Here There be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido - Star Trek: S.C.E Book 3 - A Short Story Review

 

Here is the strength and weakens of tie-in books - they reward the dedicated reader while making somebody new to the series know they are missing context. 

This story in particular really made me feel that I was missing out on just how it fit into the wider narrative of the Star Trek Literary Universe.

Just look at the Historian's Note inserted before the story!

Here There Be Monsters takes place shortly after the events of the Gateways crossover, specifically after Book 3: Doors Into Chaos, Book 4: Demons of Air and Darkness, Book 5: No Man's Land, Book 6: Cold Wars, and the stories "Horn and Ivory," "In the Queue," "Death After Life," and "The Other Side" in Book 7: What Lay Beyond.

Whew!

Is this pure marketing or a service to the reader?  Being a completist myself, the references in the story to the events above served only to distract me from the events in front of me.  Of course, had I read those books previously, I would have been feeling quite rewarded by all this.

A good writer will not allow previous books to take away from the one he is writing nor to make those details required reading to understand the current adventure.  And that was the case here.

The gateways, which in my mind looked and worked like the time portal from the original Star Trek TV series, was causing havoc on a distant colony.  "Monsters" were coming through and making things unpleasant for the locals.

Thank goodness Star Trek is about "seeking out new life and new civilizations" and not just killing the life forms we don't understand.  The team of the U.S.S da Vinci take the time to understand what is happening before taking any action.

This is why I will always love Star Trek.  It posits that one day we will be better than our bullets.

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

Fatal Error By Keith R A DeCandido a short story review.

Mission #2 for the crew of the da Vinci. I do like the serial nature of the story telling here. 

The SCE team respond to a distress call from a super computer.  This computer controls all aspects of life on the planet Eerlik.  It controls the economy, traffic and even the weather, but things are not going as they should; the computer has been infected with a virus.

It doesn't take long before the crew is tangled up in something bigger than they expected. 

It was a pretty good story except for one thing; it fell into a Lord of the Rings vibe where much of the action revolved around walking. The away team just walked for miles and miles getting trapped behind force fields, random doors and being chased by bad guys.  It went on so long that I began to get frustrated with the story.

After investing so much time walking to the computer core I was very disappointed the problems were solved in a matter of just a few paragraphs. There was certainly some character growth, which I like but, over all, the plot was just a bit thin.

One of the good things about short stories is that they are short.  I'm glad I didn't pay for this one individually.

The cover art of the omnibus eddition