Star Trek: Legacies: Purgatory's Key by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore - Book Report #184

This was a fine ending to the story.

But I will be honest here, when it comes to science fiction I like mine hard.  Hard boiled is even better.  (But that is a very thin slice of the SF pie.)

Because I like my fantastic stories to be as plausible as possible I am not a big fan of; aliens with convenient "super powers", time travel, mystic powers (like the force) and alternative dimensions.

Honestly, and I am sorry if you don't agree, but these are just conveniences that allow a writer to escape from well, reality.  If you want a dose of true hard science fiction try reading The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin.  It's in the public domain and can be easily searched.  Here is a link to a PDF copy of the story - http://photos.state.gov/libraries/hochiminh/646441/vantt/The%20Cold%20Equations.pdf

Okay, the story.  Our heroes have shaken off the Romulans now they have to convince the Klingons that the work they want to do on the planet will not harm the Empire nor give the Federation an unfair advantage going forward.

Kirk and Spock have to use the Transfer Key to locate and rescue their friends from the other dimension.  Loads of time is spent showing just how strange the other dimension is, which I found exceedingly boring, but the conflict between the Klingons was very entertaining.

In the end it was the talents of Ward and Dilmore that kept me engaged.  Their sense of humour lifted the story many times when I was just about to roll my eyes.

Yes, I liked the series.  The stories were at their best when we were in our own universe  I found the characters true to their TV roots.  Interestingly I thought the narrator channelled Karl Urban's performance of Bones rather than DeForest Kelley.  But it worked for me.

I must mention the talents of Robert Petkoff who narrated all three books.  He had perfect characterisation throughout.  He convincingly channelled the original actors of the series which was a talent that needs to be recognised.  I was transported into the story by his abilities.  Excellent work.

Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Armageddon's Arrow by Dayton Ward - Book Report #179

I always find the books that have come out since the end of all the television series to be a bit daunting to read.  For years it's been a lot like comic books where the stories are tightly interlaced requiring the reader to read dozens of books to have a deep understanding of what is going on.

Even after I've written those words I'm thinking that it can be no other way.  The series have continued on in book form and the characters have been allowed to grow and change.  So if I feel like I've missed something it's because I HAVE.

A long time ago a book would be written as if it was an episode of the TV series.  More recently, it's all been about the "mini-series" where one story is told over multiple books and it's those stories that made reading current titles a bit daunting.

Which is why I enjoyed reading this book so much; it was one single story contained in a single volume.  Plus, it was written by one of my favourite Star Trek authors.

In this one, the crew of the Enterprise are finally back to exploring space and are now entering a region of the galaxy known as the Odyssean Pass.  As soon as they enter the area they discover a massive derelict ship and stop to investigate it.  On board they find a crew in hibernation and all kinds of shenanigans ensue once they've been revived.

Dayton Ward can write a story that is fast-paced, packed with humour and action.  He has mad skills to keep a story going but there were times where it was obvious that he was just padding to reach a contractual page count.  At one point it took an entire paragraph just to answer the door.  I am sure he could have trimmed the book by 75 to 100 pages had he had his way with it.

I am always happy to read one of his books and I am thrilled that Pocket Books has discovered his talents.

Dayton Ward

Star Trek: The Typhon Pact: Paths of Disharmony by Dayton Ward - BookReport #141

Let me first say that I love Dayton Ward's work but I hated this book.

I so wanted to like it, I really did but the plot was so dull and you can tell that Ward's hands were tied behind his back. 

The plot revolves around the Andorians and their eventual backing out of the United Federation of planets. 

What?! You think I spoiled it? This is the fourth book in the series - knowing that you can bet that the alien race being explored is, or will be, in the Typhon Pact. The whole "Gasp!" surprise was telegraphed in the title!  Which made the first 400 pages nearly meaningless. 

The best parts of the book, and what I love about Ward's writing, is how real and believable the secondary characters were; conversations and humour came naturally and made me believe in the Star Trek universe. 

That boring political shit that Ward was forced to write about felt stiff and unnatural.  I could only read ten pages at a time before I would either fall asleep or wish I could do something more interesting, like clean the toilet or, well, clean the toilet again. 

Hey, you can't win them all. But after this one I am considering donating the rest of the un-read books in this series to my local library. Or I might just recycle them; so far this series is beyond dull. Every author has been shackled by the editors at Pocket and made to row the ship in their decreed direction. There seems to be far too much editorial control going on. 

Dayton Ward is a fantastic author who can plot and pace a book like no one else and I love his ability to breathe life into characters.  His ability to create believable and humorous dialogue is his best quality as an author.  To be honest I think I need to read is non-tie-in books to get the true measure of the man.  Reading this particular book I can hear him pounding his fists against the walls of the tiny editorial cell he was dropped in.  There is a large talent lurking here and it needs to be set free.

Don't be afraid to visit Ward's blog, The Fog Of Ward, you'll get a measure of the man there.  Trust me, he's worth reading.

http://www.daytonward.com/

Dayton Ward

Star Trek: The Original Seires: From History's Shadow by Dayton Ward - Book Report #134

Holy throwback Thursday, Batman!

Some of my favourite episodes of any Star Trek series are when they go back to a past era of Earth.

In this book Ward takes aspects of DS9's Little Green Men plus Carbon Creek from Enterprise and made it his own by following the lives of two human investigators searching for proof of alien contact on behalf of the US government.  They work from the first days of the Majestic 12 organization and through Project Blue Book.

I'd never heard of Majestic 12 (also know as MJ-12) and that's because it lives in the world of conspiracy theorists but Project Blue Book was real.  I also remember watching a TV show called Project U.F.O that followed two Project Blue Book investigators.  I was always disappointed that swamp gas seemed to be the answer behind most of the UFO sightings.  To be fair, Blue Book debunked most sightings it investigated.  Nine-year-old me really, really wanted to meet an alien.  In any case, you gotta love an author that can seamlessly blend fact and fiction to create, well, better fiction.

The story did bounce back and forth between Kirk's Enterprise and the Earth from the 40's to the 60's and made my head swim a bit.  Time travel stories have a way of spinning out of control if the author is not careful.  I did appreciate some of Kirk's musings on how time travel gave him a headache.

All in all the book was very entertaining and I highly recommend it.  As long as you have a passing knowledge of Star Trek you'll be fine.

Dayton Ward

Book Report #123 - Star Trek: Seekers 2: Point of Divergence by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

Book 47 of 52
Page count - 351

Part two of the new Seekers series, which is itself part two of the Vanguard epic.

This book takes up where Seekers 1 left off.  The Sagittarius is stranded on the surface while the Endeavour has arrived to help in a rescue and to solve the mystery of the Tomol, who are now running amok and making a large nuisance of themselves.

To be honest, this book was a bit of a one-note experience.  The Tomol keep evolving, gaining new powers and generally making things more and more dangerous for the humans.  This goes on for well over 200 pages; just more and more power gains until the Tomol have evolved into X-Men.  It was a bit much, especially considering the Klingons were also in orbit, trying to be menacing but largely being ignored by Ward & Dilmore.

There was something about this book that just fell a bit flat, for me.  The end was satisfying in that Star Trek way and I enjoyed THAT enough to say it was a good read.  But, yea, those middle 200 pages were a bit of a slog.

Dayton Ward (left) & Kevin Dilmore (right)

Interphase Book 2 - by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, a short story review.

Original cover.

In part one the Captain and his a way team are stranded on the Defiant, inside the spacial anomaly, while the Tholians execute a surprise attack on the da Vinci.

This becomes a two-perspective story switching from the actions of the away team trying to free the ship from the anomaly and the crew of the da Vinci coping with the attack while being led by an inexperienced officer.

Through the action the authors keep injecting moments of humor that serve to break the tension for the reader and the characters in the story.  This kind of self-deprecating interaction is easily achieved among people with exceptional abilities and strikes a note of realism that I very much enjoyed.

I'm not sure if David Mack has read these stories although I feel he must have.  There is a scene at the end of the story that was lifted and inserted into the end of Star Trek: Destiny.  I do know that these three authors have worked extensively together so I'm pretty sure this kind of thing is more a tip of the hat then a lift.  It's a form of compliment among authors.

In any case this story was very satisfying and I recommend anything written by Ward and/or Dilmore.

Dayton Ward (Captain) and Kevin Dilmore (Navigation)

Cover of the omnibus collection

Interphase Book 1 - by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, a short storyreview.

The fourth installment in the Corps of Engineers series was a cracking read.  The USS da Vinci is sent to Tholian space to recover the Defiant, a Constitution class starship lost in a spacial anomaly 100 years previously.

Its the job of the da Vinci's captain and crew is to figure out a way to pull the derelict ship out of the anomaly.

This being a two-parter; things go terribly wrong just as the team is making progress.

This story was so well written with good dialog and a plausible situation.  Dilmore and Ward always turn out entertaining page-turners.  This one felt like it could have been a television show; it was very cinematic.  Some of the best sequences are the moments when the crew beam over and make it to the classic bridge.  There are some cringe-worthy moments as the away team discover the ship is not only a museum piece but also a tomb.

These stories were once sold individually, today they are collected in omnibus volumes.  Pocket Books are taking full advantage of the ability to split the two parts into separate volumes, ensuring sales of the next book.  But I don't mind it a bit since most of the stories are of such high quality.

Read on people.

Dayton Ward (left) and Kevin Dilmore (right)

Omnibus cover art.

Book Report #97 - A Time To Harvest by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

Book 21 of 52
Page Count - 330

The second book in the A Time To Sow/ A Time To Harvest duology was a very satisfying payoff. 

The troubles that were plaguing the Dokaalan people, it was discovered, were more than just unfortunate accidents.  The Dokaalan's were involved in a very difficult project of trying to terraforming a nearby planet.  But acts of sabotage and disagreements within the population threatened to destroy what was left of this race.

The troubles that had to be addressed were many and interrelated.  The authors did a wonderful job of tying things up and creating a bad guy that was so good that I stopped reading to enjoy the "Oh, cool!" moment.  I love intelligent, pragmatic bad guys and the baddies in this book are great.  They are highly resourceful and able to turn unexpected events to their own advantage.  Plus, and this is something I always loved in Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels, when they were caught they merely smiled with a "Well, you've got me." attitude then were willing to discuss things in a civilized way.

This whole series is building up to the movie Nemesis so it will be fun to see how the crew gets to where they are at the start of that story.  Until then, we get to enjoy some very well though out adventures that simply feel like this was season eight or nine of the television series.

I like these two books very much, maybe even a bit more than the first two because the baddies were just so well done.  I still don't own the next two books; A Time to Love / A Time to Hate, I may have to buy them as eBooks to continue this series.  But I will certainly continue with it.

Dayton Ward has a website HERE

Sorry to say that I could not find a personal website for Kevin Dilmore.  (He may have a FaceBook page or Twitter account but I didn't search for those.)

Dayton Ward (left) and Kevin Dilmore (right)

Book Report #96 - Star Trek: A Time to Sow by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

Book 20 of 52
Page count - 314

In 2151, during the time of Johnathan Archer and the TV series Enterprise, a probe was found by the Vulcans.  This probe was a distress call from a far flung planet that was suffering planet-wide seismic events that threatened to destroy it completely.  It was discovered that the probe had been in space for 38 years.  The Vulcans decided to to nothing about it since the events plaguing that world would have already taken place and there would be no rescue to mount.

Fast forward two hundred years to the days of the Enterprise-E, with Starfleet wanting to keep Picard out of the way, they are sent to explore the region to see what evidence they can find of the inhabitants of this poor world.  They discover the planet had indeed been destroyed but were surprised to find the survivors had migrated to, and created a sustainable society, in the asteroid belt of the system.

Since the Dokaalan people had sent the distress call Picard initiated first contact with them.  A crisis occurs while they are there and the Enterprise manages to rescue over 400 Dokaalans which goes a long way to enable the trust of the leadership.

This is classic Star Trek; exploring strange new worlds.  It takes a while to discover that there is some internal strife going on that threaten the crew.  This is a story that takes place over two books so I don't recommend reading A Time To Sow without having A Time To Harvest close by.

I really liked this first installment.  I grabbed the second book without pause and just kept on reading.

Dayton Ward (left) and Kevin Dilmore (right)