Novel: How Much for Just the Planet?

Overview
John M. Ford's How Much for Just the Planet? is a 1987 Star Trek novel that turns the familiar crew-versus-Klingons setup into a comic caper about diplomacy, commerce, and theatrical absurdity. The USS Enterprise arrives at the scene of a newly discovered world whose vast deposits of a highly valuable fuel provoke a scramble for control. Rather than a straightforward action adventure, the novel unfolds as a satirical examination of legalistic wrangling, cultural misreading, and the pettiness that can accompany great stakes.
Ford treats franchise conventions with affectionate irreverence, reshaping the Enterprise mission into a farce that still allows room for character insight. Humorous set pieces and linguistic play coexist with sharper critiques of colonialism and corporate avarice, producing a story that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Plot
The Enterprise must adjudicate conflicting claims to a planet whose resources promise transformative power for whoever controls them. Klingon representatives are eager to seize the opportunity, and the situation quickly escalates from a dispute between powers to a contest of wills, rules, and rhetoric. Instead of a simple battle, the conflict becomes a contest over legal rights, cultural protocols, and who can outmaneuver whom in diplomatic and commercial arenas.
As negotiations, schemes, and misunderstandings multiply, Ford stages episodes that resemble courtroom drama, bureaucratic satire, and screwball comedy. The narrative builds through progressively stranger complications: shifting alliances, unexpected cultural rituals, and staged performances that blur the line between entertainment and negotiation. What could have remained a dry exercise in interstellar law instead becomes a series of escalating set pieces that force each side to reveal its priorities and vulnerabilities.

Characters and interactions
Classic members of the Enterprise crew appear, but Ford emphasizes their voices and eccentricities rather than turning them into caricatures. Captain Kirk retains his bluff charisma, Spock provides the cool rational counterpoint, and Dr. McCoy supplies acerbic humanism; their interactions provide an emotional center amid the chaos. Secondary figures and Klingon counterparts are portrayed with surprising nuance, often undermining easy expectations about honor, greed, and diplomatic competence.
Much of the humor arises from clashes between rigid protocol and improvisation. Characters who rely on formal authority discover that paperwork, ceremony, and posturing sometimes carry as much weight as weapons. Ford gives each participant scenes that reveal personal codes and unexpected sympathies, so that the conflict over the planet becomes a mirror in which ideology and personality are reflected and refracted.

Themes and tone
Satire and playfulness drive the book's tone, but beneath the laughs is a persistent concern with exploitation and responsibility. The scramble for a planet's resources serves as an allegory for real-world economic and political contests, and Ford uses comic exaggeration to expose how easy it is for noble-sounding principles to be bent by profit and pride. At the same time, the novel celebrates verbal dexterity, inventive plotting, and playful pastiche; the prose delights in surprising turns of phrase and clever rhetorical set pieces.
The result is a work that entertains while prompting readers to think about what it means to claim ownership over land and resources, how cultural misunderstanding can escalate conflict, and how law and ceremony are sometimes more powerful than firepower.

Reception and legacy
How Much for Just the Planet? has been applauded for its originality within the tie-in novel field, praised for witty dialogue and imaginative departures from straightforward franchise storytelling. Fans and critics often single out Ford's ability to balance humor with heart and to subvert expectations without abandoning the essential characters. The novel remains a distinctive entry in Star Trek literature, notable for its satire, verbal inventiveness, and willingness to make the franchise laugh at itself while still engaging with the moral questions at its core.