When the crew of the Enterprise return home they are confronted with a threat from within their own ranks. Kirk is forced to confront his own desire for revenge when he leads the crew in a manhunt for a one man army who wishes to destroy Starfleet...

Where there’s a science fiction film, there is inevitably the official novelisation. Star Trek: Into Darkness’s brand of action and humour have advanced and enhanced the franchise, so who better to write the book than that stalwart Alan Dean Foster. Foster was the ideal choice to pen the novel, not only is he a prolific author of his own books, but has penned many a film novelisation as well as novelising the first film in the reboot.

Given the success of the film, Foster has delivered a book which mirrors the film beat for beat. Here he has taken the opportunity to expand most of the scenes, with additional dialogue. This form of expansion is the consummate joy of novelisations as they have the time to dwell on moments which pass too quickly in the film and to explore more motivation and character interaction.

If you’ve seen the film you will know that it’s a rollercoaster that starts with a bang and barely catches its breath before the end, so it was nice to get a little more under the skin of the characters. That said there is little in the way of deviation from the film, but I guess that was a restriction placed on Foster by Paramount.

The book is well written and although it’s not actually Foster's story he does the adaptation well.

7

Charles Packer