Across the Universe

George Zebrowski · Pamela Sargent

Oct 1999 · Star Trek: The Original Series Book 88 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

The Hawking left Earth during the 21st Century on a one-way mission to colonize a distant world. Due to the relativistic effects of pre-warp travel, it's crew has aged only thirty years while two centuries have passed outside the ship. When the Starship Enterprise™ comes to the rescue of the malfunctioning Hawking, the colonists find themselves thrust into a universe and an era that has left them behind.
Captain Kirk intends to help the colonists adjust as best he can, but the task is not a simple one. The newcomers are survivors of a more violent, more paranoid time -- and the have brought old suspicions, and an ancient weapon of mass destruction, into a world of unexpected challenges and dangers.

Ratings and reviews

First, the review that says "Set in America during the Vietnam War" is referring to a different "Across the Universe." Second, I have to agree with the other Star Trek reviewer. This is not the best of Trek. An old ship named Hawking. An old relative of Chekov's aboard. A colony threatened by a sentient vegetation that is only threatening because the colony expanded too close to its neural node and because the vegetation couldn't figure out how to communicate in a nonthreatening way. Also, the threat just happened to climax when the Enterprise was there. Spock figured out how to communicate in not quite a meld. The colonists "killed" by the vegetation were not killed at all, but "cradled" and then revived and restored to their loved ones at the end of the story. And they all lived happily ever after. The threat just never was threatening enough. The story was tired. The editor should have made them have another go at spicing it up.

About the author

George Zebrowski is an award-winning science fiction author and editor who has written and edited a number of books, including Brute Orbits and the Star Trek tie-in novel Across the Universe, which he co-wrote with Pamela Sargent.

Pamela Sargent is the author of numerous books, including Earthseed, Cloned Lives, The Sudden Star, The Alien Upstairs, Eye of the Comet, Homesmind, and The Shore of Women. She has won the Nebula and Locus Awards. Her writing has also appeared in publications such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s SF Magazine, New Worlds, and World Literature Today. She lives in Albany, New York.