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 Review #104 - Star Trek: Seekers - Second Nature by David Mack

Book 28 of 52
Page count - 301

Hoo Boy! Was this book ever a ride!

As this is a spin-off from the Vanguard series I was reluctant to start here but the cover has a big fat number ONE on it, so it seemed like a good place.  Sure enough, there were references to the previous series but David Mack did a great job adding the exposition to make THIS story work.  

And what a story; in a nice departure from typical Star Trek adventure, the crew compliment of the USS Sagittarius is 14.  It is a tiny scout ship making for tight quarters.  What I loved best about this book was the dialog.  Mack showed a more relaxed crew with a sense of humor and how these tightly-packed people tease each other; get on each others' nerves and work together.  This crew felt more real, more believable, less formal than what we've seen on other star ships.

I felt like I was reading an old-fashioned science fiction pulp novel. I mean that in the best way possible; this opening chapter, in what I hope is a long running series, was pure escapist fun.  Best of all, there's even a cliff-hanger ending.

This is set in the TOS timeline and makes references to Kirk and the Enterprise for context, and to encourage you to dig out your DVD box set to watch the episode that has a bearing on this story.

The story starts like you'd imagine; the Sagittarius is sent to investigate a strange energy reading on a sparsely populated pre-warp world.  The race that lives there all commit a ritual suicide when they reach the age of 17 or 18.  This is done to avoid something the natives call The Change.  The Starfleet crew are trying to understand these people when - the Klingons show up.  Classic!

The wisecracking dialogue and the pacing make this near-stand-alone a must read.

I am so looking forward to book 2 because I want to see what comes next.

Stay tuned travelers.

David Mack

The More Thigs Change by Scott Pearson - A short story review.

Fantastic cover art.

At first I was going to include this as part of my Book A Week Challenge but since the story comes in at around 90 pages, that would have felt like a bit of a cheat.

I grew up with Star Trek during it's re-run phase from the 70's and 80's and always loved Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

This was an eBook original set six months after the events of Star Trek The Motion Picture.  You know the one; where V'ger (Voyager 6) comes back to Earth.


In this story we find Dr. Christine Chapel in a shuttlecraft with Spock as they are transporting an ailing Commissioner Audrid Dax to a Trill ship for medical attention.

This is mostly a character piece exploring the relationship between Chapel and Spock.  Fans will like the expansion of the story of Chapel's love for Spock that was touched on in episodes of the TV series.  It also does a nice job of establishing the Trill species into Star Trek lore.  I believe we first got to know the Trill during the Deep Space 9 TV series.

Along the way they encounter some trouble, as you might expect, and come under fire by some unidentified (until the end) villains.

The author did an admirable job of character growth, interwoven with some good action and dialogue.

I felt the author's writing was so strong that he could have very easily expanded this to a novel-length story and found myself wishing that was the case.

Like they say; "Leave them wanting more."

Visit the author's website HERE.

Scott Pearson

Book Report #99 - Star Trek DTI: Forgotten History by ChristopherL.Bennett

Book 23 of 52
Page count - 346

I recently discovered an entire suite of podcasts dedicated to the Star Trek universe; TREK FM.

Trek Lit has been the one show I started listening to in earnest, it is hosted by Christopher Jones and Matthew Rushing.

In some side comments Rushing mentioned how much he liked the Department of Temporal Investigations series of books. This series tries to link together and explain the consequences of specific time travel events in the Star Trek universe.  I purchased this book on the strength of Rushing's enthusiasm.

I had my first "Oh, cool!" Moment by page 13 when a starship, of Federation design, is discovered drifting within a temporal anomaly.  She was fitted with the original engines of the first variation of the Enterprise.  Remember how the Enterprise was given new engines in the first movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture?  Ever wonder what happened to the old ones?  Me neither, but it's cool to think something had.

Top: original design for the TV show.  Below: from The Motion Picture.

Chapter 3 from page 55 to 81 completely blew my mind!  Which, sadly, means I didn't understand a word of it.

I read the first half of the book the day I started it.  By about the middle, things started to get complicated as we traveled between timelines and alternate realities.  The techno-babble became thick and unavoidable. I put the book down and didn't get back into it until a few days later, by which time I had forgotten some things and was lost.  I kept reading and fell back into it but, I've got to say, give yourself a good block of time to read it, since a continuous read is best for it.

I'm sure my fractured reading of the book played against my enjoyment of it but it WAS a bit confusing; there was so much tech-talk and movement between timelines that I found it overly complex.  The tying up of loose ends was very entertaining but I saw that I missed a lot after reading the acknowledgments where the author listed every source of inspiration for the book.

Obviously I am not the geek I think I am.

Would I recommend the book?  Well, sure...  I had inconsistent reading opportunities and the book required more attention than I gave it.  I'd have to say; if you can give the novel the attention it deserves, then you're going to like it.

Christopher L. Bennett.

Trek FM can be found HERE.

Christopher L. Bennett's website is HERE.