''TekWar'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel written by

William Shatner William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1965 debut as the captain of the starship USS Enterpri ...

and (uncredited) science fiction author

Ron Goulart Ronald Joseph Goulart (; January 13, 1933 – January 14, 2022) was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy, and science fiction author. He published novelizations and other work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson, Con ...

. It was first published by

G. P. Putnam's Sons G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group. History The company began as Wiley & Putnam with the 1838 partnership between George Palmer Putnam and J ...

in October 1989. ''TekWar'' is the first of nine novels, and spawned an entire TekWar franchise, which includes the ''

TekWorld ''William Shatner's TekWorld'' (or ''Tek World'') was a comic book series published by Epic Comics/Marvel, from 1992 to 1995. It is based on the ''TekWar'' novels. Publication history Lee Sullivan, who was the principal artist on the series (prov ...

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

series, the video game ''

William Shatner's TekWar ''William Shatner's TekWar'' is a 1995 first-person shooter video game derived from the ''TekWar'' series of novels created by William Shatner and ghost-written by science-fiction author Ron Goulart. It was designed using the Build engine. Plot ...

'', the ''

TekWar ''TekWar'' is a series of science fiction novels created by Canadian actor William Shatner and ghost-written by American writer Ron Goulart, published by Putnam beginning in October 1989. The novels gave rise to a comic book series, video game, an ...

'' TV series, and several related TV movies, including ''

TekLords ''TekWar: TekLords'' is a 1994 Television movie, TV movie, based on a TekWar, series of books by William Shatner. It is the second Television movie, TV movie made from the series of books. It aired on 20 February 1994 and is preceded by ''List of ...

''.

Plot

''TekWar'' is set in the 22nd century and follows Jake Cardigan, a former police officer who is framed for dealing ''tek'', an illegal, mind-altering, digital drug. Sentenced to fifteen years' cryo-imprisonment, he is released after serving only four. Jake goes to work for Walt Bascom, the man behind his early release, and dedicates himself to hunting the real tek lords.

Reception

The novel received negative reviews from ''

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

'' magazine. "Shatner tries to disguise language and narrative weaknesses under a blizzard of futuristic details and a pell-mell plot. It's a nice try, but Tek War is undone by superficial characters and stilted dialogue." The social cataloging website ''

Goodreads Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and read ...

'' gives the book 3.19 stars out of 5, based on 1,248 ratings.

Michael J. Nelson Michael John Nelson (born October 11, 1964) is an American comedian and writer, most known for his work on the television series '' Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (''MST3K''). Nelson was the head writer of the series for most of the show's origi ...

's and

Conor Lastowka Conor is a male given name of Irish origin. The meaning of the name is "Lover of Wolves" or "Lover of Hounds". '' Conchobhar/Conchubhar'' or from the name ''Conaire'', found in Irish legend as the name of the high king Conaire Mór and other hero ...

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

series ''

372 Pages We'll Never Get Back ''372 Pages We'll Never Get Back'' is a podcast series created by Michael J. Nelson (of '' Mystery Science Theater 3000'' and ''RiffTrax'' fame) and Conor Lastowka (author of ''The Pole Vault Champion of the Universe'' and writer for ''RiffTrax'') ...

'' analysed and criticised ''TekWar'' in 2018.

Notes

1989 Canadian novels 1989 science fiction novels Canadian science fiction novels Collaborative novels Novels by William Shatner G. P. Putnam's Sons books {{Canada-novel-stub