A review by octavia_cade
The Klingon Gambit by Robert E. Vardeman

2.0

It took me a little while to get into this - I'm predisposed to dislike any story that is even slightly reminiscent of the original episode "The Naked Time", but for whatever reason Star Trek has a continuing and inexplicable fondness for stories where the behaviour of the entire crew is manipulated into unrecognisable uselessness. Unfortunately that's the case here, and while it takes everyone a ridiculous amount of time to realise what's happening, they get there in the end. But plot concept aside, there are enjoyable things going on here. I like that there's an archaeological mystery at the centre of this. And Kirk's dealings with the Klingons, especially their leader Kalan, were clever and interesting. Most interesting to me, though, was McCoy's spiral into both racism and anti-tech sentiments. He's always had mild tendencies in those directions, but rarely are they made as cutting and unattractive as they are here. I'd have liked to see a conclusion where he tries to reconcile those aspects of himself, as it's a far more interesting conflict to me than another Mr-Spock-falls-in-love-and-tries-to-fight-it storyline, because there's not enough topaline in the entire galaxy to make me give the tiniest shit about that.