Book #41

[katikat]

"Star Trek Into Darkness" by Alan Dean Foster

Rating: ♣ ♣ ♣

Not as good as the novelization of the first Star Trek movie. It was obviously based on the script, possibly an early version of it, before the movie's final cut, because all the dialogs were way, way wordier here. I can understand that in a movie where it's not feasible to show the characters' inner monolog, where it's necessary to explain things in dialogs, but in a book, it feels simply... messy and redundant, see Uhura's overlong explanation of how it was possible to establish a connection with New Vulcan. Things like that tend to pull the reader out of the action. They are not necessary. The connection was established, I do not need to know more.

What I liked was that the author didn't add scenes that hadn't been in the movie. I don't like it when tie-in authors pad out the original script with what they think might have happened between the various scenes. For that, there's fanfiction. I also liked that the fate of the main antagonist was explained in more detail, there were things there that I hadn't noticed in the movie. It was much more sinister and it hinted at a possible direction the next movie could take.

Overall, not a bad novelization but I think Greg Cox did a much better job with The Dark Knight Rises.