Enjoyable TOS adventure bringing back the Excalibans. When I saw the author is an editor at Baen it occured to me the kind of reincarnation (but not *really*) of historical figures that the Excalibans provide struck me as a bit of a way to bring something of the 1633-verse to the world of Trek. ( )

Oh Tony, what the hell happened, man? Devil's Bargain, drawing on Devil in the Dark, was entertaining, so why pick one of the dud episodes to work with next? I'm glad you enjoyed writing about George Washington and Admiral Nelson, because your heart obviously wasn't in the Star Trek characters. Jim Kirk is straight out of JJ Abrams' verse, chasing after the Vulcan envoy, and Bones isn't much better, knocking off Voltaire's mistress! All very macho, but not the crew that I know and love from the series. (Plus, you might love Sulu and Chekov, but they were secondary characters for a reason!)

Oh, plot, nearly slipped my mind too. So the aliens from the 'Abraham Lincoln in space' episode are back, seeking to join the Federation, now in the form of a different set of Kirk's heroes from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (plus James Watt for Scotty to get plastered with). There's a Vulcan envoy - childhood frenemy of Spock, natch - who is either for or against the Excalbians (a name which I kept mispronouncing as 'Excalibans'), another alien race of slave traders and - then I stopped caring. Firefight in space, shuttlecraft interlude for Sulu and Chekov, Bones gets his rocks off, and Kirk's relationship with Spock is explored in a totally heterosexual fling with the (female) Vulcan guest star.

Don't bother with this one! ( )