Ah, time for a nice post-episode story. It's strange to me that they picked this one to expand, because TNG was airing by this point - and the original episode is one of the most problematic w/r/t TNG (featuring, as it does, androids other than Data). Oh well; there's nothing really too much to complain about here beyond that, though nothing that's thrillingly outstanding either.

On the cold, dead planet Exo III, an android returns from an exploration mission to find that his creator Roger Korby is dead and his fellow androids destroyed. Deciding to continue his master's mission, the android creates a new duplicate of James T. Kirk, the starship captain who was to be Korby's means of carrying out his plan on replacing humanity with android duplicates. The new android Kirk soon lures a starship to his planet, where he begins the process of infiltrating Starfleet — with his next target the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Michael Jan Friedman is a prolific author of Star Trek franchise novels. This book was his first, and after reading it it's easy to see why he is such a popular contributor to the series. Reaching all the way back to one of the very first episodes of the original show, he details how the threat posed by Korby's androids might have developed. What makes it work as well as it does is Friedman's fidelity to the source material, with the androids exhibiting the same developmental issues that played such an important role in the resolution of the episode.

Yet Friedman's fealty is just one factor in the novel's success. Another is his primary antagonist, which is one of the most formidable threats ever encountered by the Enterprise crew. For Friedman's android Kirk is not the maniacal accident from "The Enemy Within" or the scheming thug from "Mirror, Mirror," but a Kirk who is every bit the calm, calculating strategist. Much of Friedman's novel is devoted to detailing the enactment of his strategy, one that enjoys considerable success before it is finally stopped. Here Friedman delivers as well, providing readers with highly entertaining combination of action and suspense as his characters work towards the story's resolution. Taken together, it makes for one of the best contributions to Star Trek's Pocket Books series, one the left me looking forward to reading Friedman's subsequent contributions to it. ( )

Okayish, but not good enough for me to bother reading to the end. One of the plot developments was obvious way too early on (why have a young empath on board if you aren't going to need him later). The bits with the real Kirk were okay, but the bits with the fake Kirk were dull.

It's not a bad book, but given the number of other Star Trek books out there, I know I can find better ones to read. ( )

One of my first and favorite Star Trek books when I was a kid. ( )

A good Star Trek adventure that brings back the Kirk android created by Dr. Roger Korby in one of the original TV episodes. The events that follow put the android in control of the Enterprise. A good, not a great story. ( )