A shuttle is stranded, and the occupants tell of their experiences with the "no-win" scenario. After being mentioned in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, this test has shown up in seven novels, with this being the first.

Reading the academy experiences of the various participants was a lot of fun, and of the four stories, I enjoyed Montgomery Scott's the most. There is an audio version of this book, coincidentally read by James Doohan, but I suspect it is abridged - the run time is under two hours. While I did read this in a single day, it must have been closer to 3½ hours.

The "framing story" of the shuttle incident was weak, but really wasn't the point of the book. Some of the later scenes did harken back to the test itself, which was nice. Of the 90 some-odd Star Trek paperbacks, this story is definitely in the top 20.