Author Alan Dean Foster brings us the novelization of the 12th Star Trek feature film and the second in the Kelvin timeline. It should be noted that the book dose follow the events of the film but it is also based on a slightly early version of that script. The book opens up on the planet Nibiru where the crew of the Enterprise are trying to prevent the pre-warp civilization from being destroyed by a volcano in which Commander Spock has to set off a cold fusion device. Later once they do and the Enterprise's transporters can't lock onto Spock, Captain Kirk orders the starship to rise out of the water and head over the volcano violating the Prime Directive in order to save Spock. (Nitpicking here, the Enterprise is a starship and they should've been in orbit not in the ocean.) After this mission they are ordered back to Earth where Admiral Pike (Former Captain of the Enterprise) dresses down Kirk because he lied in his Captain's log. Pike also informs Kirk that because of this StarFleet has taken the Enterprise away from him and sent him back to the Academy. While this is going on a Section 31 building in London is destroyed by a man who was manipulated in order to save his daughter. This causes a meeting to happen in which Kirk is now Pike's first officer and all of the command officers in the sector are called in order to combat this move by 'John Harrison'. Admiral Marcus, the father of Carol Marcus (See Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and the novelization of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country to know who she is) orders all of Starfleet on high alert to hunt down and kill 'Harrison". 'Harrison' attacks the meeting killing Admiral Pike and other starfleet officers before he transports away using Scotty's transwarp formula in order to transport to the Klingon homeworld. Marcus orders Kirk to follow and kill him setting off the events that lead to us learning that he is Khan (ST:TOS: Space Seed & STII: The Wrath of Khan) to and the discovery of Admiral Marcus's ship the Vengeance who fires on the Enterprise. This is a good novelization and one that I do recommend for any Star Trek fans.