Star Trek: A Contest of Principles
{4.5/5} “Some of us still remember what Vok did to our world in the Before Time, how they all but destroyed our civilization, forcing us to waste millenia clawing our way back from the wreckage. If not for Vok, we’d be more advanced than your Federation by now, or the Klingons or the Romulans. We can never forget or forgive that great wrong, even if the Federation thinks nothing of allying itself with the fiends who laid waste to our world.”
Star Trek: A Contest of Principles by Greg Cox, published in 2020
Captain Kirk and the Enterprise are at Vok to observe an election. It’s the first election in recent memory, and will have an impact on neighbouring planets as well. When Kirk attends a rally for one of the candidates, there’s an assassination attempt. Meanwhile, Dr. Leonard McCoy responds to a distress call, only to be kidnapped. He wakes up on Ozalor, and finds out he’s been brought there to heal the royal daughter.
It’s about an election where some people want the military to rule and some people want to move on to a new way of doing things. It’s about outside-the-box solutions.
It’s a bit closer to real life than most Star Trek books, but Cox always tells a great story.
This is the 14th book I’ve read by Cox. I previously reviewed Star Trek: The Antares Maelstrom.