Friday, November 28, 2008

Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances

Keith RA DeCandido, Peter David, and Sarah Shaw, bring us the Mirror Universe from three different perspectives- Voyager, New Frontier, and Deep Space Nine. This book takes a lot of liberty not just with relationships, but with killing. All of the stories ended with more of the characters dead than alive. There is also a large amount of cruelty in these books, probably a level I have not yet seen in Star Trek books. Do not read if torture or other types of abuse will upset you.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Star Trek 101 by Erdmann and Block

Star Trek 101 by Terry J Erdmann and Paula M Block, is listed as "A Practical Guide to Who, What, Where and Why". True to it's name, ST 101 assumes you know nothing about Star Trek and goes from there. There are brief articles on the fundamentals of everything from Klingons to Captain Proton.
My favorite feature of this book is the "Spock's Brain Award", which ranks the stupidest episode of each series.
Even if you feel you could have written all the articles form memory, this is a great resource for it's chronological synopsis of every episode. I will be unhappy when the library wants it back, as we almost daily turn to it to answer questions that start with "What was that episode....?"

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Book: TNG: Greater than The Sum

The latest book in the continuation of the story of the Enterprise E crew, post Nemesis. Read by both myself and Matthew, Christopher Bennet's book was a quick read, and enjoyable. This is another Borg story, one that brings Hugh back into the picture with his band of liberated Borg. The story brings an intriguing concept to the idea of what constitutes intelligence, and the tricky nature of managing first contact with an intelligence that is vastly different than humanoids.
It also introduces a new character, and half human, half Vulcan science officer ( now, that's original!) named T'ryssa Chen. Chen, unlike other half Vulcan characters, has embraced her human side. I did feel Bennet went to far, made her TOO over the top, to show how mush she disdained her Vulcan half. People ONLY act like that in stories.
Matthew especially liked the assimilated Federation ship nicknamed "Frankenstein" by Chen.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Enterprise: Kobyashi Maru By Martin and Mangels

I am usually a fan of Michael Martin and Andy Mangels, but I will say I found this book a bit slow. Not a bad story..but it took me over a month to read it (although Charlaine Harris is at least partly to blame for that).
Any fan of Star Trek knows what the Kobyashi Maru is- a no win test that command level cadets at Starfleet Academy must take in which they must decide whether, or how, to rescue a Federation freighter under attck my Romulans. This book looks at the origins of that test, casting the maru as a real ship manned by real, unusual and flamboyant people ( of the type it's hard to imagine survivin into the Next Gen era Federation)- and of course, with Jonathon Archer as the captain who must make the hard decision.