a completely not credible idea and that is even admitted in the end. This is due to the TV series wich, by the way, I have watched.

The physics are completely flawed, and if I've been given accurate information, this episode was one of the ones that made Gene Roddenberry declare the animated series non-canon, wich I wasn't surprised to learn at all.

And although Alan Dean Foster's writing is adequate, it doesn't get near to being good enough to even slightly saving the book. Don't bother to read this.

The "Star Trek Log..." series is a series of adaptations of the animated Star Trek TV series; this one doesn't come close to living up to the majority of the first six volumes. For one thing, there seems to be only one story, whereas the previous six volumes each contained three stories; perhaps this was a multi-episode story originally; there are more or less three parts to it, but no clear break between them, and only one title listed ("The Counter-Clock Incident"). But the story is not particularly good; an alternate-universe story even more implausible than most is the first part of it, followed by a running conflict with a Klingon ship captained by someone Kirk allegedly knew well because as cadets they'd been involved in a cultural exchange program (which just never happened, or we'd have heard about it the first time Kirk ran afoul of Klingons in the series), followed by an encounter with a world just as implausible as the alternate universe, all tied together with the deus ex machina of a race of super-powered, Q-style beings who were responsible for both the implausible alternate-universe and the impossible planet, neither of which really existed.

What may be worse, in several places Foster seems to lose track of who is speaking when writing Spock's dialogue. "Anyhow" is a word that should never cross Spock's lips; neither should the phrase "the transporter went crazy". (The transporter, being an inanimate object with no sentience, can malfunction, but cannot "go crazy", and it would be highly illogical to refer to a malfunction as doing so...)

All in all, unless you're absolutely determined to read all the Star Trek adaptations, I wouldn't recommend this one. It has some minor amusement value, but there are certainly better Star Trek books available.