Crisis on Centaurus (Star Trek) by Brad Ferguson

A pleasant enough read but at times it was just 'off'

Published in 1986 by Pocket Books.

The premise of Crisis on Centaurus is that the colony Centaurus is bombed by a terrorist group and approximately 1 million victims die. The planetary government is in a shambles and the Enterprise is dispatched to aid in whatever way possible. However, Enterprise is having a series of computer failures and is not up to full capacity so things get tricky for Kirk and the crew.

Ferguson has written an adequate Star Trek novel - his main characters are written very solidly, but his supporting characters are rather like cardboard cutouts. The women weep and the men clench their teeth and pound their fists in anger at the news of the terrorist attack.

Having the benefit of hindsight in regards to the 9/11 attacks, I found the behavior of many of the characters to have been implausible at best, including doctors taking time away from the thousands of refugee patients to tour the Enterprise and especially the Mardi Gras-type partying that was going on in the new capitol city just a few days after a million people were killed in the planet's old capitol city. Remembering the somber mood of the country after 9/11 that went on for weeks with only a few thousand deaths, I found it to have been a jarring, hard to believe part of the story.

The first half of the story was really much, much better than the contrived second half. It is the first half that pulls it up to the third star and makes this a book that I recommend, albeit weakly.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Crisis on Centaurus by Brad Ferguson.

Reviewed on August 12, 2005.