The Kobayashi Maru

by Julia Ecklar

Book Overview

As portrayed in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, all Starfleet Command cadets must take the "no-win" Kobayashi Maru rescue simulation. Trapped aboard a doomed shuttlecraft, the Enterprise officers reminisce about their individual performances on the Kobayashi Maru test . . . reminiscences that spark a last, desperate attempt at survival.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671658174
• ISBN13: 9780671658175
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

love this one

this is another one of my faves, gives you more depth of Kirk, Scotty, Sulu and Chekov and why they are the way they are. I especially love Sulu's story, mainly the assignment they have before the Big Test. Kirk's is interesting is you get a look into what drives him and his competitive nature and just how he was able to pull off the ultimate hacking job. Chekov's is interesting in that in a way he is compeating with himself and his view of his future captain. Scotty's is funny and shows the budding of the miracle worker he would become. This is definitly one to check out

Outstanding

This is one of my all-time favorite books. I received it as a gift ten years ago, and I still reread it from time to time. I enjoy it thoroughly each time. The Kobayashi Maru is a simulator exercise all command students at Starfleet Academy must go through to test how well they respond to losing. Decades after they took the test, several officers of the starship Enterprise leave the ship in a small shuttlecraft on what is supposed to be a routine mission. When the shuttlecraft is disabled, cutting off the craft's communications and other vital functions, they are left with nothing but time, and they end up telling each other about their experiences with the Kobayashi Maru exercise. My favorite of the four stories is that of Scotty, who is in command school at Starfleet Academy to please his mother but feels that he is "meant more for commanding machines than commanding people." My second favorite is the story of Sulu, who in his first year in command school learns painful lessons about life, death, and meaning from his great-grandfather. This story makes me cry every time. I also like the story of Chekov, whose passions, resentments, and blind spots will remind the mature of what it was like to be an adolescent pickling in emotional turmoil. I felt that the story of Kirk was the weakest of the four; Kirk can't accept the concept of losing and will do anything to avoid coming face to face with defeat. For a man who is supposed to be intelligent and skilled, this is an asinine attitude. Life is about losing, and the sooner one comes to terms with that, the sooner one starts to grow. On the whole, however, this book is outstanding.

Life-altering decisions

While waiting for the Enterprise to rescue their severely damaged shuttlecraft, Kirk, Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty describe their experiences taking the Kobayashi Maru test, as taken by Lt. Saavik in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.This is a very interesting book. We've known for years that Kirk "passed" the Kobayashi Maru by reprogramming the computer, but the other stories were even more surprising:Chekov surrenders and evacuates his crew before setting his ship to self-destruct, much as Kirk & co. would do with the Enterprise in Star Trek III. Sulu absolutely refuses to cross the Neutral Zone, knowing that the Klingons would take it as an act of war and destroy his ship. And Scotty's story drives home the point that you should never send a devout engineer to do a captain's job. The stories they tell are personal, touching, and very heartwarming.

A little-known gem

When I was younger I was a big fan of the ST:TOS and ST:TNG series of novels. But if you read these series for any length of time you soon come to realize that most of these books are poorly written crap."The Kobayashi Maru," however, is a hidden gem that stands the test of time. I own about 40 Star Trek novels and this is the only one I've read more than once. I recently read it for a third time after many years and it's still as good as I remember. What makes this book so special is that it relies on character rather than plot to keep you entertained. Whereas most Star Trek books assume everybody knows about the characters and concentrate on interesting plot twists, this book goes behind the larger than life heroic aspect of the original crew and examines them as real people with real hopes and dreams and fears.The book is broken into four flashbacks of how Kirk, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov each managed in their own way to beat the Starfleet Academy's Kobayashi Maru combat simulation, the so called "impossible scenario," framed within the present day story of a shuttlecraft problem. What makes these stories so charming is that they each show something special about the four characters, who really come to life in new ways when we see them as cadets, but still ring true as the people we know them as in the "present" as Enterprise crewmembers.This book is true quality, and well worth buying even for casual fans of Trek.

This Book Rules

This book is four stories, three in the past and one in the present. Chekov, Kirk, Scotty, Sulu and McCoy are trapped in a ripped up shuttle and must stay alive (they live, DUH). They have nothing better to do than let Kirk, Sulu, and Chekov tell about their expirience with the Kobayashi Maru scenario (no-win scenario). The best story is od Checkov in a shootout in an abandoned space station with other cadets. That alone is worth the entire price of the book. The Next best story is of the actual fight to stay alive ion the shuttle. Then comes Kirk's story which is pretty good. The only part of story I didn't like was the big emotional story thing with Sulu. THIS BOOK IS WORTH READING!