Klingon

by Dean Wesley Smith

The Klingon Empire remains the Federation's most fearsome and uneasy ally, but can any human fully understand the heart and soul of a true Klingon warrior? During crucial negotiations on Deep Space Nine™. Gowron, leader of the Klingon High Council, tests human understanding of the Klingon way by sharing the powerful story of one warrior's quest for honor...
Pok is a young Klingon caught up in the dangerous complexities of clan politics. When his father is murdered in his own home on the day of Pok's Rite of Ascension, Pok must find the assassin and close the circle of vengeance. But as he searches for the truth amidst strange aliens and treacherous friends, Pok discovers that every day can be a good day to die and that only his own warrior's training stands between him and the business end of d'k tahg knife!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook

225 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 1996

About the author

Pen Names
Edward Taft
Dee W. Schofield
Sandy Schofield
Kathryn Wesley

Dean Wesley Smith is the bestselling author of over ninety novels under many names and well over 100 published short stories. He has over eight million copies of his books in print and has books published in nine different countries. He has written many original novels in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and romance as well as books for television, movies, games, and comics. He is also known for writing quality work very quickly and has written a large number of novels as a ghost writer or under house names.

With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. The following is a list of novels under the Dean Wesley Smith name, plus a number of pen names that are open knowledge. Many ghost and pen name books are not on this list because he is under contractual obligations not to disclose that he wrote them. Many of Dean’s original novels are also under hidden pen names for marketing reasons.

Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.

Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books.

Currently, he is writing thrillers and mystery novels under another name.

Reviews

[Alejandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today is good day to read!


MORE EXCITING THAN EXPECTED!

This prose novel is a curious thing, since it's a novelization of a PC CD-ROM game, and while Star Trek have several novelization of key episodes (the same done by other pop culture franchises), it's rare to be made a novelization of a PC CD-ROM game (but not the only one in Star Trek or even in other fellow franchises), but still is a curious experiment...

...since in the PC CD-ROM, you are Pok, a young Klingon trying to be successful in his Rite of Ascension (think in a kinda bar mitzvah but way more bloody and violent) where your PC character is guided and assisted by Gowron, Leader of the Klingon High Council (at the moment of the production of the game)...

...so, in the prose novel, the storyline of Pok is told by Gowron to crewmember of Deep Space Nine station and the USS Enterprise-D, meanwhile they are working all together to find an insidious threat to a diplomatic meeting organized in the mentioned space station.

So, while I never played the PC CD-ROM, taking in account the extra big bonus of having an original story in the novel with a cool crossover of the casts of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I'm pretty sure that the prose novel is more entertained than what could be the PC CD-ROM game which only had Gowron as guest star in the game, while in the prose novel, you have TWO full crews of two Star Trek spin-off TV series.

Therefore, not matter if you played the game or not, not matter if you liked the game or not, it's quite advisable not discard this prose novel, since maybe the story isn't that ambitious, but it's absolutely engaging and entertained and always a crossover tale in Star Trek is something memorable.

Qapla'!!!

[Jonathan Koan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Star Trek: Klingon is a novelization of the 1996 CD-Rom game from Simon and Schuster. It was adapted by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch and is based on the script by Hilary Bader (with a story by both Smith and Rusch). It was released in May of 1996.

This is one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in a while, purely because of the design of the book. Rather than be a novelization of a television episode or movie (like previous Star Trek novelizations), this book adapts a “click-and-move” CD game from the 90s, which was thin on story and yet had enormous potential. Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch do an excellent job of adding to the story to make it much more exciting and compelling for the book audience.

The crux of the game is about Gowron developing a holodeck program around his time with Pok (who the audience plays as) in their attempt to avenge Pok’s father’s death. The story itself is very thin and unfortunately wouldn’t be anything to write home about on its own.

However, because the book is not limited to the characters it can use like a movie/show/game is, the authors were able to add in the crews of the Enterprise-D and Deep Space Nine which makes the story much more full and dynamic. Even other characters from Star Trek series show up, which makes the surprises that much more fun.

The present day story is focused on Gowron and the Klingons attending a summit on DS9 with Jellico, Picard, and a few others. As the talks appear to go nowhere, Gowron retells the story of him and Pok to try to get Jellico and others to understand Klingon culture and history. This plotline had some great action and had some interesting twists that I really enjoyed.

One thing that hurt the book was the constant cutting in the middle of chapters between the present day on DS9 and the flashback. This was done because rather than have an audience playing the game, they kept the story the same and had Lieutenant Barclay make the decisions in the story. Had the book simply flipped back and forth with each chapter, not focusing on intercutting in the middle of a chapter, the book would have flowed significantly better. I think this idea was better carried out by Michael Jan Friedman in “Kahless”.

That being said, I was really interested to find out what happened. Klingons are my favorite Star Trek species, and learning about their culture through this game was compelling. Smith and Rusch made a decision to tie the two storylines together, as well as to tie it to some episodes of the Next Generation, which actually raised the stakes and linked together other Star Trek stories, which I really appreciated.

The book also features a 20 page “behind-the-scenes” feature written by David Mack. This explains the process of writing the script, shooting the game, and producing it to become interactive in post-production. This behind the scenes featurette is really interesting to hardcore Trek readers or to people who want to know “how the sausage gets made”. However, if you aren’t that invested, you don’t need to read that featurette to enjoy the book. The story itself (which is really short at 195 pages) can stand alone.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and found the design of it fascinating and the present day story really fun. The flashbacks weren’t fantastic, and the intercutting between storylines needed a lot of rewrites, but overall this was a fun book to read and really adds a lot to the Star Trek mythos. I think it deserves a 7 out of 10.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deep Space Nine hosts the Enterprise and Gowron for talks between the Federation and the Empire. At night, after the official negotiations have ended, Gowron tells the tale of a young Klingon warrior's quest to avenge his father. Pok's story weaves beautifully with the intrigue of the political situation.

On the other hand, this book needed an editor it did not get. Unless people in the future really do take percussions to avoid fights.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

KLINGON is Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch's novelization of Hilary Bader's computer game script that, in turn, was based on a story by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. With that pedigree, it's surprising the novel works as well as it does, though it's certainly a lesser entry in TREK's unofficial canon. I suppose most of the credit should go to TV writer Hilary Bader, who I imagine put more thought into her script than Smith and Rusch did into their novelization, which, though entertaining, is definitely a bit sloppy. What makes the story interesting is that (A) it does a great job of combining THE NEXT GENERATION with DEEP SPACE 9 and (B) the story-within-a-story provides an added layer to what otherwise would be standard TREK fare. Unfortunately, the weak ending basically flushes the book's clever plot premise straight down the toilet, so that's a bummer. I was also surprised the story focused so much on Riker, until I learned that the video footage for the computer game was directed by Jonathan Frakes. Then it all made sense. It was also fun to see Riker drinking so much Klingon blood wine, since I still have my own (unopened) bottle that I picked up at the now-defunct STAR TREK EXPERIENCE in Vegas about 15 years ago. Thank you, book, for making me value my little collector's item all the more!

[Adrian Halpert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Klingon was a fun foray through Klingon culture. It was a pretty short read and an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. The plot centered around Klingon high councillor Gowran spinning the tale of another Klingon's, Pok, typically Klingon quest for vengence for the crew of the Enterprise and DS9. Having never played the CD ROM game, I'm not sure how faithfully it stuck to the game.
I also enjoyed the inclusion of Barclay and Jellico. I may be a minority, but I did enjoy Jellico's character in Chain of Command and was happy to see him here.
One thing that did drive me a little nuts about this book was that every dozen pages or so, Gowran who is telling Pok's story to members of the Enterprise and DS9 crew, stops and asks Barclay: "How would you handle such and such situation Pok finds himself in?" I'm guessing this was to mirror the gameplay the book is based on, but I found it really annoying and could hear the CD drive whirling every time this happened. The authors could definately have adopted a better narrative structure!
Despite this problem, I did find the plot to be fast paced and it held my interest thrughout. 2.5 / 5 Stars.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the novelization of the video game Star Trek: Klingon. Haven't never played it myself but having watched the playthrough/stitched-together movie on YouTube, I thought this novel was okay. D.W. Smith and his wife Kristine Rausch wrote the novel and introduced new elements not found in the game - like forcing Barclay to be the "player" and protagonist. The sub-plot with Riker and Dax was weird since in TV canon they never met on screen. How they would have acted in real life, we don't know.

Lastly, I took 2 stars off because the prose was extremely simplistic and in some places violated some English grammar rules.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book based on an interactive CD-Rom, and it reads like it. The familiar NextGen and DS9 characters are just furniture here for the mediocre Klingon story.

[Thomas W Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good kahless

Like all Star Trek novels it reminds us of what we can be and future we dream of and the klingons also remind us of what we have forgotten and its pure honour

[Colleen Frakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the chapters seem to end with Riker asking Dax out to dinner. Then even Picard points out that they'd make a good couple for some reason? It gets real creepy real quick.

[Nick (LackingZones) · Rating 3 out of 5]

About as good as a novelization of an FMV game from 1996 can possibly be.

That said, I'd like to see Michael Dirn narrate more audiobooks.

[Mikael Kuoppala · Rating 2 out of 5]

Crossovers rarely work, period. That is one of the constants with working with a spin-off series concept.

“Star Trek: Klingon” is a novelization of the CD-ROM with the same title, which I should note I've never played. In the novelization Gowron tells the story of the CD-ROM in Quark's bar. It also just happens that the crew of the Enterprise-D are present.

The novel doesn't offer any insight to the characters. And- most disappointingly- we learn absolutely nothing new about Klingons. In fact the story could as easily have been told without involving DS9 as the setting of the storytelling sessions or the Enterprise crew as additional and useless characters as those aspects of the novel seem to hold no purpose whatsoever. So in the end it became apparent that they were only included to get as many regular characters into the novel as possible, an approach that fits well with the level of ambition this mediocre tale exhibits.

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few days ago, I posted a review of a Star Wars novel that discussed how far computer/video games have come in recent years, so, even though Klingon is reportedly based on a CD-ROM, I won't get into all that again. What I will say is that Klingon was a well-written "Star Trek" novel, which is to be expected from the husband/wife writing team of Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. However, I'm not 100% sure that such a story would make a good computer game. True, the book had an engaging plot and would make a good movie or TV episode, but I can't see how a tale like Klingon would work in computer/video game form. One wonders how true the developers stayed to the script that was the basis for this novel. That doesn't mean the novel is bad; it just wasn't the action-packed, intense thrill ride that video/computer games usually are.

[Josh Mace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that is also a PC game. Here's what I did and you may find equally enjoyable. The PC game is an interactive movie basically where choices are given to u that decide the story. You play as Pok a young Klingon. It is described as a holodeck program to train you in the klingon way. The book takes the game and tells its story through Gowron (klingon on the cover). Gowron is on Ds9 for a treaty conference with picard and several other well known characters in TNG. The book flips between the conference Gowron telling his story and a nice subplot I wont spoil. All in all not bad. Here's a bonus I talked about earlier. Read the book then go to YouTube and you can watch the game which is Gowron's story about Pok. It's pretty cool. It's a mini klingon movie with the real sets and makeup and what not. Rather short book but I enjoyed it.

[Shawn Hussell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the premise and execution of the story, I was a little disappointed to find out almost 40% of the novel was dedicated to the Making of the game. Beyond that great read!