As a children’s book, the writing is as expected, childish in some parts, with referenes to Disney, Dungeons & Dragons and Alice in Wonderland; but even so the writing in general has not been dumbed down. Characterizations are very basic, and uses some nice non-canon officers to help around, which give it enough flavor to spice up the general action and adventure.

The plot options are nicely done and very varied, but one whole plot can be read in a few minutes. For a young child this is great, as the stories are not very long, from 6 to 11 pages long in total, with some drawings to help along.

Most options DO affect how the story turns out, or which story is played out, but this book is not read as other books in this style, it’s not a ‘game’ to see if you can defeat it, but instead on what view of the action you would like to see. It’s a bit frustrating to see that the choices are arbitrary and your choices do not affect the “success” or not of the mission.
Mostly a curiousity, they must not have had much success as there are only two Trek books of this type.

To DOWNLOAD Star Trek II: Distress Call! by William Rostler, click link below:

Download Star Trek II: Distress Call! by William Rostler

Formats: TXT, PDF, LIT, LRF (Sony Reader), ePub (Nook), mobi (Kindle)
Password: www.readingstartrek.com

CHRONOLOGY:

STARDATE: 8001.4
 COURSE: Routine Patrol
 EVENT: Received distress call from Luna University archeologists

COURSE: Varda III
EVENT: Stopped Rogue Klingon Mind-Spore attack.
EVENT: Archeologists rescued

COURSE: Starbase 6

CREW:
 MEDIC: Narva Moktar
 COMPUTER EXPERT: Lt. Castora
 SECURITY: Lt. Lex Nakashima
 SECURITY: Ensign Lydia Gottlieb
 COMMANDER: Larek
ALIEN: “Plantlike” Phylon
ALIEN: Dohlmen
ALIEN: Argelian
ALIEN: Thrix

ALIEN POWER: Restorative health machine/technology
ALIEN POWER: Illusion machine
ALIEN POWER: “Anti-bodies” building protector
ALIEN POWER: A.I. Protection Machine with “mind blasts”

Another “Star Trek” comics filler… so “unimportant” it doesn’t even feature in the cover!

I guess the easiest plots to make in these first comics was a sense of urgency when the planets are about to explode… but in this case TWO unrelated planets are about to blow up! If you thought the plots in Star Trek novels were hacks, this comics take it to the extreme…

I can give them points for the wonderful detail of the humanoid aliens, but I’ve also subtract quite a few for the unnecesary ’savage’ humanoids and the trivial plot.

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Star Trek on Joe 90 - Top Secret #2

CHRONOLOGY:

CREW:
  CREWMAN: HURST
  SECURITY (?): BRIGGS
 
  COURSE: Unknown exploding Planet.
  ALIEN TECH/POWER: Pollen from extinct planet causes humans to defy authority.

  COURSE: Unknown exploding Planet
  EXPLORATION: First contact with new sub-warp and savage humanoid species
  

STARDATE: 24.09.45-24.10.57-24.14.21
Now: Trek comics from a weird magazine, that obviously appealed to youngsters fans of TV shows. These barely pay attention to the show, and the writer seems to have only seen one episode, “The Corbomite Maneuver”, due to the fact that Bailey is the navigator. Also, the captain is written as Captain “Kurt”!
The story is ok, a planet inhabited by robots, which of course, tried to capture the crew. “Kurt” is extremely defiant against “robot life” and manages to clear away the whole planet, and dismisses writing everything on the log, so there.

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Star Trek on Joe 90 - Top Secret #1

DATE: 2266
CREW: BAILEY
  ENGINEERING: JACKSON

SHIP COURSE: Colony Alpha Five
CREW: YEOMAN RAND
YEOMAN 3rd CLASS: Tina Lawton

REFERENCE: Aliens: Thasians. Thasus
ALIEN POWER: transmute objects or render substances invisible

You can read “Charlie X” transcript here.

ALIEN TECH/POWER: Water’s changed to a complex chain of molecules. It passes from man to man through perspiration. Once in the bloodstream, it acts like alcohol, depresses the centres of judgment and self-control.

EXPLORATION:
  Desintegrating planet analysis.
CREW: (-1)
 SCIENCE OFFICER: JOE TORMOLEN (+)
  NAVIGATOR: KEVIN RILEY
  HELMSMAN: CLIFFORD BRENT
  LT: HADLEY
  LT: HARRISON
  CREWMAN: MOODY
  CREWMAN: RYAN

EXPLORATION: Found technique to travel through time

REFERENCE: Observation station founded: ULAPG42821DB

You can read “The Naked” transcript here.

Gold Key comics tend to break canon in a few details, like ordering ‘Rockets On’ to sail away, and placement of planets on “distant” galaxies. Because of this, they usually are rejected away from all canon. Memory Beta just ignores the whole galaxy reference and takes it as a system.

This one is also mildly good; it has a good sci-fi believable plot and it combines it with a bit of adventure. Unnecesary risk-taking in the part of the crew also. I can’t get over the fact that even with a 400+ crew and even specialized “security” crew, the senior officers are always putting themselves in danger…

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Download Gold Key 3: The Invasion of the City Builders

CHRONOLOGY:

STARDATE: 20:14.6
PLACE: Alpha Z-21, Planet Zarta at the “Edge of a Distant Galaxy”
EXPLORATION: First contact with unnamed humanoid species
ALIEN TECH: Cities and machinery made of “Unknown Metal”

Curiously, the first Gold Key comics where actually not that bad, with a bit of science fiction speculation mixed with a good amount of adventure. Characterizations are faulty in most cases but at least they get the idea of what each character should do.

On this second comic, the plot is not that bad, although it again degenerates quickly into space opera, just another action adventure. Even so, it’s mildly entertaining and again, could be fitted into a typical episode.

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Download Gold Key 2: The Devil’s Isle of Space

 CHRONOLOGY:

STARDATE: 19:03.4-19:04.5
PLACE: OUTER FRINGE OF GALAXY NABU, Belt of Uncharted Asteroids
EXPLORATION: Encounter Prison Asteroid & First Contact with unnamed alien species

CREW:
CREWMAN: FOSTER
SECURITY: KENT

DATE: 2266

PLACE: Planet M-113

CREW: 

SCIENCE: DARNELL

YEOMAN: JANICE RAND

SECURITY: GREEN

ENGINEERING: BOBBY

NAVIGATOR: BARNHART

DARNELL, STURGEON, GREEN & BARNHART killed by alien.

DECKS: Deck five crew quarters

SHIP ROUTE: STARBASE on Caran 4

REFERENCE: Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet

You can read “The Man Trap” transcript here.

Well, I guess I’m reviewing the Comics too. The earliest are the Gold Key comics (well, the first really in comic-book format, there are some newspaper comics also, and I’ll post them up those later) which are very mediocre, not really getting into the Trek spirit, but instead just make up some space opera adventures, put in the characters and let them plough through. No characterization, no story arches, no real enemies, just the adventure-of-the-week.

This first one, is not that bad, I actually like the “ultra-hostile-planet” theme in science fiction, where even the plants are overtly voracious. This ones go so far as to “infect” the crew and “mutate” them into plants. Even so, Kirk gets over-responsive and KILLS the whole planet. A bit overdoing it, and I would court-martial him for not respecting the native life-forms! But oh well, this barely gets acknowledged as being part of the Star Trek universe, and you could barely get it to be part of the ‘printed’ canon…

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Download Gold Key 1: The Planet of No Return

CHRONOLOGY:

STARDATE: 18:09.2
PLACE: Galaxy Alpha (?) Planet K-G
EVENT: Destroyed all life on planet due to overly aggresive plants. Lost 1 crew.
CREW:
YEOMAN: Janice Rand
SECURITY(?):Hunt (+)
SECURITY(?):Dean

CREW:
 GEOLOGICAL TECHNICIAN: FISHER
 YEOMAN: JANICE RAND
 NAVIGATOR: FARRELL
 
TECH: Technical problem with transporter can generate 2 psychological different persons

PLACE: ALPHA 177
DATE: 2266/stardate 1672.1.
EXPLORATION: Specimen-gathering mission

REFERENCE: Saurian brandy. Origin: Unknown
 
DECK:
  CREW’S QUARTERS: Deck twelve (Janice Rand)

You can read “The Enemy Within” transcript here.