The Rings of Tautee
Dean Wesley Smith/Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Book Description (jacket text):
When an entire solar system begins to disintegrate in cosmic rubble, Captain Kirk suspects that rumors of a new Klingon superweapon are all too true. The Tautee system houses a flourishing pre-Warp civilization not quite ready to join the Federation, so the Prime Directive limits Kirk's ability to undo the disaster, and his humanitarian rescue operations provoke a hostile response from four Klingon warships.
What is destroying the Tautee system? The USS Enterprise must uncover the truth before the catastrophe extends beyond Tautee to threaten the very nature of reality itself.
Opinion:
The good aspect of this Star Trek novel is the constant high level of excitement dealing with the question whether it would be possible to rescue the survivors of Tautee or not.
The idea is pretty well implemented, it is - by obvious parallels to reality - easy to identify oneself with a civilization which is about to destroy itself by accident when dealing with technologies too advanced.
Star Trek is best suited to deal with such subjects; it has always been Roddenberry's intention to wrap socio-critical plots into SF.
Unfortunately the authors stay too much on the surface especially concerning the characters. What is well done in respect to exciting situations is lost when atmosphere is concerned. In addition the cooperation with the Klingons - which is basically a positive development - does not fit into the TOS era without being explained more thoroughly.
Here and there the authors efforts are palpable to give hints to the future starting with Picard, e.g. with Scotty's holographic golf experiments, McCoy's fears of being replaced one day by a holodoc and the realization that one day it would indeed be possible to live in peace with the Klingons.
As a result I can still recommend this TOS novel - despite some weaknesses it can provide an entertaining evening.
