Star Trek: The Cry of the Onlies (1989) – Judy Klass

These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise…

I dug into another Trek novel this week, and for the most part I enjoyed it, or at least the way it tied into The Original Series.

Set during the original five year mission, this novel serves as a bit of a sequel to the episodes Miri, and Requiem for Methuselah. Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise have been assigned a diplomatic mission in the Boaco system, where they must interact with the Council of Youngers, the new generation of leaders who have overthrown the despotic leaders who ruled before, and may have had some Federation aid.

Kirk is told to ascertain the situation, and build some bridges with the new council. But when one of their diplomats is killed by a stolen Federation vessel, the United Federation of Planets catches the blame, and the Council begins to seek other opportunities with the Klingons and the Romulans.

Kirk must hunt down the vessel, recover it and its crew, and bolster Boacan relations. The ship was stolen from a research facility, where the children, the onlies, from Miri are being treated. It was seized by Jahn, Rhea, and Pal, who wanted to escape the facility, which has a bit of a dark history, as we learn, even as they begin to grow out of their childhood and face the troubles of puberty.


Unfortunately, the ship has an extremely effective cloaking device, designed by one of the most brilliant (and oldest) minds in the galaxy, Flint, last seen in the Methuselah episode. Kirk has some problems with Flint, though he can’t remember why, and Spock must reveal what happened to him.

There’s a lot going on in this book, and I like the way that it ties in so solidly with the series, making it feel like one big continuity, but at just barely two hundred pages, a lot of it seems rushed, and ideas are left unexplored or given lip service.

The further the series of novels moves along, the better the writing seems to get, as well as the way it ties into the universe with what comes before the events in the novels, and what we know comes after.

The story had a great idea, it just needed more to it, and not all of the dialogue rang true to the characters, though Kirk suffers most of all from this. It’s very much Kirk, but not quite Kirk.

Still, the Human Adventure continues and there are so many Trek books for me to read, and I will boldly go…


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