Unless, like me, you are stubbornly determined to read every Star Trek novel ever published (in which case you have my condolences for sharing my unfortunate compulsion) there is no reason to waste your time with this book. It is a bad story, badly written. Granted, it is not the WORST Star Trek novel I've ever read; it is not, for instance, anywhere near as bad as "Spock, Messiah", nor even quite as bad as James Blish's "Spock Must Die", or Sandra Marshak's "Triangle" (Original Series #9). But it is a poorly conceived story, handling the concepts of time-travel and alternate time-lines as badly as I've ever seen them handled; the characterizations are mostly poor and one-dimensional, the dialogue is stilted and awkward, and (sorry if I'm being overly picky here) authors who don't know the difference between "illegible" and "inarticulate" (as in, "an illegible cry tightened his throat",) (pg 66) shouldn't be published, and editors who don't know enough to fix that mistake shouldn't be in the business either.

In "Killing Time," the Romulans have hatched a time tampering scheme where an alternate universe is created in which the Federation was founded and primarily ran, not by Earth, but by Vulcan. This, of course, is all part of a Romulan plot to undermine the Federation's strength and thus, build the Romulan Empire.

Although the premise of the story is promising, as the story progresses the plot seems to become uninspired and the storyline fails to have very compelling "twists and turns" which you'd like to see in Trek (as well as most other fiction for that matter). Furthermore, I did not think the development of the characters "Captain Spock" and "Ensign Kirk" were as satisfying as they could have been. "Killing Time" does provide an interesting "version" of the Romulan Commander from the Classic Trek episode - "The Enterprise Incident". I say a "version" because I believe different Trek novels have had varying treatments of her fate after that episode.

For the most part I wouldn't recommend this novel unless you are a Romulan die-hard. While not terrible, I'd give it about a 4 on a scale of ten, which is why I gave it 2 stars. If you're looking for a good classic Trek novel on time travel (and the Klingons as well) I'd suggest Star Trek (#40 Timetrap).

From the reviews I've seen and the people I've talked to, you either love this book or you hate it, I am among the former; I loved it!

My favorite original Trek episode was 'The Enterprise Incident' and I liked the character of the Romulan Commander. However, I always felt that she and Spock had to meet again, and while other novels like 'Blackfire' and 'Dwellers In the Crusible' broached the idea, none came up with such a unique idea to make it happen. I think the Romulan Commander got a bad shake. This story makes up for it!