#i will not be reading a non-ST eklund book

[crackingthetbrpile]

Devil World (Gordon Eklund, 1979)

1/5 stars (1/5 for entertainment, 0/5 for teasing me with a more interesting concept at the very end)

If you’re curious whether you should give Devil World a chance, I’ll ease your worries now: go ahead and skip this one. There’s nothing here that you can’t find done better in either another tie-in novel, or a TOS episode.

Eklund obviously wanted to try something here, but it’s just as obvious that he has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to the characters. Kirk is somehow a frightening captain, for example, despite any evidence to the contrary from The Original Series. Considering Eklund’s later comments regarding the freedom allowed to the Star Trek Adventures writers, I’m surprised this book is so unimpressive. The plot doesn’t seem to go anywhere up until the last twenty pages, but by that point Eklund had sapped all of my good will and I no longer cared.

The worst part about this novel is definitely the original characters Eklund created - namely Gilla Dupree and Albert Schang. The best I can describe Dupree is to compare her to the character of Willie Scott from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. She’s a songstress whose emotions change on a dime, and is really only in the way in any given scene. Somehow Kirk is in love with her after only a few days, as is the way with the more awful tie-in novels. All I can remember is writing the word “Barf” next to his first declaration of love for her. Schang is just a lazy and klutzy officer who annoyed me every time he was on the page, eventually “redeeming” himself in the least believable ending I could picture for his character.

Books left: 870

While I detested a lot of this book, I am a firm believer in that there is always a nugget of something worthwhile in these novels. I’ve included my favorite bits from Devil World beneath the “read more” for brevity’s sake.

- Eklund knows a lot about Jainism, and he’s determined to tell you all about it. Does he know a lot of accurate info about this belief system? Debatable, but I did enjoy the opportunity to learn more about it, even if I had to constantly fact-check what the characters said. Dupree sours this one, because she practices Jainism and is kind of terrible at it.

- Jacob Kell’s paintings are a fascinating bit of characterization, and I wish Eklund had done more than passively reference them. The focus on his need to hold onto the art he created after his traumatic experience speaks to the real Kell’s desires for solitude, even if this character bit is dropped by the end of the novel because Eklund got bored.

- The description of the underbelly of the Danon village. So cool, and the reveal that the entire planet is just one huge computer?! I wished that we could’ve spent the whole novel exploring the maze of hallways and wires beneath the planet’s surface, but Eklund didn’t think it deserved more than a passing mention in the last twenty pages.

#star trek #tos #star trek novels #devil world #gordon eklund #star trek adventures #i will not be reading a non-ST eklund book #you can't make me #he's not good at this