Tag: star trek

#10

Reunion by Michael Jan Friedman

Last night, I decided to do a bit of reading before bed, and grabbed the third book in the Stargazer series. So far, it has been an interesting series, and Michael Jan Friedman is quickly rising in the ranks of Star Trek authors that I enjoy reading. I had read about a quarter of the book when I hit my limit of references to past events I wasn’t aware of. That’s when I stopped reading and did some investigating online. Turns out, Friedman wrote two books prior to the Stargazer series that introduced the characters and provided the setup for the series.

The first book is this one, Reunion. It takes place sometime around third or fourth season of The Next Generation, judging by Wesley Crusher’s rank and the Troi/Riker relationship status. I read (and had owned) this book years ago when it was first published in the early 90s, but I had forgotten enough of it that re-reading felt like reading it for the first time.

The Picard of this book is the Picard we are most familiar with, and with the exception of Worf, he is the only character from the core TNG group that is given sufficient attention to grow and develop through the story.

It has elements of a murder mystery, but without the cleverness of a Christie or Sayers plot. Still, quite satisfying for Star Trek, and a lot less dark than I remembered it being. Of course, I’m quite a bit older and more experienced than I was when I first read the book. Worf gets quality time, and the opportunity to view himself in the mirror via Idun Asmund, a human woman who was raised by Klingons.

Next up is The Valiant, which is the book that sets up the series I’ve already begun to read. Sort of a spoiler, since I know the outcome, but I still need to learn the details.

I’m hoping that I’ll have gorged myself on enough Star Trek by the time I’ve finished the series that I can move on to other, slightly more challenging books. On the other hand, I’ve kick-started the reading thing, which makes me happy.

#9

Progenitor by Michael Jan Friedman

w00t! At this rate, I might get to 20 before the end of the year. Heh.

Once again, parts of this book seemed familiar, but mostly it was new. The larger story arc from the previous book was carried through and remains arcing, while the internal story arc contained all the tension and resolution that one expects from a Star Trek novel.

Young Captain Picard (28 years old!) displays the kind of fearlessness that his First Officer on the Enterprise had to curb early on. It’s an interesting look at the man. There are some elements of who he will become, with just a hint of Kirk to throw TOS fans a bone.

loltrek!

Invisible Klingon

My love for the lolcats meme continues, and as I was browsing through the feed from I Can Has Cheezeburger, I came across a reference to loltrek. Image macros + Star Trek = teh funneh! Of course, they picked the best classic Trek episode to create the macro set: “The Trouble With Tribbles.”

#4

Death in Winter by Michael Jan Friedman

Dangit. I did it again. *sigh*

Several hours ago, I put myself to bed with a book that I had bought today on a whim. Prior to this afternoon, I didn’t even know it existed, but when I was browsing the science fiction shelves at the local used bookstore, I decided to give it a try. Then, after having it sitting on my desk staring at me all evening, I thought I’d read just a chapter or two and then go to sleep. Ha!

Without some knowledge of Star Trek canon, this book might be difficult to follow. I regularly feel like I’m missing some subtext with the books set after the Dominion War. I missed that part of Deep Space Nine and nearly all of the Voyager seasons due to being in college and not having time to watch, and then being out of college and too poor to buy a TV or pay for cable. Luckily for me, those events aren’t nearly as important in the book as events that took place during The Next Generation years.

The book begins by laying down the back story that both provides the motivation for later events, as well as the characters involved. The events that occur in the “present” are set shortly after events seen in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis in which the Enterprise E is nearly wrecked by trying to prevent the mentally disturbed Romulan Praetor Shinzon from destroying humanity and the Federation. Picard is overseeing repairs of his ship while also dealing with the changes in her crew. Of those who served with him in the early and later missions, only Worf and La Forge remain on the ship, but the one he misses most is Beverly Crusher.

Crusher has taken up her old post as head of Starfleet Medical, but soon she embarks on a covert mission that takes her into Romulan territory. When Starfleet loses communication with her, Picard and a small team are sent in to complete her mission and rescue her if possible.

Meanwhile, turmoil and intrigue plague the Romulan Empire, which has been weakened by Shinzon and his successor. The usual suspects (Tomalak and Sela) show up, do their thing, and it’s all settled in typical Romulan fashion by the end of the book. What I appreciated most about this was how Friedman wrote the minds-eye perspective of all of the main Romulan characters in such a way that I found myself rooting for all of them at some point, even when they were at odds with each other.

The book ends on a high note, and should please many fans. That’s all I am going to say about it, although it wouldn’t be much of a spoiler if I did.

And now, I’m going to bed. Really.

#1

I’m starting over on the 50 Book Challenge. Last year I read 23 books. This year I hope to get closer to my goal. To assist in that, I’m trying to change the way I read books.

For most of my life, reading a book meant reading the book cover-to-cover in one go. I don’t have the time or energy for that anymore. My body won’t let me read until dawn and still function at work. So I stopped reading because I didn’t have the hours set aside to do it.

Now I’m trying to keep a set sleep schedule: 10pm-6:30am. I need eight hours of sleep in order to be fully rested, and this gives me enough time to dink around in the morning before going to work (as I am doing right now). This means that if I want to read, I have to do it before 10pm and stop at or around 10pm. I didn’t know if I had enough discipline to put down a book when the time came, but I was able to do it with the first book of 2007, so I’m hopeful.

The Empty Chair is the fifth book in Diane Duane’s twenty-two year long tale of the Romulans. The first four books (My Enemy, My Ally, The Romulan Way, Swordhunt, and Honor Blade) have been collected and published in an omnibus entitled Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages which was released last month along with The Empty Chair. I have been eager to read this final book ever since I finished the cliffhanger Honor Blade in 2005, and I was quite frustrated with my local bookstores for not carrying it. However, I was able to pick up a copy during my holiday travels.

The plot is complex and well-executed, but as with most Duane books, it isn’t as much about the plot as it is about the characters. She is one of few authors who writes Kirk so sympathetically that he doesn’t come off as an arrogant ass. I have particularly enjoyed the character development and insight into Rihannsu (Romulan) culture that this series of books has provided, and The Empty Chair neatly brought everything full circle to end the adventure with sufficient closure.

It’s much longer than the other books, clocking in at 421 pages (mass market paperback). I suspect that Duane would have preferred to split it into two novels, since there are a few minor plots that were not fully played out, and the ending battle seemed a bit rushed and anti-climactic compared to other events in the book. However, it is still a satisfying read.

Any interested readers should pick up copies of the previous books first before tackling this one. Although it can stand on its own, there are many references to previous events, and it would help to know the details and the weight they carry. Even though I have read those books in the past couple of years, I found myself struggling to remember exactly what happened and who was involved.

I’d like to go back and re-read the entire series without the long gaps between books, but that will have to wait. I still have 276 unread books in my house that await my attention. Sigh.

#20

by John Vornholt

After the horrible writing I suffered through on the last book, I needed something reliable. As expected, this was a good Star Trek story and the writing (and/or editing) was well done. The book takes place shortly after Undiscovered Country and features Spock, his niece, and the beginnings of the Romulan reunification movement.

#18

by Diane Duane

As I read more and more of the old Star Trek books, I have come to realize that anything written by Diane Duane is going to be a winner. This book is no exception. She is able to present the family aspect of the Enterprise crew much better than most. In this story, the command structure is much more apparent than in other stories, due largely in part by the plot device of leaving McCoy in command of the Enterprise. The Doctor handles it well and with good humor. As with Duane’s other Star Trek books, linguistics plays a significant role in the story line. I really should read some of her non-commissioned work.

#17

by Gene DeWeese

I was browsing my shelves late last night because I wasn’t yet tired, although I should have been. That’s when I discovered that this book is the sequel to the one I read earlier (Chain of Attack). The Enterprise goes back to the anomaly to find out why people coming near it and similar openings seem to be experiencing terror and paranoia. Spock and Kirk believe that this may be the reason why there was so much destruction in the area where the anomaly/nexus left them in the last book. The author does a good job of explaining the physics theories that are the basis of the existence of the nexus and the cause of the terror, but it wasn’t as interesting to me as the first book.

#15

by Gene DeWeese

The Enterprise is studying some anomalies that act sort of like wormholes by instantly transporting an object across a distance. The distances vary throughout the trials, and they are unable to determine what factors influence how far an object will be moved. Suddenly, they find themselves in an unfamiliar galaxy with no idea where they are in relation to home. As they begin to explore the are in hopes of finding a way back, they find themselves entangled in an interstellar war that has raged on for millenia.

This is a pretty good Star Trek novel. It is somewhat reminiscent of Voyager, with the alien technology causing a ship to be sent across vast distances to an unknown place far from home, but the book was published in 1987.

My modem isn’t working, so I wasn’t able to waste the day online. This meant I had time to read. I got a wild hair and decided to read all the unread Star Trek books in my house. Probably a reaction to the darkness of Battlestar Galactica. More on that later.

#13

Wow. It’s been well over a month since I last read a book. I am so far behind on this fifty book challenge!

I knew I needed to read something the other evening, so I selected something relatively short and entertaining. Crisis on Centaurus by Brad Ferguson fit the bill. It’s a Star Trek novel set in the original series. I found the 1960s/1980s perspective on computers to be quite amusing. The Enterprise computer has experienced a malfunction that causes problems all over the ship. Before they are able to go to a starbase for repairs, they are sent to Centaurus to aid in the recovery from a huge matter/anti-matter explosion that wiped out the capital city and killed thousands of people. The tension builds steadily throughout the story, but the resolution is abrupt and unsatisfying. It seemed to me that the author had a much fuller story that got cut down in the editorial process. Too bad, because he had some interesting subtext with some of the minor characters like Chekov and Sulu.

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