A Choice of Catastrophes

For something that started with so much promise - a McCoy-centric tale, full of an irritable McCoy's pop therapist internal monologue (SO MUCH ANGST) - I actually tired of this really, REALLY quickly. I ended up skimming the last third of the book, just to get 1 more towards the damn 2012 challenge (30 books this year!). I can't pinpoint the exact problems, except for a general lack of momentum and uninspired narrative. The big reveals in the final chapter just had no real payoff, since I didn't care from page 1 why the espers (ESP-sensitive crewmembers) were in “mysterious” comas. I also didn't care to see all the characters treated as 1-dimensional stock stereotypes of their former selves (“I dinna care!” Scotty thickly demands... while Kirk punches aliens in their “eye stalks”... and Chekov needs to be comforted while he cries...). The alien race introduced in this book - the Farrezzi - also spoke in a pretty lame attempt at “Look, how funny foreign languages can be, ho ho!” This actually can be done well in a Star Trek book, such as the Romulan Way, where McCoy is intercepted by a frantic alien - their exchange is pretty humorous. But, alas, here it just felt dry and boring.