Who's surprised that this was a good one? Very reminiscent of much older sci fi (like, Radium Age sci fi). Also features weird interpretation of the Klingons, but this time I feel like they could be real Klingons, like, it's a reasonable thing that that could be a direction the Klingons could go and not suck. Hooray for Joe!

The Enterprise encounters--you'll never guess--a hollow asteroid that is really a spaceship with people inside who don't know that there's an outside world. Meanwhile, the ship gets stuck, Klingons show up to threaten them, and in the end Kirk confronts something like a god-computer.

Yeah, it's not really original, in the larger motions of the plot. However, the little details are done very well. The society in the asteroid is interesting, the mysteries are intriguing, and the sense of danger and urgency is convincing. Even though part of the urgency is provided by a literal ticking time bomb, it's well handled. An enjoyable book.

In the author's note at the end, Haldeman writes that this is "probably [his] last Star Trek book":

Since this is probably my last Star Trek book, I ought to take a page and thank the people who helped me with both of them: the Science Fiction League of Iowa Students, especially Sue Weinberg, who helped keep my stories consistent with the TV series (I was overseas when most of it was aired); Miss Sheila Clark, who supplied authentic dialect for Scotty; Dr. Gregory Benford, who helped me figure out what happens to bodies of water inside a planetoid such as the one in World Without End; Gay and Sydny, for quiet patience; Gene Roddenberry, who not only let me take liberties with his creations, but even suggested a few. World Without End (1979-02), 149

In fact, Haldeman didn't want to write this Trek book, but he couldn't get out of his contract:

The end result was that I really enjoyed writing Planet of Judgment, and finished it in three months. Writing World Without End was like pulling your own teeth, and it took nine months. (Oddly enough, I’ve met people who liked the second book better. I certainly worked harder on it!) Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion (2006-11-14)

Count me among those who liked the second book better!

Also, good odds on that Sheila Clark being this Sheila Clark, yeah? ( )

This is Joe Haldeman's second Star Trek novel. I haven't read the first, but in the light of this one, I would.

Comparing this to Blish's Star Trek efforts is interesting: Haldeman handles the characters just as well, introduces interesting SF ideas just as deftly and gives some secondary characters more to do than they have in the TV show - which Blish also does. Yet you'd never mistake this for a Blish novel; no plot points hinging on James Joyce or knowledge of molecular biology here. Haldeman manages to dump the crew of the Enterprise in an extra-ordinary pickle. The thing is not whether they will get out of it, you know they will, but how are they going to get out of it? Further, there is more than one source of danger. This always seems to work better. For instance, in the film Alien, a considerable part of the troubles for the Nostromo's crew come not from the Alien but from the android and that is, for me, a considerable factor in why it is widely considered one of the greatest monster movies ever made.

Fun.
( )

Pulp/ genre fiction. Nothing wrong with it, but not recommended except to completist fans as it just skimmed the characters and ideas, and didn't resonate or provoke. There was one attempt, as the author had Uhura 'remember' a relevant Bantu folk story, but it felt as contrived as I'm sure it was. ( )

Decent fiction, good fun.

(8/10) ( )