Review: Miasma by Greg Cox
Reviews / February 24, 2016

When it comes to media tie-ins – whether it be movie, television, or comic book – one name that consistent comes to mind is Greg Cox. Winner of 3 Scribe Awards from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, Cox has adapted everything from The Avengers, Batman, and Buffy, to Xena, The X-Files, and X-Men. He is also the author of two dozen novels and short stories in the various Star Trek universes, with Miasma being his first Star Trek e-book. The plot itself is simple, with Spock, McCoy, Chekov, and a few red-shirts sent to investigate an alien signal coming from an unexplored planet. Things begin to go wrong from the start, when their shields produce an explosive reaction in the atmosphere, and then quickly get worse when they crash their shuttle craft in the middle of a swamp. As if that weren’t enough, their phasers are just as dangerous in the planet’s atmosphere, their communicators are useless, and there are massive, man-eating leech-like monsters hunting them in the mist. In many ways, this plays like an sci-fi horror story, more akin to the Alien or Predator franchises than Star Trek, but Cox’s mastery of the characters, the mythology, and the humor of the series makes it…