Elusive Salvation

by Dayton Ward

An all-new Star Trek adventure across time—the latest of the acclaimed Original Series novels!The Arctic Circle, 1845: Escaping the tyranny under which their people have lived for generations, aliens from a distant planet crash land on Earth’s inhospitable frozen wastes. Surviving the harsh conditions will pose a challenge, but over time the aliens will migrate to more populated areas, with decades passing as they work to conceal their presence from their former oppressors, who continue to hunt them at any cost. San Francisco, 2283: When a mysterious craft is detected entering the solar system, Admiral James Kirk is dispatched by Starfleet to confront the vessel. He meets with an emissary from the Iramahl, a previously unknown alien race who have come in search of their brothers and sisters thought to have gone missing in this area of space centuries earlier. Having recently thrown off the last chains of subjugation by another species, the Ptaen, they now believe their lost people hold the key to saving their entire race from eventual extinction. New York, 1970: Roberta Lincoln, young protégé of the mysterious agent Gary Seven, is shocked when she receives the oddest request for help—from the future… ™, ®, & © 2016 CBS Studios, Inc. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Star Trek Original Series, Time Travel, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy

326 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2016

About the author

Dayton is a software developer, having become a slave to Corporate America after spending eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. When asked, he’ll tell you that he left home and joined the military soon after high school because he’d grown tired of people telling him what to do all the time.

Ask him sometime how well that worked out.

In addition to the numerous credits he shares with friend and co-writer Kevin Dilmore, he is the author of the Star Trek novels In the Name of Honor and Open Secrets, the science fiction novels The Last World War and The Genesis Protocol, and short stories which have appeared in the first three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthologies, the Yard Dog Press anthology Houston, We’ve Got Bubbas, Kansas City Voices Magazine and the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with wife Michi and daughters Addison and Erin, Dayton is a Florida native and still maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A loose sequel to From History's Shadow (though each stands alone just fine), this one felt less inspired. The plot is fairly well conceived and interesting at a high level, dealing with the effects of genetic engineering as a tool of war and genocide against an entire species. Yet it can be slow to develop and lacks urgency, with Ward frequently getting sidetracked on irrelevant backstory that interrupts the flow of events. Plus, time travel is overused as a plot device. I found myself frequently skimming through chapters. Anyway, I can wholeheartedly recommend From History's Shadow to all Trek fans, but this not as much.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great TOS Trek novel, Ward really captures the characteristics of this crew perfectly.

Such a fun Time-Travel storyline that jumps through 400 years of Earth’s history.

It’s was really easy to get lost in this adventure!

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good space opera read.

[Aron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dayton Ward is not one my favorite ST authors, not even in the top 5. However, ever once in a while he'll write a really good book, so good in fact that it's hard for me to believe he actually wrote it, especially when you compare it to some of his other stuff. Anyway, this book was awesome from start to finish.

[Rebekah Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

So boring!

[David Haddon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elusive Salvation by Dayton Ward is one of the newer Star Trek books released this year, under the 50th Anniversary banner. It is an Original Series novel set from Kirk's point of view just before Wrath of Khan. The story takes places across time, including the 1800s, 1970s and of course the 23rd century.

The main plot focuses on a race of aliens who have been subjugated and enslaved for generations, by another race who used genetic modification and eugenics to achieve this. A group of these aliens have crash landed on Earth, and their brethren need Kirk and the Federation's help to find them. The future of their race depends upon it.

This is by no means the best Star Trek book, or even a particularly good science fiction book. It is not trashy, but there are definitely better ones available. The story itself feels a little boring, and I never particularly connected with the characters. Especially not the aliens, who are rarely characterised beyond lost and desperate. It is also a direct sequel to another of Ward's Star Trek books, For History's Shadow, but that does not appear to be required reading. You will be able to read Elusive Salvation without it.

Despite it's flaws, with it's slow story and flat characters, Ward makes up for it by making this a love letter to Star Trek. Every other chapter there was a clever easter egg, referencing something in Star Trek history. Usually an episode, character or event. These weren't always subtle, heck, two of the main characters are from a not so well known episode of the Original Series. Yet Star Trek fans will probably get enjoyment out of them. The easter eggs and references aren't contained to the Original Series either, thanks to how often time travel has been utilized, or characters have had prolonged life spans in the show. There are references drawn from Trek through most of the different series.

I do not recommend this book as highly as I have some other Star Trek books. I think that non-Trek fans will not get any real enjoyment from it. That being said, I do think that fans of the show, looking to celebrate fifty years of it, should take a look. If only for the easter eggs.

[Crystal Bensley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great characters and some really cool moments but the story didn't fully grab me.

[Sarah B · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the cover of this book but the story itself dragged so bad that I was falling asleep! I mean, look at those figures out there on that ice. Looks like a crashed ship and some kind of survival story. But its nothing like that at all. Yes, the aliens are on the ice for a very brief time, way in Earth's past. But it's over quickly.

The problem (the way I see it) is this story is not really about James Kirk. Yes, he is in it. But he is more of a "guest star" with those stranded aliens taking the center stage. And there was nothing remarkable about them. They had no personality. They were flat cardboard. Had names. But I didn't even care about them. And the parts with them - which is a huge chunk of the book - was so slow and boring! Ughh. It made me feel like skipping ahead (which I really don't do but if I get that urge than the book is bad bad BAD). So this one was a nightmare. The aliens going through various decades.

And even the scenes with Kirk was pretty boring too. He is an Admiral in here. Has an office. He visits the Enterprise. Spock is Captain. Its set right before The Wrath of Khan, so its gearing up for that. But because its so close to the movie Kirk really cannot DO much. Because the Enterprise has to stay shiny and all for his battle later with Khan. Then it can get horribly wrecked. You remember how horrid it looked when it came back to spacedock, all those people gawking in horror at the ship.

The problem in here are those aliens. Too flat. And nothing really happens. Its just a bunch of little scenes. But that is boring.

I love Star Trek but this one is just a snooze fest. No suspense. No action. Blah.

[Graff Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Star Trek: TOS: 20th/21st Century 05 Elusive Salvation (Star Trek: The Original Series) by Dayton Ward

4.25 Stars

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense

Medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is again a great sequel to the previous novel in the 20th/21st Century series in the Star Trek: Lit-verse Flowchart. I have now completed 133 novels in this series...and I'm pumped.

This story was again a "tour de force" of callbacks from Star Trek: TOS TV series and its characters...and there was even a callout from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

This one was the experience of a race of beings, which inherently live long lives, but their mortal enemies are doing genetic experiments on them (to control them), making them slaves to their empire, and shortening their lives to keep them in tow.

This story spans hundreds of years, but keeps the intimate story present with different POV moments...from the race that was fleeing persecution. The race who has tracked them down through long distances in space. To our heroes...the crew of the USS Enterprise, and a new vulcan friend we meet, and of course...George Seven and Ms. Roberta Lincoln.

This was a fun story to read, that I spent the entire day exploring.

Now, the next book on the docket is Star Trek: 20th/21st Century 06 The Rings of Time by Greg Cox. Here we go...

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I did not see the end coming. I mean the very end. The last line of the book. They say you're not supposed to jump to the end of the book and spoil it, and, do you know what? I often do. But this time I didn't!

This book is the second part of a series of three works by Dayton Ward including From History's Shadow (2013) and Hearts and Minds (2017) which follows up on the exciting adventures of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln. So I was totally not interested in these books, but I read Hearts and Minds because I was following the post-Nemesis novels. That novel got me totally hooked so I read this one next.

I've heard Dayton Ward in interviews say that with each Star Trek novel he writes he wants to create a story where the reader has an introduction to ST and doesn't have to go back and watch hours of TV or read ten other novels in order to understand what's going on. So, what's awesome about this is that I've been reading this series in reverse order and I cannot wait to read From History's Shadow.

[Eggith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good stuff! Dont need to read the book before but it is nice to see the connections i would love to read more about this era with gary seven and roberta lincoln. Def revist every so often and will have a permanet place on my shelf. Dayton ward writes well and can capture the voices of the characters. Not everyone can do this

[Bjoern · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty solid story teaming up once more the hidden protectors of Earth Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln with Admiral Kirk and Captain Spock, making excellent use of the plot vehicle driving the story "Operation Annihilate" from TOS third season.

This time the 23rd century Starfleet is confronted with a mindbaffling dilemma: an alien race visits the sol-System in response to a 400 year old distress call, reported by Guinan through El Aurian channels but only now reaching the rest of their own race due to various problems like the destruction of their homeworld, they are searching some castaways or their descendants, that fled slavery and oppression from a different but very powerful alien race to find a solution for the genetic manipulations keeping them in slavery (mostly shorter lifespans) but vanished after crashing on Earth. Allegedly they were scientists that already discovered the solution for the genetic problems and are still direly needed to achieve not just relative freedom, but full restoration of the species as a sovereign race with normal lifespans and everything.
Traces of the lost ship are found, but a scan of the system shows no signs of any aliens of this species still living amongst the humans. So Kirk sends a probe through time to ask for help from Gary Seven. Instead he is visited by Roberta Lincoln as Mr Seven is away on a mission and she doesn't know when he'll be back.

Parallel to this mission, we are shown a bit more about the development of Earth#s own secret protection from Alien invasions agency "Majestic 12" after the incidents described in the "Dept. of Temporal Investigations" novel Forgotten History with Project Blue Book growing and hiring new personnel, while some signs for the cast aways that got stranded over 100 years ago in North America are discovered... The organisation has also arrested Mestral, the vulcan who stranded with T Pol's grandmother in the 1950es (as shown in Enterprise's S02 episode carbon Creek) but stayed behind to study humans in their "natural habitat" and their way from primitive rocketry towards later stages of space travel...
He is freed by Ms Lincoln and joins their small operations group as a volunteer

Several times the headhunters sent after the fugitives by their slavemasters find them and force them to hide even deeper, which means that even after kirk and Spock followed Roberta Lincoln back to 1984 the evasive Aliens are hard to find... the best trace they have is a Navy ship discovering a halfways thawed ship hidden in the ice, the wreck from about 140 years earlier! They manipulate the memory of the Navy crew that found it and have the ship transported away by Seven's Computer to a New York facility he controls.

But their analysis of the wreck set off a security mechanism that starts a self destruct sequence and threatens to destroy a large portion of mid Manhattan. THAT gets the attention of the hidden crew and brings them to investigate the time displaced meddlers. Of course also some of th eheadhunters approach the wreck and its new hideaway, leading to the fugitives running away again.
Ultimately Spock and Mestral have to beam the soon exploding wreck to the Laurentian Abyss before the coast of Nova Scotia and Kirk and Ms Lincoln explain the situation to the Captain of the stranded aliens, leading to them evacuating into the 23rd century so they can make contakt with their descendants and deliver the genetic modifications necessary to liberate them from the DNA-imposed graps their former oppressors still hold on them. (McCoy and Dr Chapel improve on it by using the Klingon retrovirus responsible for the mutation of some Klingon's foreheads in the 2150s - ENT S04 "Affliction") to help make the restoration process faster and Dr Chapel will also accompany the formerly stranded scientists to supervise the cure in action), while Roberta Lincoln admits that they sent the Scoutship with which the Headhunters got reinforcements back in 1984 back home with the information the aliens did no longer live on earth and had fled, which should mean no more searchparties coming to look for them.

A short epilogue mentions Roberta Lincoln seeing parts of the ST IV visit to 1986 with six human and one vulcan lifesign implicating Kirk and Spock to her, but without making contact she doesn't know if it is a younger Kirk than she last met or an older one. As Seven is again on an undercover mission, she goes to San Francisco on her own, to investigate more closely.

A second PS shows how the Major who stumbled over Aliens and their hunters in 1984 is now in 1996 a Brigade general and head of Project Blue Book. They get hints at yet another visit to Earth from a blogged video somebody shot during their BBQ and showing an "UFO" with recognizable but visibly more advanced shape (presumably Voyager in one of their own Time travel plots? 1996 would fit with the odyssey of the Aeon, and the averted alternate timeline with Chronowerx and the different end to the computer revolution, wouldn't it?). He orders a closer investigation and muses about differences in detection technology and how the ship may have evaded them, while returning to the secret sub basement headquarter of Majestic 12.... Subbasement B14, Section 31!


I like most of the work the Author has put into industriously putting together crossquotations and hints at a lot of the period-accurate TV plots and books dealing with time travel and Star Trek stories playing in the 70es and 80es. Roswell (DS9 Little Green men) is mentioned as are pretty much all other visits to the later decades of the 20th century from TOS to ENT.
Where the novel SOMETIMES lost me is with nasty little snide comments about current events of 2016 / the 2000s that felt at times too clever for their own good or too forced to really fit into this narration and maybe two or three occasions of almost breaking the fourth wall in other respects.
Still, the cast works well together, the continuation of previous storylines like the afore mentioned DTI novels is flawless and entertaining and as far as characterisation and "atmosphere" are involved it is a very authentic throwback to "half movie era half TOS" behavior of Kirk and Spock and also to the TV representation of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln... I liked the appearances of Admiral Heichiro Nogura, although the debriefing after the mission felt a bit like the author had run out of both space&time to develop the scene properly and of ideas how to close the story at this end. A shorter scene with the final adieu happening back in 84 with kirk, Spock and the aliens leaving might have been the rounder ending to this storyline and not have felt so strange and wooden.

The weakest aspect of the novel is the main plot... which is VERY thin and doesn#t really contribute anything to the 380 pages. The set up with the Aliens stranding and making contact with Guinan is the strongest part, after that it quickly degrades to a third class imitation of the usual Dr Who episode frame with "random encounters", constant running away and basically no longer important characterisations of the aliens. That part of the book, where Kirk and Seven's organisation took no part, could have been retold in five to ten pages but makes up 80 or 100. A giant case of wasted opportunity.

As for the "second ending", i could have done without yet another idea where the Section 31 organisation comes from, the exhaustive and unsatisfying ENT novel i've read this summer was bad enough with its "they have been destroyed.... OR HAVE THEY" theme... no need to make them even older than Earth's own Starfleet from the 20x0's or 21x0's on after Cochrane made his first contact in the aftermath of WW3. Especially as the story of Majestic 12 / blue book wasn't even that good and well worked out. It felt mostly like an afterthought to the activities of the stranded aliens and Seven/Lincoln/Mestral to fill out the "contemporary Earth history" role. Which included some of the most offensive instances of "Breaking the fourth wall" when basically all of the conspiracy theory web is brought into it as government distraction from the real, secret events. *sigh*
Star Trek would have deserved better than to be drawn into that millieu, especially as the storyline shows that there IS something more behind UFO sightings than illusions and wishful thinking by some crackpot theoretists...

In the end, between the nice atmosphere and character uses for the few main characters and the excessive use of mediocre filling material to get to the 400 page goal, it only gets ***. If everything would have been as good written and exciting as Roberta Lincoln in her "experienced secret agent" persona, it would have surpassed 4 and scratched on 5, but with the lame Alien plot and the obnoxious Military intervention it does just not get to be judged only by its good parts. Like i started this review: it's a solid book, but in no respect extraordinary or sensational. Thus the average grade!

[Paul Lunger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dayton Ward's latest time travel adventure "Elusive Salvation" finds we the reader back in the Original Series universe spanning 4 centuries. The book opens with the crash landing in the Arctic in 1845 of a ship by a race known as the Iramahl who have fled the oppression of a race known as the Ptaen. In 2283, an unidentified object is spotted approaching Jupiter station that eventually is determined to be an Iramahl ship which is looking for its missing people who may or may not be still alive some 4 centuries later. To locate the crew in the past, Kirk sends a message to Roberta Lincoln in the 1970s to see if they can be located. Ward does a decent job of mixing parts of the past & present with a fascinating tale of oppression as well as drawing on episodes of 3 other Star Trek series which make for nice references throughout the tale. The book is an easy read & enjoyable one up through the breakneck finale which will take your breath away. Overall, this is a very good book for the 50th anniversary which pays homage to a lot of the best Star Trek has done over the years which is a nice change of pace.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The human military portions of the book left me cold...but the rest of the novel is a fun time travel caper that once again manages to balance solid story telling with a mastery of Trek fanwank. It's also a great showcase for Gary Seven's assistant, Roberta Lincoln...and I'll always take another story set in one of my favourite periods: the 2280s of the original six films era. All in all, this was extremely satisfying.

[Appsbyaaron · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not the best adventure I've read. I actually put it down for 2 weeks halfway through because it got so wordy with nothing happening. Overall it was fun I guess. Interesting idea poor execution IMHO. Not enough Enterprise crew and of those included they didn't get much story time. It was really fun to see returning characters such as Roberta London and Gary Seven. I only bought this book for the cover art anyway LOL. It's the best part of the book.

[Ross Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, Dayton Ward takes the reader back to the 20th century, to spies, hidden aliens, secret cabals of investigators, Overseer and of course, a certain Act First, Get Permission Later Captain.
Part "The Event", a dash of "Dark Skies", a pinch of "X-files" and BOOM - one awesome book!!!


Looking forward to the next book in the saga. (And yes, this is a vote for MORE books!!)

[cauldronofevil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just yanked this off the shelf cause I needed a book to read before I go to sleep and Star Trek books are good for that.

It starts off with aliens landing on Earth in 1845 in Antarctica.

Then it goes to 2283 on the Jupiter Early Warning Station near earth. Were unknown things are heading to Earth.

Then it goes to Earth at Starfleet Headquarters where Admiral Kirk is regretting a desk job.

Of course, Kirk is soon ordered to go out and investigate what is heading to Earth.

Back in 1892 the two aliens hiding out on Earth meet Guinan which I believe is a character from ”Star Trek The Next Generation.” I HATE It when they mix the shows together.

Kirk and the Enterprise find out that the ship heading towards Earth is looking for a ship that might have crash landed on Earth a while ago.

Back in 1951 we find out that the aliens are still alive and still hiding out and still being hunted. Um. Okay, it’s Star Trek, I’ll go with it.

”Got anything to drink in this place?” The doctor asked by way of greeting.

”World War III wiped out whole sections of the planet.”
When is someone going to write the book on World War III!?

Unfortunately there are characters here who were introduced in either other books or the Enterprise show. I’m not sure and I certainly have a better chance of reading every book the author has ever written than to watch the Enterprise show! These characters aren’t really given very much introduction to understand why they are here.

I do enjoy Roberta Lincoln and company appearing however. Anything from actual Star Trek is fair game!

He’s the worst teacher ever, except when he’s being the best teacher ever.

The Eugenics Wars were but a few years into the future, and Kirk already knew that Seven and Lincoln would play a role in that clandestine conflict that had raged around the planet all while lurking in the shadows of civilization.

This was in a chapter dated 1985.

I have a bit of a problem with everybody and their brother knowing about Seven and Lincoln. It may be logical, but it just doesn’t sit right with me.

Seldom did a day go by that Leonard McCoy did not want to take a phaser to a piece of equipment that he wronged him in some real or perceived manner.

Mestral has issues with pon farr, but if remember correctly I thought pon farr that wasn’t satisfied was fatal?

There are several things I don’t like about this book.
A) Time Travel. It’s a cheap fix that cheapens the few times it has been used well in Star Trek to keep using it as a gimmick
B) Mestral. He seems completely superfluous in this story. And since I have no idea what a Certoss agent is, or that particular adventure/episode/book, I have no appreciation of it.
C) The plot. While somewhat interesting, it really does seem to rest of a convoluted set of circumstances. I suppose all books to but this seems particularly contrived.

Also I just think this would be much more interesting book if it were just a Gary 7 book! The Enterprise crew seems a little superfluous as well!

”Time travel. You know, once we found out we could do something like that, I sword I’d never get involved with it, for any reason.”

I only wish the writers felt the same way.

So anyway I didn’t much care for this book. I still finished it, so it’s not like it was a horrible experience. It just didn’t much work for me. And I have enjoyed other Star Trek books by this author.

And even for those (like me) who would want to read every story written about Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln, I think you could give this a pass.

That said, the Acknowledgments in the back (why the HELL do they put such important information in the BACK of the book!!?) says that this is a sequel to From History’s Shadow a book I don’t have and have not read, but I’m sure I would have enjoyed this book at lot more if I had. And if this information had been on the front or back cover of the book I probably would have!

Also, the Acknowledgments thank Greg Cox for his The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, a book which I did enjoy when I first read it, but re-reading it recently I found it to be very much flawed.

Basically because the approach seemed to be ‘All this stuff that Star Trek said happened and changed the world? Well it happened in our world but it happened totally secretly so it changed the world without anyone noticing it.’ which is just pretty absurd to me now. And also pretty unnecessary. Star Trek can and does tell the story of an alternate history and that’s okay. That’s what science fiction does. So to try to force-it our history into it without having anything particular interesting to say about either Star Trek’s history or our history is a disservice in my opinion.

So knowing that I might have either given this book a pass or at least not expected much out of it.

All that is to say that you might enjoy it because you don’t feel the way I do.

Either way, I call it 2 stars.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buckle up, readers, this one is a fun one. In the 19th century, a group of scientists with a cure to saving their people from tyranny were forced to take refuge on Earth after their ship was injured. In the 23rd century, these scientists' people have appealed to the Federation to help them find the remains of their lost comrades, for they are still in need of the cure and it could be found within the scientists' bodies or ships. Because there's no way to find them in the 23rd century, Kirk decides to use his previous contact with 20th century personalities Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln to enlist their help, and -- fifteen years "later" in Seven/Lincoln's POV -- the action culminates in NYC, circa 1985. All the while, a secret government agency organized in 1947 to investigate and sequester all information regarding alien visits to the Earth, follows the trail of both the aliens, Lincoln, and -- finally, Kirk, wondering: WHY ON EARTH IS EARTH SO POPULAR WITH ALIENS?

The last time Dayton Ward played with history like this I enjoyed it enormously, and Elusive Salvation was in that same neighborhood. It wasn't quite as novel this time, but I liked the connections Ward tried to draw between the plot and what was happening in real life, like Reagan's "Star Wars" program. The last time Ward did this there were numerous connections to the Star Trek time-traveling shows; those are here as well, but they don't fit in the context of the actual story so they're moved to the epilogue. The big exception is Mestrel, the Vulcan left on Earth from ENT's Carbon Creek episode, who also had a big part in Ward's previous playing-with-history title, From History's Shadow. The epilogue also contains an oblique reference to Section 31, which has probably caused raging arguments on Treklit forums given that Ward is apparently advancing an alternate explanation for why S31 has that particular name.

[Brittany T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fugitives come to Earth to hide from their oppressors who messed with their genetics to shorten lifespan. I don't mind not knowing why the Ptaen did what they did to the Iramahl (most likely for the control and power thing). It's interesting, though, that the Ptaen coming after the Iramahl that caused sightings Project Blue Book was for. So, not only were these Iramahl evading capture, they were evading government officials looking into these UFO sightings as well. Considering how more are humans get as time went on, it was inevitable for someone to notice. As for the time travel, as cautious as Kirk and Spock were, Kirk lost his darn tricorder in '85. Understandable as that is, considering it was the final confrontation with Ptaen to save the Iramahl, one small thing, even if it's in an abandoned area with homeless I people in New York. Other than that, moving an alien ship from the Northwest Passage, or around there, to New York did work in luring three different parties. Some gamble that was when it's detonation sequence actived.

[Bookreader1972 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 full stars. Very good story with the original series crew & returning guest stars.
This is a semi-sequel to Mr. Wards book "From History's Shadow"(2013. an 3.81 average rating here on goodreads).
It all works so well, except the descriptions of the aliens. That is something i have been noticing more often with newer Star Trek books. They have to keep making the aliens more & more "alien" that without an image, it is getting hard to imagine them. But I endeavour on.
Dayton Wards books have always been amongst the best in my opinion. He is possibly the biggest winner (not counting us the readers) of the Strange New Worlds anthology series. He had a story published in the first three volumes, & has gone on to write 17 novels & numerous short stories in the Star Trek universe.
No, I am not related to or work for him. I just really like his books.

[Irwin Fletcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I went through this entire book feeling like I was missing out on a lot, it turns out that's because this book is a follow up to the book From History's Shadow. Normally I wouldn't review a book poorly just because I hadn't done the required reading beforehand but I do find it odd that it's not until you get to the Acknowledgements at the end of the book you're told it's a sequel. Maybe put that on the cover, or at the beginning in the Historian's Note. Maybe they expected it to stand up well enough on its own and you wouldn't need to read the previous book but for me that was not the case. Also I'd planned on reading that book but now I feel like this one spoiled so much of the story that I don't want to. Besides all that it wasn't the most entertaining or interesting Star Trek story. The story just kind of meanders around until it just sort of ends.

[Luke Sims-Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good amount of fun is Dayton Ward's Elusive Salvation. This book is a sequel to From History's Shadow and while you can probably get away without reading it to understand this one.... you should probably read From History's Shadow first.

This is a book that I found to be a nice romp for Kirk and Spock, in a story set 2 years prior to Wrath of Khan. Nothing too earth shattering, but ticks all the boxes and drops so many cool Easter eggs that it left me with a smile on my face.

That last line is a doozy

[Andrew Beet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great novel from Dayton ward the way he intertwines the different time periods is nothing short of brilliant I loved that you went from 1845 then to 2283 then back to 1970 and then he would take you through to the late 80s to 1985 and then you would go back to 1947 I liked near the end of the book that he snuck in an event that happened in the star trek voyager episode future's end parts 1 and 2 as well a brilliant star trek novel

[Mimsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting-- a much more relaxing read after Savage Trade though LMAO. I loved the characters, and the different timelines worked super well and I'm shocked how easily I kept track of what was happening in each of them. 4.25/5 for me, I love sci-fi and Spock was here so it's automatically great.

[Scott Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was released during Star Trek’s 50th anniversary and it’s clearly a love letter to the franchise. It ties together Trek tidbits from TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise with a TOS time travel plot. I also appreciated the Canadian content.

[Richard Archambault · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining enough, but it started to drag in the last hundred pages or so. It started to feel like the author was stretching things out to meet a page count. I have yet to read a GREAT Star Trek book; part of me doesn’t want to try again.

[Travis Cummins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great time traveling Trek

The book is a lot of fun, traveling through time with Kirk and Spock is almost always a worthwhile journey. Though there is a lot of the story that has nothing to do with our beloved characters, the story is fun and fast paced... Well worth your time

[Melvin Patterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick, easy and fun read, but I'm really not a fan of time travel stories. Otherwise, good story.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun romp with Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln from the TOS episode “Assignment: Earth”

[Robert W. Walthers Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved the time travel portion of the book.