eric@aplvax.UUCP (11/23/83)
I have just finished reading two of the latest Star Trek books, "Mutiny on the Enterprise" and "The Wounded Sky". I know, call me masochistic, but somehow I can't stop myself from reading them. Anyway, the "Mutiny" is a fairly good book. My ruler for these things are if it would make a good episode, and this one would. No inside jokes, its not necessary to have memorized every episode to understand it, and best of all, no major revelations about the characters. Lets face it, what character development that was done during the series was pretty minimal, and fairly subtle (well, maybe not so subtle). Anyway, they didn't constantly go around proclaiming their love for each other. "Mutiny" avoids this also, and as a result leaves a pretty good plot, complete with some social issues to consider. If you are into ST books, I recommend this one. I had great hopes for "The Wounded Sky". The blurbs inside the cover had quotes from various SF writers I respect. Further, it was larger than your run of the mill ST novel. Here, I thought, was a ST novel that might actually be good SF as well. The first third of the book furthered these great hopes. The author (I believe it is Dianna Dunn, and that this is her first effort) does seem to like to invent starship names, and describe strange alien life forms (particularly in the crew), but I can forgive her this, and the premise of the Enterprise exploring a new Galaxy had lots of possibilities. Unfortunately, the second two-thirds of the book fall into the same ruts that most other ST novels do - trying to show the great love and respect of all the crew. The first few such episodes are intriguing (because you don't know what is coming) but it quickly becomes repetitious, then boring. The great conflict of the novel becomes very far-fetched and finishes any hopes for the story. I rank this one along with the Phoenix books, and a few others. In other words, pretty rank. I just calls them the ways I sees them. -- eric ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric
hector@princeton.UUCP (11/28/83)
In-reply-to: your article <428@aplvax.UUCP>
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Eric:
Say what? You thought the Phoenix books were rank? I found them absolutely
terrific, and as true to the spirit of S.T. -- i.e., what the series should
have been, not what it sometimes was -- as any novel could be. I did think
the same authors' (Marshak & Culbreath) other 2 S.T. novels, the Pocket Books
ones, *were* rank, mostly because they played around with major changes to
Spock's character. Those are the only 2 published novels to be set between
the first and second movies, and I have the feeling that Gene wouldn't have
agreed with the assumptions they made.
The Phoenix novels... the first, more so... took on some of the real faults
that the series had, and worked them through. The question of the Prime
Directive (what Prime Directive? I didn't see any Prime Directive, did you,
Spock?) of non-interference was dealt with for the first time in print;
the second-rate episode "The Enterprise Incident" finally made itself worth-
while by providing a familiar Romulan with understandable motivations; and
Kirk and Spock finally met an enemy of the same caliber as themselves.
If you have superheroes -- and S.T. does -- you NEED super-villains. Omne
was that.
As for the new pair of novels, I've only read 'Mutiny on the Enterprise'.
I was not very impressed. For one thing, the resolution was absolutely
obvious from the moment what's-her-name's powers are revealed. For
another, the plot is just a little too contrived, too improbable. I can
accept the character and her powers -- that's fine -- as long as the
rest of the story is caused by the implications of those powers. However,
the negotiations are going on entirely independently beforehand, and
then along she comes, the deus-ex-machina who just happens to have the
perfect (and staggeringly unlikely) talent to turn the situation around.
Nope, that's making things too easy on all concerned.
I'm looking forward to reading the other new novel very much, though --
if you say it compares with the Phoenix books, I'll probably find it
as excellent as you had initially hoped it would be.
I'm new to the net. Send lots of mail, ok?
Remember the path that this came by is NOT the
one to reply by... it's a long story.
Stewart W.
...{ulysses,allegra,harpo}!princeton!flakey!stewartnotes@ucbcad.UUCP (12/04/83)
#R:aplvax:-42800:ucbcad:24300001:000:358 ucbcad!kalash Nov 26 09:38:00 1983 I just finished "The Wounded Sky" this morning, so I thought I's toss my $.02 in. I was also disapointed in the book. I have read three other Diane Duane (not Dunn) novels, and they varied between quite good (her childrens book "So You Want to be a Wizard"), to excellent "Door into Fire". I had great hopes for this book, but I can't recomend it. Joe