Star Trek 796: A Mirror for Futility/The Time Stealer

796. A Mirror for Futility/The Time Stealer

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: A Mirror for Futility/The Time Stealer, Power Records, 1976

CREATORS: Alan Dean Foster and possibly Cary Bates (writers), Neal Adams and unknown, but at times looks like John Buscema (artists)

STARDATE: 5470 and 6134.6 respectively

PLOT: In A Mirror for Futility, the Enterprise finds itself in the crossfire between two sentient ships fighting their long-dead masters' last war now for 150,000 years. Though Kirk tries to bluff them with a non-existent fleet of UFP ships, it doesn't change anything. They no longer trust anything, certainly this bluff from a ship that might as well come from the other side. The Enterprise leaves them locked in combat... for eternity.

In The Time Stealer, the Enterprise investigates a time-slowing phenomenon that seems to pass by a planet from time to time. Its inhabitants beam over from a magic-driven ship - a barbarian and a wizard! Their civilization came from Earth long ago, but has been stuck in its Middle Ages because of the time-slowing effect. Spock and the wizard work together to cast a mindmeld spell that uses all thoughts of all inhabitants of the planet to short-circuit the sentien phenomenon's mind. It works, and Spock catches two twists in a row: The creature is a baby (which they tow to a safe distance) and the Earth civilization was Atlantis.

CONTINUITY: None.

DIVERGENCES: In addition to the usual off-model Sulu and Uhura, Chekov appears in a blue shirt and no Beatles haircut. Magic is a force acknowledged by Mr. Spock.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Captain Kirk and John Buscema's Conan
REVIEW: Two very talky stories, but the art (by various people, changing from page to page) looks handsome with its square-page format and beautiful ships. For a "read along" book, I was surprised (or "suprised") to see bad spelling and/or typos though. The first story is one that would be done in Star Trek later (Prototype, for example), and is reasonably well done even if it ends without much of a climax. The second is really funky, with its "magic is real" rationale, but not bad. Having Conan on the brdige of the Enterprise is certainly worth the look.