World Without End

Star Trek Adventures #10

by Joe Haldeman

Very good (usual toning to the pages, minor wear to covers.) SIGNED first edition - Paperback original - first printing. SIGNED on the title page by Haldeman. Author's note, 150 pp.

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Star Trek Original Series, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy

Paperback

First published February 1, 1979

About the author

Brother of Jack C. Haldeman II

Haldeman is the author of 20 novels and five collections. The Forever War won the Nebula, Hugo and Ditmar Awards for best science fiction novel in 1975. Other notable titles include Camouflage, The Accidental Time Machine and Marsbound as well as the short works "Graves," "Tricentennial" and "The Hemingway Hoax." Starbound is scheduled for a January release. SFWA president Russell Davis called Haldeman "an extraordinarily talented writer, a respected teacher and mentor in our community, and a good friend."

Haldeman officially received the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master for 2010 by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America at the Nebula Awards Weekend in May, 2010 in Hollywood, Fla.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second of a pair of Star Trek novels that Joe Haldeman wrote. I thought he did a good job of blending some intelligent science fiction ideas with the episodic and established Star Trek framework, and the characters rang true to me. Spock and the Klingons was fun! Live long and prosper, indeed.

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy freaky creeps! How many of these stories are we going to do?

Here we have yet another self-contained world, hurtling through space, chock-full of inhabitants who don't know that they live inside a giant world-ship and have no concept of "outside"...the only twist being that their "machines" are actually plants...and, I think, near the end, the aliens turn out to be like mobile, independent "projections" of the plant. And the crew gets trapped aboard because...well, I can't tell you everything. :)

The climax and resolution happens like in literally the last two pages when Spock mind-melds with the giant plant and let's everyone go.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as these early Bantam STAR TREK novels go, WORLD WITHOUT END is pretty decent. Though not nearly as ambitious as Haldeman's previous effort, PLANET OF JUDGEMENT, I found this book more tightly plotted and in better alignment with Star Trek canon than POJ, which ultimately devolved into a big narrative mess.
The story of WORLD WITHOUT END touches on several fascinating sci-fi concepts that never actually get explored. It's more of an action-adventure story in which Spock basically carries the day. (Haldeman tries to find stuff for the other crew members to do, but their contributions never amount to much, apart from laying down some phaser fire whenever necessary.) The basic idea for this story reminded me of Robert Heinlein's ORPHANS OF THE SKY, so I'm not sure whether I can give Haldeman points for originality.
Furthermore, while the first half of WORLD WITHOUT END reads like intelligent sci-fi, the second half gets cartoonish and silly, like something you'd expect from Filmation's THE ANIMATED SERIES and not from a respected writer like Joe Haldeman. And the scene in which Spock uses reverse psychology to play a dastardly trick on the Klingons seemed completely out of character and made me feel a bit icky. Beyond that, the writing quality is rather poor, with very little description and action that is sometimes hard to follow.
That being said, I'm still close enough to my inner-child to appreciate the pure spectacle of it all, and I must admit that WORLD WITHOUT END does a good job of capturing the feel of the original TV show, which was generally a blend of sophisticated ideas and cheeseball storytelling. (But cheeseball in a GOOD way...) If this book were released today, I'd give it a lower rating, but Bantam set the bar so low for this ADVENTURES series that WORLD WITHOUT END ended up being one of the better STAR TREK novels of the 1970s by default.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

These early Star Trek novels from the 1970s, before Pocket Books took things over, display a wide variance of quality, understanding of character, etc. Some have been surprisingly good and entertaining, even attempting to provide some good science. Others have been lackluster at best. This one, unfortunately falls into that second category.

Full disclosure: I am an avid Star Trek fan, and will usually stick my neck out to champion Trek's premise, virtues, etc.

That being said, this novel felt very "phoned in," particularly from a novelist who had won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. It was clear that the premise had potential (though much appeared to be borrowed from both the episode, "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," and Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" in the way of concept and setting), but he seemed very disinterested in developing it. Indeed, it felt like he was just "filling an order" for required page and word numbers.

Not a "bad" Trek story for that murky period between TOS' first run and the ST:TMP, but certainly uninspired. That's unfortunate given the pedigrees of both Star Trek and Joe Haldeman could have produced an amazing collaboration.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

These early, pre-Pocket Books Trek novels are just all over the place. There is a fantastic, high-concept SF story at the heart of this novel, but it's far more interested in being an SF story that a Trek novel. The main characters occasionally feel like the ones we know, but they head off into the fields of off-kilter/skewed/cliched far too often, while new stand-along characters end up stealing the limelight. It would be interesting to see what Greg Cox or Christopher L Bennett could do with this story today, as it would be far truer to the personalities of crew of the Enterprise, never mind the fact that the main story would be deeper & far more developed. This ends up being a short novel that feels like it takes weeks to read.

[Jesse A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alright story. Not as much fun as other ST adventures. 2.5 stars.

[Little Timmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Haldeman's 2nd and unfortunately last Star Trek novel. Haldeman does an excellent job with the Star Trek characters and universe telling his usual interesting story. Very recommended

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with his other Star Trek novel, the superior Planet of Judgment, Haldeman brings a hard SF flavor to the franchise, creating a scientifically plausible ship of wonders and an internally-logical alien society for the crew to investigate and interact with. The reason World Without End isn't as good as PoJ is that it doesn't create nearly as many personal moments for the Enterprise crew, despite involving a great deal of them. Uhura and Scotty come the closest with their tearful goodbye and the engineer's subsequent last, drunken stand on the ship, but it's all very plotty otherwise. Haldeman is more interested in his original characters like Larousse the linguist (amusing to a French-speaking reader, since that's one of our more famous dictionaries), Tiney the Moon girl, and Moore the redshirt who knows his likely fate. Supplemented with what I call "documents" like computer print-outs, educational footnotes, and fairly redundant logs, I do include in that Spock's thought process, so there is an attempt at characterization through internal monologue for some characters. It's just not as interesting as what he was doing in PoJ. But it IS a fairly good science fiction adventure, one that would blow the budgets of even today's series, and I could have used more of his take on the Klingons. Even if they are slightly off in terms of format, I would have liked Haldeman to pen more Star Trek books; we'll just have to be satisfied with the two this Hugo and Nebula-award winner managed to churn out.

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of the two Star Trek adventures written by Joe Haldeman, this is the better one - probably because he wasn't working from another author's manuscript. The characters feel right, the situation is interesting - even if the ending is a bit rushed.

Fitting a full story into 150 pages may have some similarities to fitting a story into a single episode - without the advantage of imagery. A very interesting setup and unusual complications are followed by a rapid-fire conclusion with some out-of-place humor.

This is the 90th book finished this year, and coincidentally the 9th (of 12) in a "Star Trek reading challenge" on the website WorldsWithoutEnd. I've already completed three other challenges, reading 3 science fiction and fantasy books more than 100 years old, reading 9 sequels, and reading 12 books by female authors I haven't read before. Pretty sure I can squeeze three more of Bantam's Star Trek Adventures in this year - I read this one in about 3½ hours.

[Recensioni in tre parole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Avventuroso. Fantasioso. Allucinato.

[Michael T Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange that the version I read had a different cover. I thought these early books weren't reprinted. Huh. Anyway, not that important.

This is a quick little jaunt. You can tell w/these early books every author is trying to figure out how to tell a story in this universe. It's not QUITE YA, yet no one seems comfortable tackling mature concepts beyond an extremely metaphorical way (this book satirizes caste systems pretty harshly, though I don't believe it ever calls it that directly). I read Spock Must Die! & enjoyed it, but I also tried Spock, Messiah! and it was terrible. It felt like they were aiming at a 12-yr-old audience. And I guess that's part of the mystery of Trek. It's so optimistic it seems difficult to do much 'adult' with it, but going full YA with a cast of all adults didn't work, I don't think.

Haldeman strikes a good balance, I'd say. The prose is never overwrought, but it also doesn't dumb things down ... mostly. The characters mostly sound like themselves (though I get tired of the ridiculous brogue for Scotty), but it doesn't feel quite as "right" as later books would get. It's probably something about how tie-in media was treated at the time vs. now. I think back then (late 70s) it was seen as something more ancillary just to remind people the property existed, not really something that had actual merit in & of itself.

Fairly forgettable, but not bad, for sure.

[Mike McDevitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the world is hollow, and the flying squirrels inside are caste-based cloned jerks. They are rigidly bound by tradition in service to a big machine that is a plant. Shall we break another machine-god, gents?

Some elements of Klingon culture from this book made it on screen, the leave-taking/command 'Success!" for example. Or Qapla! as it soon became.

I preferred 'Planet of Judgement' by the same author, but 'World Without End' is still a worthy story.

I was particularly charmed as a lad by the future's sublunar theme park DisneyMoon, featuring low-gravity no-clothing wing-gliding. Very Heinlein.

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. Talked about Captain Kirk’s father as being a farmer— which would be… uncanon. Also around the end of the the book, talked about the Klingons’s ….Fatherland… rather than their planet. “Loved” the terms … confrontion party, and space suits— but it sounded so….uncanon

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Grabbed this read at work. This is the third book in the Star Trek Adventures line under Bantam Books. The previous two I rated in the ground, one star each. In the end this one was decent. It's not reread worthy though.

I am a sucker for generation or colony ships, especially ones where they don't know or have degenerated to the point where they don't realize they're on a ship. I love these because they always have a way of making a rather alien society. Alien because of space but also alien because of how their communities break down. Being enclosed like that really brings changes to the fundamentals of a society causing them to go in very unexpected ways. This didn't do that.

This ship is covered with nintendium and uses a bussard ramjet for motion and power. The first part? Boring. We see this all of the time, impenetrable hulls so boring. The second? Amazing. Super fascinating. The ship is at slower than light speeds and will take thousands, if not millions, of years to get _anywhere_. Not to mention the random Klingon ship (Warship? Scout Ship?) on the surface.

Inside is where things start to break down. These aliens are flying squirrels with a caste system. Caste systems can be super interesting to explore. But not this one. These creatures wear ribbons on their arms where the colours, number, and combination dictate what caste they are. And each caste has their own language, except for the translator caste who can communicate with everyone. You know, because that's their job. But wait there's more! Each caste is only allowed to communicate with themselves or with the castes immediately above and below them. Can you hear my suspension of disbelief snapping? I feel like you can hear it across the Atlantic. Hell maybe you can hear it all the way back to 1979 when this was being published.

This all becomes irrelevant when we find out that the whole ship is just a single person. Like the whole damn thing, everything that isn't an alien. The ship itself is the alien the whole time. The aliens inside are just created things that the ship uses for entertainment. They don't even perform maintenance on the ship.

Later on we find out that the ship doesn't have any systems or control panels as we know them. Instead this flying rock of nintendium uses organic technology in the form of plants. Plants that perform the system functions like a universal translator or main computer. This threw me for a loop. Earlier the communicators were super important not just to contact the ship but because they were translators. The fact that the humans could speak to any caste sent the aliens into fits. This was such a big plot point that they were constantly being taken away and when one of the aliens joined the party the comm unit had to be strapped to them to ensure communication. This all gets thrown out the window when the first and highest caste put some blue fucking rhubarb around Kirk's neck so they could talk.

In the end they meet the pilot, a giant artichoke thing that eats some of the crew. The ship gained all of the knowledge of the human it ate and then spits them out because they don't taste good. And then it ate Spock. Like no joke Spock decides to be eaten so he can mind meld with the artichoke. And then he screams because he's being taken apart like a transporter beam but conscious due to the mind meld. Somehow Spock convinces them to let them go.

There is a subplot where the Enterprise has to evacuate the ship into the alien space rock. Scotty gets trapped and for some reason a Klingon transports onto the ship. So the ship is running out of power, getting super cold, Scotty has procured oxygen tanks from somewhere, hacked up furniture, and stolen tree branches from botany to make a fire in the transporter room. The Klingon is understandably confused and wanted to go home but couldn't. So then Scotty, while drunk, asks the Klingon if he wanted to cuddle. (Okay he didn't say cuddle but did offer to share his blankets.)

Interesting notes: Salt was poisonous to the aliens and human sweat caustic. The presence of humans was actively poisoning their ecosystem. Also we met some Klingon priests. That was novel.

[David Agranoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

These days there are probably several hundred Star Trek novels but in the seventies, the ST novels were the only way the franchise was moving forward in the dark days between the Animated Series and the first movie. The early days of Star Trek are much more exciting in terms of crossover to very respected authors in the field of Science Fiction. In the Orignal series, there were episodes by several respected genre authors Jerome Bixby, Richard Matheson (I am Legend), George Clayton Johnson (Logan's Run), Harlan Ellison (Dangerous Visions), Norman Spinrad (Men in the Jungle)and Theodore freaking Sturgeon. Ellison was responsible for the Guardian of Forever, Spinrad the Doomsday Machine, and Surgeon invented the crazy way Vulcans reproduce. Larry Niven wrote for the far weirder Animated Series.

So it was not that big a stretch when respected science fiction writers like James Blish, Greg Bear, and the Hugo and Nebula award-winning Joe Haldeman wrote Star Trek novels. Blish most adapted and deepen the actual episodes. The 70's early Bantam novels were short and aimed to be like a single hour episode of the series. The later Pocketbooks had more epic novel feeling to them.

If you are not familiar with Haldeman he is a Vietnam vet who wrote what I consider to be the ultimate military sci-fi classic The Forever War. Yes, even over Starship Troopers which the novel was clearly a response too. Haldeman is a genius writer with decades of fantastic books but the Forever War is a must-read classic. I was really interested in his two attempts at Star Trek both in the 70's. I already reviewed the first Planet of Judgement.

One thing that makes these early books interesting is the authors were not working with the enormous canon we have come to know. They also tend to take more seriously the actual space elements of the setting. I like that this novel really plays with science fictional ideas. The Enterprise encounters a ship that was designed to fool it's inhabitants that they were on a world. The set-up is similar to the TOS episode "The World is Hollow and I have touched the sky." Unlike that story, Haldeman does all the neat Sci-fi things his mind and no need for budget make possible.

The small manufactured planet has a low gravity which leads to scenes of the crew flying around with little wings, that was probably my favorite example. Also, the planet survives by sucking the energy of passing ships, like a vampire planet. When the enterprise becomes low on energy only Scotty remains. This provides some funny and really on-point character moments, but it also gave Haldeman to take seriously that the enterprise is a spaceship. Lots of Trek writers in TV, movies, and books forget that simple factor.

Haldeman does a great job with the characters, Scotty and Spock most of all. There is a scene that was my favorite when a Klingon boards the nearly drained of energy Enterprise. Scotty has converted a transporter room for his last stand. Of course, he gets the Klingon drunk.

Is it great, or mind-blowing? No. But if you are like me a fan of Trek and Haldeman you should check it out. By the way Joe Haldeman just took part in the Facebook group "Science Fiction Book Club"'s Q and A. I asked the Author about writing this book. He said this: "They gave us a thick stack of mimeographed notions, most of which I more or less ignored, and
then they turned the ms. over to some underemployed secretary to critique. That was lots of fun. Like,
I had Spock say "by Occam's Razor," and they warned me "Spock does not swear."

[Christopher Rush · Rating 2 out of 5]

-"Shouldn't we proofread this MS from Mr. Haldeman before we publish it?"
-"Proofread it? Don't be insulting, Bernard. Joe Haldeman is a Hugo-winning author. He's already written a Star Trek book. Sure, he's six months late with it, but that just means he took extra care developing and writing the thing. He's a pro; he wouldn't just slog through it for money or contractual obligations just because we wouldn't let him out of his contract."
-"I'm pretty sure there are extra indentations in here, and a lot of sections seem to have headings, like they're notes to remind him who's thinking or talking."
-"Bernard, this is Joe 'Forever War' Haldeman we're talkin' about. There's no way he'd send us a sloppy MS. Get it to the printers right away."
-"Whatever you say, sir. At least he kept to his and his brother's contractual obligations to have a sense of time and a synonym for celestial spheroid in the title."

---

On the bright side, Mr. H gives us no reason to worry in this, well, let's call it a book just for funsies. It's got what may be a size-16 font, large gaps, headings, drawings, extra paragraph indentations at times, and you can probably breeze through this in an afternoon.

Not one of the characters (except maybe Scotty) is bothered by the impending doom and destruction, so you shouldn't be, either. Neither should you let the horribly inaccurate characterizations, the butterfly wings, the used-once-again planet-in-a-planet motif, the frequent need to put "real science" in ST, nor the we-must-mention-the-Organians-every-book requirement get you down. Remember, Mr. H just saw a few episodes here and there, and he didn't want to write this book, and they show. So don't let this one bother you.

Unlike the other Bantam '70s ST books that are terrible because they try so hard, this one is terrible because it doesn't try at all (except for a little trying to get "real science" into it, which ends up not mattering because Mr. H forgets about it by the end and solves all the problems with fantasy majicks). And thus it may be the best of the bunch, like your favorite MST episode that gets you thinking "maybe this one isn't so bad" until you watch a real movie and get reminded what those are like. So saying this is the best of the lot isn't high praise, more like saying "that was my least itchy rash of the summer" - it's still a rash, just like this still a lousy book, especially a lousy ST book, and we shouldn't do injustice to it by pretending it's something when it's nothing.

But, hey, as always, if you like it, that's swell. If you're happy, I'm happy. (But it's not good.)

[Tracy Poff]

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?

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

World Without End by Joe Haldeman is a tightly plotted sci-fi book that brings those feelings of adventure with the deep ideas of sci-fi from the original Star Trek series.

The crew of the Enterprise come across what seems to be a primitive craft designed to colonize far off worlds and begin to investigate. What seemed to be a simple primitive colony ship quickly becomes a mystery with strange aliens who reject the premise that they are in a ship but while primitive in some aspects seem to have a technology well beyond anything the crew of the Enterprise has ever seen.

Haldeman writes a fantastic story that captures the characters very well and creates a world that is mysterious. Action is present but never over shadows the deep ideas characters wrestle with. Is this a deep analysis of culture and the like? No but it puts fourth great sci-fi concepts that lead to a strange answers and then refuses to answer some of those questions.

I particularly liked the fact that there were some things left unknown. I like how Star Trek has simply placed mysteries like the doomsday machine in the universe with the truth that we may never know all the answers and this book embraced that.

If you want a great Star Trek story that has the feel of the original series World Without End is for you.

[Joe Praska · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War and I'm also a big fan of Star Trek. Needless to say, this seemed like a perfect fit. Unfortunately I can't say that I loved it per se, but I will admit that I still had a pretty good time reading it. This book is inordinately weird and that is what I loved about it. The concepts are absolutely wild and out there, there's strange creatures aplenty, and of course, there's the whole 'seeking out of new life and new civilizations' bit that was played upon quite well. On the flip side, some of the characterizations of our iconic characters weren't the most on point, some of plot elements were a tad confusing, and it's easy to tell this was written during a time where there was simply not a lot of regard for canon or franchise continuity. Despite that, however, this is still a fun read (especially since it's so short!) and most likely worth it for fans of old-school, psychedelic sci-fi and Star Trek.

[Bruce Stephenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Enterprise encounters a self-contained world propelled through space by a Bussard ramjet. Of course the inhabitants of this world are unaware that they are on a spaceship. Kirk and a landing party beam inside to establish contact but can't beam back out. The landing party, and the Enterprise are placed into immediate peril and what seems like certain doom. The Enterprise gets entangled in a net, Scotty gets drunk with a Klingon while huddling under blankets against the cold of a powered down Enterprise, Spock meditates at important moments during their mission, the landing party gets to fly using strap-on wings, and Spock gets eaten by a giant plant! Obviously a story not meant to be taken seriously. I found the narrative at times almost incomprehensible - thankfully the book is a short one at only 150 pages.

[Jim Standridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story and concept. Of course all within the constraints of the original Star Trek universe. This is the authors second Trek offering and it's much better than his first. The characters are much more in line with Roddenberry's creations.
The story involves the Enterprise and crew trapped on (or in, in this case) an alien world. Again. This time they have entered what appears to be a hollow asteroid which has been turned into a "generation ship" by an alien civilization. And a strange civilization it turns out to be. They seem to not know they are in a ship heading for an empty region of space. As is predictable, the rescuers end up needing rescuing.
The end is rather unexpected as the alien civilization is revealed to be, different. I think it is fairly well done, better than Haldeman's first attempt. The story flows well and is interesting throughout.

[Jason Fawkes · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the better of the very early, pre pocket Trek novels. Less mil sci fi than I expected from Haldeman. I have read his early early trek novel, but have no memory of it, so can't remember if that was similar.Yet another different interpretation of Klingon culture, with a theocratic dimension.
Slight oddity in one reference has a foot note about a TOS episode "the Tholian Web" when talking about different societies - this referencing is a feature of these early novels, but makes no mention of "The World is hollow..." Which also features the crew encountering a generational vessel whose denizens have long forgotten they're on a ship.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Bantam Star Trek books have a certain weirdness to them. On the one hand, all the characters are there. They feel right. On the other hand, since a lot more of them were written by 'real' science fiction writers you had them put things in them that were cool... and would make amazing concepts. Or stuff that would hard to do visually on TV even 44 years later... that kind of feel off.

I mean it is still fun and it was a good book, parts of it didn't feel Star Trek enough for my taste.

[Paul Lunger · Rating 1 out of 5]

From February 1979, Joe Haldeman's "World Without End" is another frustrating early Star Trek novel that is yet another disappointment. The crew of the Enterprise comes across an artificial world whose inhabitants would be known as the Chatalia. These beings and this world are far more than they appear & some rather outlandish storytelling gets us to the point where the residents of this world understand the Enterprise isn't a threat & the Klingons are. This book is at times beyond predictable although it has its moments of attempting to be a decent story.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first legitimately good Star Trek novel. Haldeman hits every mark you want to get the most out of what a tie-in novel: fascinating premise and setting, interesting incidental characters, entertaining moments from the characters you know, and a variety of actions and locations that would probably be difficult to portray on a TV (or even movie) budget. Everything fit for me. It's not a high end literary classic, and maybe Bones was under-utilized, but those are minor complaints. I've got like 40 more of these novels to read and I'd hope that they could all be this compelling.

[Tyler Baxandall · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - 3.85 stars

Fairly fun adventure novel, while the dialogue/character for the mostpart feels passable, theres a handful of times where the author really nails the characters, especially with spock and mccoy.

While I had issues with the characterisation and dialogue, it overall felt like watching a trek episode which really made this work for me in spite of shortcomings.

Picked this up on a whim from a local community library box but it has me tempted to try more of the series as a casual read :)

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this when I was about.10 and I loved it as it had Kulain the Klingon in. I adored the more human Klingons of the pre-Star Trek movie age. Like Kang. Tall dark and handsome! Yum. Girl-crush.
Also in the late 1970s, there wasn't much sci-fi around and I took what I could get. You had to travel 20 miles into the neighbouring city where the good bookshops were! Timeslip books: Newcastle! (Later Forbidden Planet)

[Ian Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this a lot more than Planet Of Judgement, Mr Haldeman’s other Trek novel. It is plotted with more discipline and creates a more genuine and realistic threat. However, the situation - a generation ship - has been used similarly in several other stories in this series of Trek novels and the denouement - a mental battle between characters - has also been used a lot. That said, this was a lot more fun and used the characters in a way that felt consistent with the parent show.

[Reesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better old Star Trek novels, with most characters in-character most of the time, a sideways nod to the expendability and interchangeability of red shirts, a humourously drunk Klingon, an intriguing planet, unusual alien culture, mystifying technology, and of course oncoming, seemingly inescapable doom. I enjoyed it!