Star Trek has always been known for throwing plenty of backstory out there in passing in its episodes, to pave the way for an hour of television. That backstory is then largely forgotten in future episodes since the majority of Star Trek’s run on television has involved stand-alone episodes. That leaves plenty of fertile ground for authors to fill in, which would certainly be a reason why Star Trek tie-in novels are as prolific as they are.

Star Trek Terok Nor tells the story of the occupation of Bajor by the Cardassians. Star Trek: The Next Generation first brought us the story of Bajor in a few of its later season episodes. It then became one of the main storylines of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The very final episode of the show showed us an ending of the story. Day of the Vipers by James Swallow shows us the beginning of the story. Terok Nor, as we learned on Deep Space Nine, was the Cardassians name for the space station when it was under their control. At this point however, the space station that would become the crown jewel of Cardassia’s occupation of Bajor, and later Deep Space Nine, is only a distant dream.

The novel stretches over a ten-year period, from the first Cardassian vessel traveling to make first contact with the Bajorans, all the way through the days immediately following the beginning of the occupation.

Given the timeframe of the novel most of the characters that we meet are new original characters for this story. However a young Dukat, before he becomes the Gul Dukat who is a recurring character all throughout the run of Deep Space Nine, is one of the central characters of the book. In the beginning he is the first officer of the first vessel to visit Bajor. We then watch him move up in the ranks and in power and influence throughout the novel. More importantly to a good story we learn WHY he is driven to move up in the ranks and to make it his mission to see Bajor under Cardassian rule. There is more to the story than simply waking up in the morning, deciding to hop into a spaceship and make a trip at warp speed to begin a long and complex campaign to take over the world of another civilization.

Make no mistake about it, the Cardassians are the villains of the story. But like good villains that aren’t one-dimensional they have motivations for behaving as they do. It is not evil for evil’s sake. In their minds they are entirely justified in doing what they do. Cardassia is a very resource poor world with a population that scrapes by to provide the essentials. In Bajor, they see a world that has a bounty of resources that they under-appreciate to the point of being wasteful. In Cardassian eyes they are lazy, undisciplined, and underachieving as a society and need a “firm Cardassian rule in order to make something of themselves.

Within the overall cultural motivations we have a variety of personal motivations ranging from the desire to best serve Cardassia, to personal ambitions of wealth and power, to motivations of religious faith. On the other side of the coin Cardassia was able to exploit a number of Bajoran motivations as well. Bajor didn’t willingly cede its world over to an alien race. There were segments of their society that welcomes an alliance for a variety of reasons, some personal and some societal. All of these sub-plots swirl beneath the main plot, the one we know from being Star Trek fans, and come together in the climax, in a number of surprising ways. While the end result is anticipated, the events along the way are quite surprising at times.

James Swallow wrote a very complex story and had a very good grasp of all the characters. He gave us a very good cross section of both Bajoran and Cardassian societies, from religious clerics, to politicians and their political power grabs, to career soldiers, to secret operatives, and maybe especially of Mace Darrah. Darrah is a Bajorian Militiaman who is determined to uphold his duty and serve his people as a lawman even as his society and his marriage crumble around him. While Dukat is the central villain of the story, Mace Darrah is the central hero. Given the nature of the story he was never going to have a totally heroic victory in this book. But he did get a nice little personal victory. Perhaps the stage is set for him to make a heroic comeback against all odds. But maybe he will suffer a heroic and tragic death to set the stage for the rise of other resistance fighters, such as Kira Nerys. According to her backstory she is born about 15 years after the end of this book. One would presume that she will factor into the next book based on the timeline, and the fact that she’s on the cover of the next book. Heroes inspire other heroes, so perhaps Mace Darrah will become Kira’s role model. We will see.

Throughout the story kept moving at a fast pace, even as it got more and more complex with the addition of conspiracies and even conspiracies within conspiracies. The story was well managed and was extremely plausible.

Another thing I liked was that not only was the story not Federation-centric but it didn’t cast the Federation in a particularly favorable light. They are not eager to get involved, for reasons from their point of view that are strategically plausible. It’s easy to understand Bajor’s later distrust of the Federation. It goes to show that the Federation isn’t always a bunch of Boy Scouts. Their policies are sometimes dictated by politics and other concerns just as any real organization would be. So while we had plenty of Star Trek science fiction in this story, it also maintained a strong grip on plausible reality. I thought this was a good story that just happened to be told in the Star Trek universe.

My biggest concern coming into “Day of the Vipers” would be whether or not I would care about all the new characters that we would see in the story, especially since the majority of them will probably be ground beneath the wheels of time as the series progresses over a period of about 52 years from beginning to end. For the most part these are forerunners to the characters that are “near and dear. But thankfully Swallow did not create Jar Jar Binks and gave us characters that add to the richness of the Star Trek universe, not characters that are best forgotten. Day of the Vipers was an outstanding beginning of the trilogy. We’ll see if the authors who will be concluding the series give us as compelling of a story. I rate Day of the Vipers as a 7.5.

Captain Kirk’s Guide to Women is written by John “Bones” Rodriguez, who is admitted Star Trek fan. It takes a Star Trek fan to write this book and a Star Trek fan to appreciate it. The subtitle of the book on the first page is “How to Romance Any Woman In the Galaxy”. Obviously this book is meant to be tongue-in-cheek and does not take itself too seriously. Nor should its reader. Nor its reviewer. So I fully intended to cut this book some slack. I am a Star Trek fan so I expected to enjoy this book in the spirit that it was intended.

I went into the book expecting humor. It did deliver a bit. In general though it wasn’t terribly funny. It also tried to be somewhat serious and be something of a self help book for Star Trek fans who I suppose are futile with the fairer sex. The message preached through the example of James T. Kirk’s captainly exploits, partially on the bridge of the Enterprise but mostly as they directly related to his many female encounters, is to be confident, goal oriented, and “boldly go” with regards to women. The poor alternative is to be passive, or nondescript background dressing like a Red Shirt. They tend to die quickly and so will your relationships I guess.

That’s a pretty good message. But a self-help or motivational book is probably going to need a bit more example and build up of the reader’s confidence than merely entries on all of the women that Captain Kirk encountered throughout the series. While these entries tried to incorporate humor using episode-centric in-jokes, it didn’t really work and the entries looked more like something out of a baseball reference book. Except this subject matter does not really lend itself to that.

So I got a laugh or two out of Captain Kirk’s Guide To Women, but not as many as I’d expected. So it didn’t find its niche as a funny or satirical book. I also saw the positive messages that he filled the book with. But if I needed relationship help I think Relationships For Dummies would probably be a more comprehensive help book. Thus, it also doesn’t find a niche as a motivational book.

What it is is a quirky book. I can’t even call it a must have book for Trekkies. If you’re one of those who desperately wants to know the entire list of 21 women who Kirk had involvement with during the series, as well as the actresses who portrayed them, this book might be for you. If you just can’t live with not having a Star Trek book on your bookshelf, at least this one comes in at 84 pages so it doesn’t take up much room at all, and it’s a quick read.

I didn’t have tremendous high expectations for Captain Kirk’s Guide To Women. I expected a light hearted quick and easy read that would give me some laughter. I don’t see how the classic 0-10 scale really applies in this case. I couldn’t in any good conscience give this more than a 5 being more of a novelty or gimmick book. I would have given credit where it was due, but I think I’ve done enough reviews to know what a 9 or a 10 is to me. 85 pages of this type of material just couldn’t reach that level But I don’t think it hit its desired target especially well so I really think that a 1 on my scale applies. There was no “enjoyment”. Without a high level of humor it was just a quick 80 page reference book of Captain Kirk’s conquests. If I was going to heartily enjoy a Star Trek reference book there would be other topics I would go for if I was going to pull one off the shelf.

I’m sorry Captain Kirk’s Guide to Women, but like Captain Kirk’s relationships themselves you are brief, shallow, and quickly forgotten.

“Grand Designs” is a collection of 7 novellas, originally published as eBooks, set in the Star Trek Corps of Engineers series. This is the 9th collection of this series, spun off of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When there is a daunting engineering problem, rather than send in a standard Starfleet vessel and crew, Starfleet can send the U.S.S. da Vinci and its Corps of Engineers. Under the command of Captain Montgomery Scott at Starfleet Command, no engineering problem is too great for Captain Gold and his crew.

The collection brought us stories by Allyn Gibson, Kevin Killiany, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, David Mack, Dave Galanter, and Paul Kupperberg. Almost all of them have written in the Corp of Engineers series before, and that showed as they seemed to have a good handle on the characters. As hinted by the title Grand Designs, all of the projects facing the crew in this book were large, with big implications. I also thought all the stories were original, deviating from the usual Starfleet objectives of diplomacy, conflict resolution, or armed conflict. I found this crew to be very engaging and likeable. As I compared it to a couple other crews from extensions of the Star Trek Universe I found that my interest in this crew of characters was rivaled, in my opinion, only by Peter David’s New Frontiers crew.

I do feel that one cannot just step into this book and read from the beginning. There are events that are referenced repeatedly in the novellas which I would presume occurred in a recent book. The crew is still reeling from the loss of 23 crew members in some tragedy on a recent mission, and were still becoming comfortable with a few of the characters in this version of the crew, who were new replacements for fallen comrades. While this was referenced plenty of times in the stories, actually reading these events would probably make those elements more relevant and powerful.

This brings me to one thing that annoyed me about the book. Certain impressions and descriptions of characters, how they were disliked by other crew members or were not yet comfortable because they were filling the post of a fallen crewmember who was greatly beloved, were continually outlined almost verbatim in most of the seven stories. That may be a function of the editing rather than the writing. I can see how the information is relevant in understanding characters and how they relate to one another. But when each story is part of a collection there is no need to be repetitive with that information. When I got to those sections it just felt like an annoying case of déjà vu.

I have to also mention that this book is 627 pages of novellas about an entire crew of engineers. There will be a lot of classic Star Trek technobabble in the stories. If you’re a person who gets lost in all that discussion this book, and probably the entire series I’d guess, may not be for you. I have never been put off by the technobabble but even I found my head spinning by many discussions of probability, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Schrodinger’s Cat in the last story, which was otherwise one of my two favorites in the book.

My latest review is the Star Trek “Strange New Worlds 10” short story collection. The stories in this collection were the winners of the annual submission contest. I reviewed the 9th edition not too long ago and really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed volume 10 as well, although not nearly as much as its predecessor. There were still a wide variety of stories, spread across all of the series. It may be that part of the lull in the book was due to the story arrangement. It may have been intentional or perhaps it was random placement but the Grand Prize story, set in the original Star Trek era, was the first story in the book. It was a very good story. But then the stories that came after weren’t quite at that level. The “Speculations” stories, which were the last in the book, were also very good. Solid beginning, solid ending, and kind of indistinct in the middle, where the stories just blended into other stories and nothing seemed to stand out. Taking nothing away from the efforts of the other stories, and certainly keeping in mind that the eligible stories in this collection came from previously unpublished authors, it seemed like some of them tried so hard to be unorthodox that I missed the point of them. The emphasis of a couple others seemed just to be bringing together characters who had never shared a scene before. It was fun, but the stories didn’t resonate in the same way that the previous collection did. The collection of stories taken as a whole just didn’t flow.

That said, there were very high points too. Why would a being be desperate to be assimilated by The Borg? Why would The Borg have no interest in that assimilation? Those reasons make for perhaps the funniest Star Trek story I have ever read.

I always enjoy short story collections because it’s like panning for gold. There are always nuggets to be found, and the next one could be mere pages away. This collection had its nuggets too, which made it worth the journey. It just happens that in direct comparison to the previous collection, there weren’t quite as many as last year. According to the forward this is the last collection. That's unfortunate. I just wish that they'd been able to go out with a volume that was as outstanding as 9 was.

“The Buried Age” by Christopher Bennett finally tells the of the events in Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s life from the time of the Ferengi ambush that led to the loss of the Stargazer up until the very beginning of him taking command of the Enterprise. “The Buried Age” refers to the discovery of previously unknown history of the galaxy, but also to that buried age in the Star Trek timeline that had remained ignored until now.

It’s always been intriguing, as it was teased in the first season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where we saw the return of the Stargazer and the revelation that it was the Ferengi behind the attack. Other episodes also alluded to the fact that Picard captained The Stargazer for quite along time. But in classic Next Generation style of never bogging things down with character development, as they really disliked anything other than standalone episodes, they never discussed that era of Picard’s life in greater detail.

It begged to be written and now all these years later Christopher Bennett has filled in that gap. This was not a classic “Starfleet” story either. Picard’s love of archeology comes to the forefront. We also get some insight into the psychology of the man, what makes him tick, and why the Picard we would later see remains by and large aloof from the rest of his crew.

Another of the shows mysteries, the character of Guinan, gets a little exploration as well. We also get to see Picard’s first meetings with a couple familiar faces, which meshes very well with the show’s feel that Picard had a slightly higher level of trust or relationship with these characters.

Bennett obviously did a good amount of research into the show itself and offered up answers to a lot of loose ends or unexplained questions regarding how certain things came to be on The Enterprise. The story itself was very engaging, but tying things into the show that we know was also a nice treat.

Picard is on the trail of perhaps the most significant archeological find in the history of the galaxy. Still he manages to discover more than he had expected. Probably the biggest revelation of the book came well before the end of the book. In reading the story and knowing the show, I expected something. That something came before the very end of the book which managed to add surprise to it. To a small extent the last section of the book were somewhat anti-climactic and maybe a bit more typical of a Star Trek book with some Starfleet ship combat and of course another win for the Federation. However, that led to a couple unexpected characters getting to come to the forefront. As a fan of the show that did add to the book. Those were the sort of surprises that the book had to reveal, as opposed to huge plotline surprises, since the events had to remain consistent with the history established on the show. So no visits to the homeworld of The Borg for Picard in this book.

I liked how great effort was made to develop Picard and some of his relationships and give the story the feel of belonging in the history of the characters, as opposed to it just being another adventure they went on that didn’t happen to make it to the TV screen. This book added a fullness to the character of Captain Jean-Luc Picard that was not there before. I could see Bennett doing additional novels on behalf of some of the other characters. Perhaps someone else will take the torch from him, but I would like to see Bennett take on Lieutenant Worf or Commander Data. If he does I will be watching the bookshelves for those novels.

“Demands of Honor” is book two of the Errands of Fury Star Trek series. This book is set in the Classic Star Trek era. In an interesting twist though, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and company were secondary characters in this story. The focus of this story was Michael Fuller and his Starfleet Security team. Typically the role of the redshirt in the original series has become stereotypical that it is now a running pop culture joke. This book puts them in a role other than cannon fodder.

Also in the forefront was political drama as the Federation and Klingon Empire teetered on the bring of war. Council Member Duras showed that his family’s penchant for sneakiness and treachery stretched farther back in time from the Next Generation Era. The crew of the I.K.S. D’k Tahg had no doubt that he was up to something. The question was what, and would they be able to find out before it was too late to do anything about it?

Errand of Fury was an appropriate title for this novel. Several characters confronted the demons of their past. First Officer Karel on the D’k Tahg sought to avenge the death of his brother. Michael Fuller was still haunted by the death of his son in battle against the Klingons.

As the Federation and Klingon Empires stared each other down, the primitive race of Klingon inhabiting a dilithium rich planet in System 7348 were caught in the middle. The younger Adon and his clan sought to save their race from an act of treachery. He too had a personal score to settle.

The focus on different characters in the Star Trek universe was a two-headed monster. It was a breath of fresh air. The Enterprise has a crew of several hundred. Presumably all these Star Fleet personnel are highly trained and competent at their jobs. Yet it seemed to be Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, and Uhura getting all the action, leading all the missions, etc. The security personal? They go on an away mission and they die. “They’re dead Jim!”

On the other hand, when you read a Star Trek book you’re expecting to see certain characters. It was strange to see the senior officers confining themselves to the bridge of the Enterprise while there was a lot of action going on in an away mission. The storyline justification for that seemed odd, when circumstances in the show didn’t often keep Kirk confined to his ship. So I found myself mainly wondering when the Security personnel would meet their seemingly inevitable demise. Would they be the sacrificial lambs to add gravity to the plot as things teetered on the edge of war and the plot switched back to the main characters? Since these are “temporary” characters, it was hard to really care about the characters. Whether these characters would die, heroically or tragically or whether their demons would get the best of them and add fuel to the plot fire did make the story “interesting” but not a classic. It wasn’t a bad book, but it was short and pretty predictable. But if you’re a fan of Redshirts and yearn to see them have a life expectancy of longer than about 5 minutes you'd definitely enjoy this book.

My latest review is the Star Trek Novel “Burning Dreams” by Margaret Wander Bonanno. The story focuses on Captain Christopher Pike, captain of the USS Enterprise before Captain Kirk. It expands upon the events of the events of the original pilot for Star Trek, The Cage, and The Menagerie, which picked up that storyline and provided Paramount with a chance to use the unaired footage from the original failed pilot.

Bonanno does a good job of flashing between story elements that are happening in different timeframes. A large part of the story is presented to us via recollection, which was also used successfully in Strangers From the Sky, which I have reviewed previously. Mr. Spock was the focus of the contemporary storyline. It is set about 54 years after he had last been to Talos IV, risking a Federation death sentence to return his former Captain Pike to Talos IV, where the grievously maimed Pike could live out the rest of his life in the illusion of being healthy and able bodied. Spock is summoned back to Talos IV once again. Once again he is willing to risk the Federation death penalty. The reason why would tie in with the rest of the story, provided by Christopher Pike’s recollections of his life as he continued to live a productive, but illusory, life on Talos IV

Christopher Pike has always been an intriguing character. He was the Star Trek captain who could have been had Paramount greenlit “The Cage” rather than deeming it “too cerebral”. The re-shot pilot of course cast William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, and made Mr. Spock (the only returning character from the original pilot) the First Officer. That was the appeal of the book for me, filling in that missing history, taking the promising stories left by “The Cage” and “The Menagerie” and running with it.

I wouldn’t say it was an emotionally deep book. One doesn’t feel really attached to Christopher Pike. It’s more of a “history of Christopher Pike” showing the events in his life that led up to and shaped those very brief snippets that we saw. While I was left feeling more informed about the backstory of Christopher Pike he was not fleshed out in a way that makes me extremely curious to read anymore Pike stories. I felt like this was closure, and everything that I needed to know about Christopher Pike I learned here.

This was a Star Trek story that wasn’t a classic James T. Kirk story. Even Spock was a secondary character. I did like how it stuck firmly to being a Christopher Pike story, not relying on meetings with other more well known characters to make it more “appealing”. The sequences with Spock helped to explain how he had developed the loyalty toward Pike to risk a death penalty not once but twice, to go to the quarantined Talos IV system on Pike’s behalf. In both novels I’ve reviewed, Margaret Wander Bonanno fills in backstory of the Star Trek universe, using a parallel story in a more familiar Star Trek time period as a backdrop. I like that a lot, adding to the richness and fullness of the universe.

I think if Captain Christopher Pike, the first captain of the Enterprise, intrigues you this book would make a good read. If your history of the Enterprise starts with James T. Kirk in the captain’s chair you’ll probably find more entertaining Star Trek book’s on the shelf, as Kirk is not a part of this story at all.

It was late Tuesday night/Wednesday morning that I finished my previous book and posted a review. Here I am back again less than 48 hours later with another review. I started “Star Trek: Strange New World 9” at about 1 AM. I expected to turn a few pages just to get a little taste for my latest book before going to bed. But I kept turning pages. And turning. And turning. I finally put it down at 3 AM out of necessity for sleep, not out of desire to stop reading.

That’s maybe the highest compliment that I have for this book, and I have a number of them. 47 hours. Work shifts. Grocery shopping. The routine of life. But 381 pages read. Despite everything else, I still tore through this book. If I’d have been able to read it cover to cover in one sitting I truly would have.

“Strange New World 9” is the ninth installment of this annual collection of short stories, representing the winning contributions of non-professional authors to the Strange New Worlds short story contest.

Beginning to end, these stories were outstanding.

The book was sectioned into the original series, the Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise, and Speculations. There was something for everyone, from the lighthearted to the deeply profound. Ferengi,, Vulcans, Klingons, Tribbles, Borg, Jem’Hadar, the Prophets, genetically engineered supermen, and more surprises – it’s all there. Whatever your Star Trek fancy you’ll find it here, unless it’s the techno-babble that you fancy. These stories are about the characters, not starships and phasers, and EPS conduits.

Where this collection of short Stories differed from the “Constellations” collection of short stories that I reviewed a couple months ago is that where “Constellations” stories were written in the spirit of an episode of the TV show, the “Strange New Worlds” went beyond the TV show. In many ways they picked up where the TV show or the movies left off, or filled in gaps in series history. For example, I think the best storyline that Star Trek has ever done is the Dominion War in the late seasons of DS9. Granted, this was one of the few storylines that Star Trek has done, as the original series, and The Next Generation stayed away from story arch. I loved the entire Dominion War arch. Of course it was extremely Deep Space Nine-centric. I’ve always been fascinated with what the Enterprise was doing during the war. It was the flagship of the Federation so of course you knew it was heavily involved out there in the unspoken Star Trek universe. There are two stories that give us a taste. The war though was not the whole story. It was just the canvas that each story was painted on.

This collection was everything that I like in a collection of short stories. Every story with an exciting new setting, characters, and mood. Most of what I liked about it was that it was fresh. This is a review so I imagine that I am free to indulge in speculation and blind opinion. I think what I liked most about this collection was the freshness. I opine that this is because, as a result of this book being the product of a short story submission contest, rather than a professional novel under the guidelines of usual guidelines, storylines didn’t have pass through the judging eye of the caretakers of the Star Trek Universe. Stories didn’t have to meet the standard of being “canon” to the established Star Trek universe. There were ground rules to the contest of course. Grounds for disqualification included:

a) “any story focusing on explicit sexual activity or graphic depictions of violence or sadism,
b) any story that focuses on characters that are not past or present Star Trek regulars or familiar Star Trek guest characters
c) stories that deal with a previously unestablished death of a Star Trek character, or establish major facts about or make major changes in the life of a major character…
d) Stories that are based around common cliches, such as “hurt/comfort”…or “Mary Sue” stories…”

(From Contest Rules, Section 8 : “Story Disqualifications", page 371)

But beyond that, I think the authors were free to have fun. They didn’t have to worry about being told “No, Commander Data can’t be on Earth during the Dominion War, as in your story, because it was already established in book blah blah blah that the Enterprise was patrolling the Bajoran Wormhole”.

It was exciting. It was fresh. It dared to explore “Strange New Worlds”. It explored them boldly enough that I will be watching out for Strange New Worlds 10, and probably 1-8 as well in my future book buying ventures.

My latest review is Star Trek: Mirror Universe – Obsidian Alliances. The book features the novellas “The Mirror-Scaled Serpent” by Keith R.A. DeCandido, “Cutting Ties” by Peter David, and “Saturn’s Children” by Sarah Shaw.

As the name implies, all three stores are set in the Star Trek Mirror parallel universe. This universe, a cruel and dark version of the Star Trek universe, was first seen in the Star Trek Episode “Mirror, Mirror”. Deep Space 9 returned us to the universe a number of times.

In this book, we get a look at the mirror Voyager crew, as they encounter Kes and Neelix from the “real” universe. “Cutting Ties” gives us the first look at the mirror universe versions of the ‘New Frontiers” crew. “Saturn’s Children” returns us to the saga of Intendant Kira, Smiley, Bashir, and the other Deep Space Nine characters.

I really enjoyed all three of the novellas. This was my first read of Keith R.A. DeCandido’s material. All of his characters were delightfully wicked. I’m not sure that anyone from that universe had any redeeming qualities. The characters I was rooting for were Kes and Neelix to be able to escape from there and return home. Supervisor B’Elanna was delightfully hedonistic and brutal, even as she loathed her ‘half-breed’ Klingon status. Chakotay was the captain of the rebel vessel Voyager, with Tuvok as second officer. Harry Kim was a psychotic security expert or interrogator with a death wish upon as many Klingons as he could get his hands on. By the time the story ended, that was a lot of them. Seska betrayed the Alliance to join the rebellion and had her own agenda even now. Kate Janeway was a fiery engineer who also had her own agenda. This story was a whole lot of gleefully reading of bad things happening to bad people. For me that was a lot of the fun, as there weren’t many in the story that didn’t deserve what came to them. Almost everyone got some measure of what they had coming to them. The rebels aboard Voyager weren’t much better than the Alliance that they were fighting. So, no happy endings (and how can you really have a happy ending in the mirror universe) but this serves as a great springboard for further stories, as Kes’s telepathy has major implications for the universe.

DeCandido did an outstanding job with the characters. He managed to blend some of those character traits that made the characters so recognizable on the TV show, and twist them in that mirror universe fashion. I’ve intended to read some of his work for quite awhile to see what he brings to the Star Trek table. I think that he brings characters, dialogue, and engaging plot that is worthy of my personal upper tier of Star Trek writers. I certainly look forward to reading more of his work to see if he does rise up there with, William Shatner/Judith and Garfield-Reeves-Stevens, Diane Duane, Peter David, and a couple others. Room in my penthouse of Star Trek writing may be getting a bit more crowded, and I personally am very pleased by that.

Speaking of Peter David he wrote “Cutting Ties”. I always like his work and this story had its own fascination. I’ve read only one “New Frontiers” novel, so I didn’t have a lot of preconceived notions about how the “real” characters should act. I didn’t need a solid baseline for Captain MacKenzie, although one previous well-written novel gave me a bit of one, to realize that ‘Muck’ was radically different. I liked that character. He was almost a 'Star Trek barbarian", or “Wulfgar meets Star Trek” if you’re an R.A. Salvatore person. “New Frontiers” focuses on a lot of never before seen Star Trek races. The Mirror version of course was no different, so it was refreshing to see a whole different angle of the universe. The mirror Romulans haven’t really been seen before, as they’re as reclusive in that universe as in the “TV universe”. But we get a look here. This story had a number of plot twists and turns, and it was exciting until the last page, as it wasn’t clear until the end how things would turn out. Don’t worry though, if you want some carnage, this is the mirror universe so you’ll get it.

“Saturn’s Children” by Sarah Shaw was the final story of the book. This story was her first professional fiction credit, having previously written fan fiction. I’ve seen some very talented fan fiction writers, and it’s nice to see someone go from fanfic to “professional”. She did a very good job with this story, and handled the characters very well. The Deep Space Nine crew is the most well fleshed out of the mirror characters from TV. Intendant Kira is perhaps the most prominent of all those characters. She’s devious, she’s conniving, she’s cruel, and hedonistic. That’s a pretty large character to take on, and Shaw did it very well. I could see Nana Visitor in my head as I read. She nailed that character, along with all the others. The Intendant had fallen on some hard times, but she’s always got a plan for turning things around. It was fun to watch that unfold. That’s a character that always “wins” in the end. She was the star of the show and I expected her to somehow rise out of the ashes with her typical flair. Miles “Smiley” O’Brien anchored the other half of the story. He was the most honorable, sympathetic character in the whole book. He was the hope for an honorable rebellion, fighting for a bright future. Zek (not the Grand Nagis of the Ferengi in this universe) and Julian Bashir represented the cruel, “the cure is not much better than the disease”, Alliance. Again, you can look for bad things to happen to bad people. One expects a collection of “dirty deeds done dirt cheap” in the mirror universe. Sarah Shaw lives very well in this universe. If this is her first professional venture, I look forward to many more.

In conclusion, this book represents the Mirror Universe very well in 3 stories. If you like the Mirror Universe you’ll like these stories, as they were written very vividly and capture all those elements that we love to hate among these bad, bad people. If you don’t like the Mirror Universe…give it another shot. And if you don’t like one story, there’s another one only 160 pages or so away. That’s the beauty of short stories/novellas.

““Captain’s Glory” by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens was another book that came with expectations. I’ve read a number of these collaborations before, which focus on Captain James T. Kirk in the current Star Trek era.

This book fit the template of the previous books. Big. Starting with William Shatner’s name in dominant font size on the cover of the book. Moving into the story itself. Big. So big that our galaxy was not big enough to contain it. The story stretched from Mercury in our own solar system, to Vulcan, to the galactic barrier, and beyond.

The other usual trait of a William Shatner (with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens) story is that it is epic. If this was put on screen it would not be a one hour TV show, or even a two parter or a mini-series. This would be a big screen movie, and a blockbuster.

It was sprinkled with a Who’s Who of the Star Trek universe: Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy (still alive at the age of 140+), Scotty (still alive after his time spent in the transporter buffer as recounted in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode), Captain Picard, Worf, now the first officer of the Enterprise-E, Dr. Crusher, Captain Riker, now in command of the U.S.S. Titan, which he took command of at the end of the last movie, Counselor Troi, Admiral Kathryn Janeway, Tuvoc, now the security officer on Riker’s ship, the holographic doctor from the U.S.S. Voyager. This novel brought almost all of the classic characters. I almost wonder how they missed Captain Sisko.

What kind of story can contain all of these characters? A big one of course. Missing people. An unknown, seemingly undefeatable enemy. Exploding ships. Galactic war.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was fast paced and character driven. Once I got started on a reading session it was definitely a page turner that I devoured for as long as my reading time would allow, and sometimes longer.

I did finally figure out in this book what has bugged me just a little bit about the books in this ongoing series. It occurred to me that maybe just a little bit James. T. Kirk is afflicted with just a little of the “Mary Sue” phenomenon, where he gets to rub elbows with all the legendary characters of the contemporary Star Trek era. That said, I will clarify so it doesn’t appear that I’m taking this as more of a negative than I am. “Mary Sue” is usually used in conjunction with fan fiction, most often as a criticism of poorly written fanfic.

This book was not, nor have any of the others in the ongoing series been, poorly written. While “Mary Sue” usually implies that the author’s character rubbing elbows with a series of famous characters serves in and of itself as the main creative force of the story, rather than anything original that the author has to add, I think that Shatner (or the Reeves-Stevens) has added a lot of intriguing characterization to the Kirk character.

Conflict, both internal and external, between Kirk’s manner of doing things “the cowboy way”, which was acceptable during the era of his Starfleet career, and the more structured, chain-of-command procedures of the current Starfleet are a common theme. We see Captains Kirk and Picard work closely together, representing Starfleet's old-guard and their new guard. Both though learn from each other, Kirk learning that sometimes “by the books” procedures can be the better way of resolving issues, and Picard learning that sometimes “outside the box” thinking can be the best way to resolve issues. Though the two are allies and friends, they are frequently at odds in this book due to their very differing viewpoints. Add to this conflict Captain Riker, representing almost a “newer guard”, who is confident and willing to tell both Kirk and Picard that there is a better way of doing things. I very much liked that Riker did not immediately slide back into a subservient, almost First Officer-like role to Captain Picard, as the old crew of the Enterprise found themselves reunited again. He stood his ground as an equal, which was illustrated by Riker referring to Picard as “Jean-Luc” rather than “Captain”. Things have changed in the dynamic that we saw for many years on TV and in the movies.

Still on the topic of character evolution, Kirk is no longer driven solely by duty and the urge to explore. He is a father first, and still suffers from a personal loss. His refusal to absolutely toe the party line with regards to Starfleet makes for an adversarial relationship at this stage of his life. Kirk definitely has his personal agendas which he is most focused on, and is more content to leave the “saving the universe” work to the career Starfleet officers, such as Picard.

Going back to the “Mary Sue” point, I acknowledge that it’s one thing to use that in a derogatory fashion with regards to an amateur piece of fan fiction. However, William Shatner has been in James T. Kirk’s head for 40+ years. With Gene Roddenberry gone, Shatner would be far and away the expert on Kirk. So he is as qualified as anyone to write (or co-write) this novel. I don’t know how the drafting and writing process works among this triumvirate. It doesn’t matter because Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens write very good books on their own as well. The bottom line here is that the final product is very good. I brought it up merely because something tickled in the back of my brain as I read previous Shatner works. While I was reading this book it occurred to me that this was it. It’s worth noting in that there is a lot of “name-dropping” done in the book.

Maybe the one thing I didn’t like was the very end. “Captain’s Glory” was the last book of three I think. Maybe some of the setup for that ending was contained in the other books. I didn’t feel like I missed anything by not having read any of the other two. They were referenced a few times at key points, which clued me in as a new reader of this series how we had arrived at this point. I could see that being a little too much flashback if someone had read them straight through. The ending though, maybe I missed some knowledge that the previous books would have planted the seed for. I liked how things tied back to what was a very neat Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, which I always thought deserved some follow-up. But it almost seemed like the ending was a bit of deus ex machina. There was a bit of resolution in that ending for a character, I would presume, if you’d been reading over a series of books, but that character was in the background of this story until the end. So that didn’t have the impact on me within the context of this one novel as I expect that it would have otherwise.

Still though, this book was an exciting page-turner. I’ve thought that about the three or four previous Shatner books that I read, and again this one fit well into that style. Looking at the name on the cover I’d have been expecting to get this type of story. I’d have bought the book because of that. And this book would not have disappointed.

My latest book review is “Missing In Action” by Peter David, from the Star Trek New Frontier series. This book brought something with it that no other book I’ve reviews so far has…expectation. I am familiar with Peter David’s work and have a certain expectation when I see his name on the cover of a Star Trek book.

This is also the second book I have reviewed that was the latter book in a series, where I had to review out of context of the larger series. As in the first case, when that did not work out too well for me, these are by and large new characters. I was very curious as to whether I could get into the flow of the storyline and the characters coming in in the middle of a story and quite a few novels in in terms of character development.

This book had me from the first sentence. It left a jaw dropper on the last page as a way of saying goodbye, and was highly entertaining at all points in between. That this book was able to engage me so was a tribute to how well written the characters and stories were, as I had to break this book up into smaller bites than I normally prefer to read, especially for review, over the course of several weeks. The story had all the plots hooks, early and throughout, and the well done characterizations that I’ve come to anticipate in a Peter David novel. It’s why I consider him my favorite Star Trek author. He lived up to that expectation.

We did see two familiar characters from the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. Commander (now Admiral) Elizabeth Shelby, who we first saw on-board the Enterprise as the Borg Specialist and as Captain Riker’s first officer in the Best of Both Worlds episodes, and Ensign (now Lieutenant Commander) Rose Leffler, who developed a relationship with Wesley Crusher in the episode The Game. Many fans also recall her fondly as she was played in the episode by Ashley Judd in one of the early roles of her career. In a smaller role at least in this book, we also saw Dr. Selar, who was a Vulcan doctor aboard the Enterprise in at least one early ST: TNG episode.

As he’s done in past novels, David took small characters from the Star Trek universe that we know and greatly expanded upon them. Once the reader has someone to initially care about, then he builds a well fleshed out cast around them. I was very impressed with the characters. I was able to get a feel for them quickly, and it was easy to see that there was a well-entwined web of relationships among them. I could feel the depth and complexity of the relationships, even though I had none of the material of earlier books to understand the specifics. I didn’t feel like I needed it. I thought that perhaps the dialogue was a bit more sarcastic in places for what I’d expect on a Starfleet vessel. However, it was pretty clear throughout that we were dealing with operating procedures far from the formality of Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

There was definitely the feel of a morality tale at play in the story though. There were definitely some bad things that happened to good people. In the end, people reaped what they had sown. It was nice to see some characters operating in that gray area between the black and white of “wrong” and “right”. There were always some complaints that the crew of the Enterprise-D were “goodie two-shoes.” To borrow from the Dungeons & Dragons alignment system it gets a little boring when the heroes are always Lawful Good. These characters were definitely not hamstrung by that and I enjoyed seeing characters act in ways that weren’t always boringly “Starfleet”.

So to sum it up, if you want to read some Star Trek with characters that are not all the same ones you’ve seen on TV for a 100+ episodes of a particular show this book, and these characters, would be for you. If you’re already a Peter David fan I think this book is yet another of his outstanding works. I’d also like to add that based upon my enjoyment of these characters and this book as I was reading I have already picked up a couple earlier books in the New Frontier series so I can begin filling in some of the background that I’ve missed.

This book is a collection of short stories set during the original 5 year mission of The Enterprise. I am a big fan of short story anthologies so I was looking forward to reading this book.

Featured in the book are stories by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, Robert Greenberger, Howard Weinstein, Jeff Bond, Stuart Moore, Christopher L. Bennett, Jill Sherwin, Dave Galanter, William Leisner, Kevin Lauderdale, Jeffery Lang, and Allyn Gibson

I did enjoy the mix of stories and writing styles in this book. Many of the stories focused on Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, and even Uhura, who get the least amount of attention within the more “epic” novels that focus on Kirk, Spock, and to a lesser extent McCoy. After reading many Star Trek novels telling “epic” tales which would be fitting of a theatrical movies, it was a nice change of pace to read these shorts, which were constructed to read more like an individual episode of the TV series. The stories wanted to capture the spirit of the original series according to the editor, and a series of “episodic” short stories did that very well.

The first story of the book was a Doctor McCoy heavy story from Dayton Ward and Kevin Dillmore. I was very interested in that story since I read their novel as my last review and didn’t enjoy it as much as previous Star Trek novels. I was interested to see what else they could offer. The opening story of the book was a good one.

Two other stories especially caught my eye. “Fracture” by Jeff Bond captured much of the spirit of exploring strange new worlds and encountering new life forms element of Star Trek. I thought the story was actually surprisingly “crunchy” in the science fiction department, for Star Trek, and it was rather deep in its implications.

The absolute best story in the book was the last regular story (the last was actually a manga story). Make-Believe by Allyn Gibson combined Star Trek with real-world, contemporary issues in a very heart-wrenching way. I thought the story was very emotionally powerful and it is the one story that will stick with me the longest. That will probably be the story that defines this book for me, in terms of “Constellations was the book that had THIS story in it”.

I don’t rank this book a bit higher because I read many of the “Year’s Best Science Fiction” and the “Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror” anthologies. From top to bottom those tend to have more of the powerfully thought provoking and resonating stories. They set the bar for that top level of rating to me. “Make-Believe” certainly holds its own with any selection that would appear in one of those collections. I believe Fracture was another of those stores as well. The rest of them were very enjoyable stories and I enjoyed the half hour or so that it would take to read them, but they won’t really exist in my memory long term. So overall, while I give this book a high grade, it’s not quite at the top of the mountain when it comes to short story collections. It is however very true to the spirit of the original 5 Year Mission and as such is a recommended read for serious Star Trek Fans.