The Riddled Post by Aaron Rosenberg - Star Trek: S.C.E Book 3 - A Short Story Review

 

Sometimes, after reading a big book like one of the Expanse tomes, I like to settle into something short and familiar.

Nothing fits that bill quite like Star Trek stories.

Best of all, if you like the ideas and the world of Star Trek, the books are a terrific way to get more ST goodness.

This series of books are collections of short stories of a different ship, with a different crew, on a different mission, to fix what is broken.

Great pains are taken to fit these adventures into the timeline established by the television shows and movies PLUS the timeline within the Star Trek Literary Universe.  Whew!

In The Riddled Post the crew of the USS da Vinci are sent to investigate what happened to a far-flung outpost that seems to have been attacked. 

These Starfleet Corps of Engineers stories are problem solving adventures - like MacGyver in space.

I must admit, I thought I had the problem figured out from chapter 3 but I was surprised by the actual source.  

It took the entire team to figure it all out and make the outpost safe again.

I do enjoy stories about smart people being smart.

The Rabbit Hole by James Gunn - A Short Story Review

What are conditions like inside a wormhole?

James Gunn takes a stab at some serious alternate reality in this story.

A message form an alien culture  is decoded and instructions to build a ship capable of entering a wormhole to travel to a distant solar system is discovered.

The ship is built and flown where directed.

Hold on to your brains as life inside is difficult to understand and manipulate.

I thought Gunn did a great job of making such a challenging environment light and fun to read.

It stands apart from the other stories in that it is less blue-collar Hard SF than scientific Hard SF.


I enjoyed it very much and found it quite cinematic in my mind.  I kept seeing Event Horizon blended with Memento.

James Gunn's Wikipedia page -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Gunn_(writer)

James Gunn

How To Be Good by Nick Hornby - Book Reveiw #294

Being married for as long as I have, there were certain observations that struck home in uncomfortable ways.  There is so much written about new love, and finding the "right" person, but it is harder to find stories about the long-married and still struggling with life.

Being in my mid-50's colours the statement above, but it's true that life just keeps going on.  The goal is to find the right person, but after you've done that and you are years down the road, what does that look like?

Katie and David are going through a rough patch and it gets a bit out of hand as only Nick Hornby can manage to tell the story.  There was humor but there was also a depth of insight that immediately captured me.

Katie has had an affair and asks for a divorce.  David's reaction is understandable but then he begins a transformation that is eyebrow-raising, suspicious and unpredictable.  I was turning pages wondering what new, outrageous thing David was going to do next.  It was fun to read.

I've been a fan of Hornby's for years but only through the movies that have been adapted from his books.  This is the first novel that I've read and I can say that I am looking forward to reading the source material of all those movies I love so much.

Being a genre reader, I now think of Hornby as my gateway author to literary fiction.

Nick Hornby's website - https://www.nickhornbyofficial.com/

Nick Hornby

Star Trek: S.C.E: Invincible by David Mack and Keith R.A. DeCandido

23/100

A classic of pure science fiction.  This story felt like a throwback to the days when the monthly pulp magazines ruled the genre.

The first officer of the da Vinci, Sonya Gomez, is sent alone on a mission the "strange new world" of Sarindar, to help the locals complete a massive engineering project.  The planet is crystalline in structure, the people are somewhat primitive and superstitious, the government is not entirely friendly to the Federation and the pervading culture is misogynistic.

This project, when completed, will help relations between Sarindar and the Federation.  This puts a lot of pressure to succeed on Sonya and she has much to overcome.

I really enjoyed this story.  Like I said, it has the feel of classic SF dressed up in Star Trek garb; what could be better?  I simply sat back and let David and Keith tell me a story.  It was a nice escape.

I was happy to see that the entire story, which was originally published in two parts, was collected here.

I must say: The Core of Engineers series is starting to hit its' stride and I am looking forward to e-cracking the e-spine of the next e-book collection of stories.

Keith R.A. DeCandido

David Mack

Collection #2

Star Trek: S.C.E.: Cold Fusion by Keith R. A.De Candido

22/100

A nice tie-in with DS9 where the crew of the da Vinci, with the help of Lieutenant Nog, go on a salvage mission to the abandoned Empok Nor, the sister station to DS9.

While attempting to salvage some spare parts they discover the station has been greatly modified. It is not long before some baddies from a previous S.C.E. story show up to complicate things.

I enjoyed the pacing and the appearance of Nog was most welcome. There is some nice character development with members of the da Vinci crew. I also appreciated how the end of this story sets up the next one.

This whole serialized series is a wonderful nod to the classic publishing model.

Keith R. A. DeCandido

More Adventures on Other Planets by Michael Cassutt

10/100

This may have been the best SF story from this issue.

It was a real nuts and bolts exploration of Jupiter's moon, Europa. Set in 2026 it takes what we know about the Mars rovers to the next level. 

The two main characters were flawed and believable; rough personalities; failed marriages; tempers flaring, it all made for an authentic setting.  I also liked how the author personified the rovers; just like today each rover was given a name but, interestingly, they developed "personalities' of their own. 

From top to bottom this was a believable and touching look at the future of planetary exploration. 

If you liked The Martian by Andy Weir then you'll like this too. 

Excellent.

NOTE:  If you want to follow the real world attempt to explore Europa go to the NASA website and learn about the Europa Clipper Mission.  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/

Europa Clipper

Michael Cassutt does not have his own web page; his Wikipedia entry is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cassutt

The following picture of Michael Cassutt was lifted from the Tor Books blog:
http://torbooks.co.uk/2013/07/29/david-s-goyer-michael-cassutt-the-heaven-series-interview/

Lightspeed Magazine:   http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/

Michael Cassutt

Book Report #11 of 26

Potshot

by

Robert B. Parker

The late grate Robert B. Parker!

There is only one author that Sue and I truly share in admiration.  The books of Robert B Parker and his Spenser series especially, were one of the first things we shared when we first started dating.

The first Parker novel I ever read was Crimson Joy  the murders in the story were brutal and I was surprised Sue suggested the book to me.  But what really came through was the character of Spenser; ever confident, strong and funny.  The humor of Parker's books never come out of the plot but always through the dialog between the characters in the story.

If you get in to the Spenser series you will find that, in the end, you won't remember the plots nor will you care about them because what you loved the best was the dialog and the relationships that Spenser has.  His best friend and sometimes partner Hawk is one of the best characters in mystery fiction - ever.

Potshot itself was not one of Parker's best stories.  As stories go, not much really "happens" until the very end.  This book would be a real treat to a serious fan of the series. Parker gathers around Spenser and Hawk all the other tough guys that Spenser has met throughout his long career to help him discover what is wrong in Potshot CA

Give this one a pass until you've read at least 10 of the novels prior to this one.

But was it any good?  Well, it was only okay. But reading Parker is always easy; his words fall right off the page and once you've realized you've read 335 pages you'll swear it felt like a short story of 25 pages.

Save this book until you're really in to the series then it will be much more enjoyable for you.