Category: Reviews of Books
Join the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos as they seek out new life and travel where people may, or may not, have been before! Based on the hit Paramount+ animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, Mariner, Boimler and all their friends offer advice and insider knowledge to new crewmembers. This hilarious and informative handbook will help you come to grips with the ship, your duties, and your fellow lower deckers, especially as they’ve generously left comments throughout. An easy breezy read, with a few too many full pages of admittedly gorgeous art, and the focus is more on the surface...
In the annals of adventure and exploration, few names shine as brightly as those of the various vessels bearing the noble appellation of Enterprise. Equally distinguished are the many brave captains who have led their respective ships into battle, danger, and glory. STAR TREK : ENTERPRISE LOGS celebrates the proud history of those ships and their captains with an outstanding collection of new stories starring each of the men and women who have held command upon the bridge of one Enterprise or another. The basic conceit here is that there’s been many ships named “Enterprise” and all their captains have...
Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place. Scalzi remains one of my favorite authors, even if his writing style has settled into an extremely easy to read but unchallenging flow of witty dialogue that flows perfectly from page to page, making this a quick read. As a consumer of his personal website, it was fun to see some familiar names of the secret agents and I enjoyed a couple of the subplots and how they were resolved. What’s funny though is that there was a “bonus” story...
Journey into the near future, and an unknown nation that was once the United States of America-a land that’s become shrouded in mystery after walling itself off from the rest of the world without explanation over thirty years ago. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this series, but a deep dive into what makes American the country that it is wasn’t on the menu. Charles Soule and Scott Snyder have spun a story set in a philosophically deconstructed country that’s been at war with itself since the day of it’s founding, but in their version 30 years ago it...
The launch of a new science fiction adventure series–by the New York Times-best selling author of the Safehold series and the Honor Harrington series The Galactic Hegemony has been around a long time, and it likes stability–the kind of stability that member species like the aggressive, carnivorous Shongairi tend to disturb. So when the Hegemony Survey Force encountered a world whose so-called “sentients”–“humans,” they called themselves–were almost as bad as the Shongairi themselves, it seemed reasonable to use the Shongairi to neutralize them before they could become a second threat to galactic peace. And if the Shongairi took a few...
When Una Chin-Riley and Christopher Pike meet at Starfleet Academy after one of his lectures, they immediately become friends. A stellar student, Una is the “poster girl” of her class, and Pike is determined to become a Starfleet captain with his own ship, rhetorically assembling his dream crew. As their friendship evolves, Pike also suspects Una is involved with the Euxhana, a Chionian cultural minority, who are seeking asylum in Federation space, leading to more questions than answers. Twenty-five years later, Una and Pike are working together on the USS Enterprise to settle a Chionian trade agreement when a pro-Euxhana...
In deep space spins a world infected by the universe’s greatest killers. Most sane people would construct a barrier and leave it to rot. But the Weyland-Yutani Corporation sees the biggest payout in the history of civilization. So what if it costs a few human lives to secure? Now, select guests can board Weyland-Yutani’s ship the Descendant and uncover buried secrets from a legendary disaster on an icy moon! It’s a trip worth dying for! But when the Yutani family decides to settle the invasion of LV-695 personally, the mysterious Cole suddenly finds herself trapped between an avalanche and a...
Declan Shalvey and Andrea Broccardo take the ALIEN franchise to bone-chilling new depths! Talbot Engineering Inc. is under new management — and its brilliant chief scientist, Batya Zahn, will do just about anything to get her family off the icy moon where they’ve been conducting research on water conservation. But there’s more than glacial springs to find in this forgotten corner of the galaxy. When they discover an extraordinary organism buried in the ice, it doesn’t take long for tensions to heat up. What is hidden in the snow comes forth in the thaw — and no one will be...
Being a space trucker may sound like a cool job, but in reality it can be boring as hell. So when recently widowed Gil gets a long-haul gig across the universe, he figures it’s safe enough to bring his young son Kadyn along for the ride. But when their “big rig” gets bitten in half by a gigantic Space Leviathan, Gil is separated from his young son-with a breached suit that’s venting oxygen at an alarming rate. He’ll have to defy the odds and stay alive long enough to rescue Kadyn. But Kadyn seems to be getting all the help...
This title analyses how Star Trek’s 21st-century reinventions illuminate the unique challenges and opportunities of franchise-style corporate storytelling. This is much more academic than I’m used to reading, especially when I’m reading Star Trek content, which is normally easy breezy stuff that doesn’t challenge or surprise all too much. In this case though, author Adam Kotsko presents a fantastic look at an intersection of my personal interests in Reddit, Star Trek, Treklit, and overthinking things way too much. It’s well done and there’s a point where Adam asks “Did the novelverse really need to die for this?” and boy howdy...
Think you know Star Trek, the original series like no fans has done before? Well boldly go and take up our unique puzzle challenge! I honestly thought I would enjoy this more than I ended up liking it. Perhaps my initial expectations were too general, I was originally assuming this was going to be a “where’s waldo” type of situation, but it ended up being more of a “what esoteric Trek episode knowledge do you have” mix with a “make a judgement on if this is just funny or the thing we’re pointing out that’s wrong” with every beautifully done...
When a little girl finds an adorable robot in the woods, she presses a button and accidentally activates him for the first time. Now, she finally has a friend. I read this whilst hanging out with some family of the appropriate age for stories aimed at 8-10 year olds and I found that I appreciated the art and story of this adorablely short story of a girl that doesn’t go to school and escapes from her trailer park home to roam the woods all day long, but falls in with a robot, leading to some brief but interesting adventures, one...
Three Eras. Three Mysteries. One Ancient Enemy? 2024: Almost forty years ago, marine biologist Gillian Taylor stormed away from her dream job at Sausalito’s Cetacean Institute—and was never seen or heard from again. Now a new true crime podcast has reopened that cold case, but investigator Melinda Silver has no idea that her search for the truth about Gillian’s disappearance will ultimately stretch across time and space—and attract the attention of a ruthless obsessive with his own secret agenda. 2268:The U.S.S. Enterprise’s five-year mission is interrupted when Captain James T. Kirk and his crew set out to recover an abducted...
Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation. It’s humanity’s last hope for survival, and Naomi, Valerie’s surrogate daughter and the ship’s botanist, has been waiting her whole life for an opportunity like this – to step out of Valerie’s shadow and really make a difference. But when things start going wrong on the ship, Naomi starts to suspect that someone on board is concealing a terrible secret – and realises time for life on...
Climb aboard the starship USS Enterprise and learn how Jean-Luc Picard became one of the most beloved Starfleet members in the Star Trek universe.Star Trek stands as one of the most popular science-fiction series of all time, and Captain Picard is one of its fan-favorite characters Aimed at an audience much younger than me, this is still a an effective and quick look at both the character and the man behind the character, and even features a couple trivia topics that I was unaware of, like who Q was named after! I do have some minor complaints about the insertion...
The Devolution’s invasion of Earth will be thwarted by coups and conspiracy unless Avigail can unite her extraterrestrial brethren. Comics’ next sci-fi epic beg IDW sent this to me (and a whole pile of other books!) to review and I picked this one because of the setup, but while it mentions a whole bunch of aliens and politics, it’s ultimately a hyper violent hack and slash with a thin veneer of science fiction to justify the extreme violence. I normally have no real problem with this type of stuff (Brzrkr has been a blast to read) but for some reason...
This fresh Godzilla OGN proves that kaiju are for kids. Especially the ones who’d rather befriend beasts than fight them. This was a weird one for me and I only read it because IDW is flooding my inbox with Godzilla books. It’s not a franchise that I’m a big enough fan of to read the tie in comics usually, but on the surface this is a unique concept that seemed far enough out there that it would be worth checking out. It turned out to be worth my time with some great art by Oliver Ono who is able to...
POW Aden Jansen has lost a decade of his life to both the war and internment when he’s recruited by the Alliance. He’s to return to Gretia as an undercover Blac Kloos is firmly one of my favorite military science fiction authors right now and this fourth entry into his Palladium series continues to reaffirm that affinity. There’s not enough spaceship combat for my tastes, but it’s more than made up for by the political and personal drama happening on the surface of one of the main planets. Buy On Amazon!
A boundary-pushing science fiction epic, perfect for fans of We Only Find Them When They’re Dead, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Tom King and Elsa Charretier’s Love I ran into this series on the back issue shelves of my local comic shop due to the spaceship related cover that #4 had and it was just the next week that the TPB came out, so now I have that in my collection! The story is told over a longer than normal time period for comics, but fits well within what I enjoy about generational science fiction stories. There’s some clever insights...
Benjamin Sisko tells the story of his career in Starfleet, and his life as a father and Bajor’s Emmissary of the Prophets. Charting his rise through the ranks, his pioneering work designing the Defiant-class, his critical role as ambassador and leader during the Dominion War, and his sacred standing It was pure happenstance that I was half way through this when I started doing some interviews for my then upcoming trip to Shore-Leave 44 and was able to speak to Derek Tyler Attico about his career. Part of that conversation was obviously this book and after talking to him about...
‘Smart Brevity’ is a writing and communications manifesto for the information age. It will teach readers how to communicate better with fewer words and more pun As a book about saying more while pruning back the number of words, they do a good job of lending themselves as an example, the book is 224 pages long, but it’s a super breezy read. Most of that is because their primary point is that nearly all articles can be broken down into a missions statement with no more than 5 bullet points, then a “one thing you should take away”, and maybe...
A thrilling new Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine adventure from New York Times bestselling author Dayton Ward!2369: Shortly after Starfleet thwarts a Cardassian attack on a Federation star system, the Cardassian government orders an end to its fifty-year occupation of the plane This is a great prequel story for Deep Space Nine that largely avoids the prequel tropes that make my eyes roll, mostly by having the TNG crew be the ones interacting with known DS9 elements like Gul Dukat, Kira, or Odo. The main story is wrapped about at about the 90% mark and there’s...
Following a freak summer storm, David Drayton, his son Billy, and their neighbour Brent Norton join dozens of others and head to the local grocery store to repl I’ve seen both versions of the film, both the happy ending and the not so happy ending, and I’ve read King saying that he was happier with either of those endings than he was with the ending he came up with and I’ll have to agree with him on that point. The rest of the novel is pretty well written, as most of Kings stories are, and he managed to write the...
The big day has finally arrived for Popeye & Olive, and everybody is showing up for it! A cute story by Peter David about the struggles of getting Popeye to the wedding table with some good story elements and fantastic art. Not my cup of tea, but I’m happy to have read it. Buy On Amazon!
How well do you know Star Trek? Lifelong science fiction fan, podcaster and author Tom Salinsky decided that the answer was “not well enough,” and so at the beginning of 2022, he embarked on a two-year mission to watch everything from the start of The Original Series to the end of Enterprise, at the Due to be released in just a few days on the 29th, this is a fantastic stroll through TOS, TAS, and TNG with well written and enjoyable looks at each episode. It’s a great trip down memory lane with insightful comments that cut deep into what...
Star Trek video games have been around almost as long as Star Trek itself. From humble beginnings as an unofficial text-based game playable on mainframe computers to modern multi-million dollar spectacles, Star Trek video games span the history of gaming itself.In Star Trek Video Games: An Unoff I’m not sure if it’s the “send to kindle” option from NetGalley or it’s an issue with the actual book, but I believe every page had formatting errors, missing spaces, extra paragraph returns, and curiously placed images. The content of the book itself is an easy and breezy read that feels like I’m...
Rising Tides is the story of a new hero, Killjoy. The triggering event that makes him a breakthrough happens during the Chicago Attack that opened Repercussions and the reader gets a street-level view of the attack and its aftermath. Killjoy is not your typical superhero; his breakthrough power is teleportation, jumping, and Kingston James Parks, has zero interest in becoming a cape. He’s on the short and slight side, not a physically brave person, and his primary goal, initially, is to find a decent-paying job (not using his power) and . . . that’s really about it. Especially since his...
The Sixth Men The last of the books in the “The Superhero Spectacular Book Bundle” that I bought just about a year ago, there were a total of 11 books in the bundle that ranged from nearly unreadable to some of the best super hero stories that you’re ever going to read, which was the one book that I’d already read, “Wearing the Cape”. This book from Jeff Deischer is in the middle of that range with ‘rebooted’ superheroes that had fallen into the public domain and while the story is set in a modern setting the story, characters, and...
From Mark (James Axler) Ellis, author of the best-selling OUTLANDERS and Deathlands novels and comic series such as DOC SAVAGE and the legendary JUSTICE MACHINE, comes INVICTUS X, Book One in the INVICTAVERSE! Humanity holds Knightwatch in awe, their foes view them with fear. But never has this heroic juggernaut faced so deadly and powerful a force as INVICTUS X!The ruthless Invicta League has escaped from Tartarus, the most maximum security prison ever conceived. The warden, the beautiful and enigmatic Doctor Sirocco DeWynter, warns Knightwatch that the League seeks a power so vast it can kill all life on earth.Or...
6 Superhero Stories “Forced Retirement” What if Alzheimer’s struck the World’s Mightiest Hero? His daughter, heroic Hericane, finds out the hard way. Gripped by dementia, godlike Epitome tears apart a city, and no one can stop him. Will his madness destroy the entire world? Not if Hericane recruits the one big gun who stands a chance in Hell of stopping her father in his tracks. But the battle of the century between the super-charged titans might just kick-start the Apocalypse instead of stopping it. Being dropped face first into a super-hero universe can be rough, especially with characters that have...
Two years after the USS Voyager’s return from the Delta Quadrant, Seven of Nine finds herself rejected for a position in Starfleet…and instead finds a new home with the interstellar rogue law enforcement corps known as the Fenris Rangers. The Rangers seem like an ideal fit for Seven—but to embrace t For all the Trek content we’ve had in the past, hundreds of hours of tv, dozens of hours of movies and literally thousands of Trek books, the amount of time spent outside of the Federation “safe space” is practically nil, with nearly every aspect of the previous works having...
Based on:”Call to Arms” written by Ira Steven Behr”A Time to Stand” written by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler”Sons and Daughters” written by Bradley Thompson & David Weddle”Rocks and Shoals” written by Ronald D. Moore”Behind the Lines” written by Rene Echevarria”Favor t The fourth and final book in this series and the second half of the DS9 novelization of several episodes during the Dominion War, but stopping at the retaking of DS9, leaving the remainder of the war and the retaking of Cardassia untold in novel form. It’s well enough written and all the main points of the stories...
From the Gamma Quadrant they came, hordes of merciless Jem’Hadar soldiers commanded by the shape-changing Founders, who seek to conquer both the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. Now that the Dominion has joined forces with the Cardassians, and claimed Deep Space Nine as their pri Book 3 of 4, which is actually book 2 in a story of how a couple members of the TNG crew saved the alpha quadrant from an artificial worm hole from being opened up by the Dominion, a story concept that didn’t actually work for me too well, it just opens up...
Don’t miss out on this exclusive “lost episode” celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fan-favorite show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine! I read these as they came out individually, but the TPB collection just hit my local library and it’s a great read from cover to cover. The dog is a bit of a weird thing for Trek to have in it’s books, it’s apparent that the Trek writers / fans are more cat people than anything not a Targ, and other than a weird alien dog with a horn on his head, I think there was only one or...
DEEP SPACE WAR “Call to Arms” written by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe “A Time to Stand” written by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler “Sons and Daughters” written by Bradley Thompson & David Weddle “Rocks and Shoals” written by Ronald D. Moore “Behind the Lines” written by Rene Echevarria “Favor the Bold” written by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler “Sacrifice of Angels” written by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler This is a great novelization of the stories in those episodes but has nothing at all to do with the first book in this series. Now...
From the Gamma quadrant they came — hordes of fierce Jem’Hadar warriors commanded by the mysterious Changelings, who will stop at nothing to achieve victory over both the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. Now that the Dominion has entered into an unholy alliance with the Cardassi After reading a series of short stories in “Tales of the Dominion War” I realized I had a whole series of books that dealt with what various crews were up to during the entire horrifying ordeal, so I started in with book one. It’s a great story of what the TNG...
Untold stories from one of the most dramatic and popular periods in Star Trek history I’m on a bit of a short stories journey right now, starting with an unrelated (except for DeCandido’s involvement as author & editor) Precinct series, now this one about various parts of the Domion War. The conflict was a huge part of the last two seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but they still didn’t tell even a small portion of the possible stories of what the various crews were up to, the situation on Earth, or even on the allied planets. This collection...
In a ruined and hostile landscape, a community exists in a giant underground silo. Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies. The people who don’t follow the rules are the dangerous ones; they dare to hope and dream, and infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple and deadly. They are allowed outside. Jules is one of these people. She may well be the last. A collection of three books, then three short stories. The longer stories are fantastic and are a novel take on the end of society...
Humans and elves, dwarves and gnomes, wizards and warriors all live and do business in the thriving, overcrowded port city of Cliff’s End, to say nothing of the tourists and travelers who arrive by land and sea, passing through the metropolis on matters of business or pleasure-or on quests. The hard-working, under-appreciated officers of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard work day and night to maintain law and order as best they can. A fire in the neighboring city-state of Barlin has resulted in hundreds of refugees pouring into Cliff’s End, forcing the creation of a new neighborhood-Albinton, which everyone calls...
On a distant Earth colony, an orphaned survivor of an alien invasion discovers that the greatest world-ending dangers aren’t behind her. It’s been eight years s Set in the same universe as the “Frontlines” series, Kloos has wisely wrapped up the storylines from that first set of books and continued on with a new character that’s a survivor of the Lanky invasion and is holed up in an underground bunker on a far away planet with little to no hope for rescue or help from Earth. As like Kloos’s other books, this is so exceptionally good that I managed to...
The long-awaited memoir from iconic, beloved actor and living legend Sir Patrick Stewart! At just over 450 pages, I thought this was going to be a slog to get through, but Stewart’s writing style is snappy enough that even his descriptions of his childhood home’s lack of a toilet was interesting enough that I was able to finish this in just a couple reading sessions. Surprising to me however was both how open he was about his marital mistakes and how little he talked about his time making Trek and the various movies that he did afterwards like the X-Men...
Humans and elves, dwarves and gnomes, wizards and warriors all live and do business in the thriving, overcrowded port city of Cliff’s End, to say nothing of the tourists and travelers who arrive by land and sea, passing through the metropolis on matters of business or pleasure-or on quests. The hard-working, under-appreciated officers of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard work day and night to maintain law and order as best they can. This volume brings together ten pieces of short fiction-some previously published, some brand-new for this book-featuring the Castle Guard: new cases for Lieutenants Torin ban Wyvald and Danthres...
Cliff’s End is rocked by the death of Lord Albin. His son takes over and institutes changes in how the Castle Guard is run: enforced retirements of older guards Pretty damn huge spoiler there for the previous book, but it is what it is, and what it is is a huge change in the dynamics of the world that the Castle Guard and their investigative forces. It’s a great wrench to throw into the story and leads to a perfectly enjoyable story that feels as fresh as the first book in the series. Buy On Amazon!
As Cliff’s End struggles to deal with a massive influx of refugees following a devastating fire in the neighboring city-state of Barlin, the docklands are rocked by a stunning tragedy: the legendary Pirate Queen has been murdered! Long the scourge of the Garamin Sea, the Pirate Queen’s death has ripple effects beyond Cliff’s End. Even as Lieutenants Danthres Tresyllione and Torin ban Wyvald investigate her murder, they find themselves embroiled in conspiracies, politics, and the arcane law of the sea–and of the land! Yet more fantastic world building with an investigation into the death of a much beloved Pirate Queen,...
Humans and elves, dwarves and gnomes, wizards and warriors all live and do business in the thriving, overcrowded port city of Cliff’s End, to say nothing of the tourists and travelers who arrive by land and sea, passing through the metropolis on matters of business or pleasure – or on quests. The hard-working, under-appreciated officers of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard work day and night to maintain law and order as best they can. A new drug called Bliss is sweeping across the slums of Goblin Precinct. It makes people feel better – but if they take too much, they...
Humans and elves, dwarves and gnomes, wizards and warriors all live and do business in the thriving, overcrowded port city of Cliff’s End, to say nothing of the tourists and travelers who arrive by land and sea, passing through the metropolis on matters of business or pleasure-or on quests. The hard-working, under-appreciated officers of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard work day and night to maintain law and order as best they can. Arra Cynnis is the youngest child in one of the most powerful families in the wealthy district of Unicorn Precinct. When she’s found murdered, with the culprit’s identity...
A Guardian Science Fiction Book of the Year. Mimi is drowning in the world’s trash. She’s a ‘waste girl’, a scavenger picking through towering heaps of hazardous electronic detritus. Along with thousands of other migrant workers, she was lured to Silicon Isle, off the southern coast of China, by the promise of steady work and a better life. But Silicon Isle is where the rotten fruits of capitalism and consumer culture come to their toxic end. The land is hopelessly polluted, the workers utterly at the mercy of those in power. And now a storm is gathering, as ruthless local...
Why are some people and organizations more inventive, pioneering and successful than others? In business, it doesn’t matter what you do, it matters WHY you do i One of the books for my local PMI chapter, this book was adapted from the above 18 minute Ted Talk, and while the concept is great and greatly explained, the book doesn’t offer much more than stretching the material well past it’s breaking point with limited new material and repetition of the same points over and over again. It’s still good material, but there’s only about three examples here, unlike some of the...
Truth of the Divine The second book in Lindsay Ellis’s well written series of books about cyborg robots that show up on Earth and have some pretty emotional experiences with the humans they bond with. The story drifts around for several of the middle chapters with a character going through some pretty intense psychiatric issues and I found that I really just wanted the story to do more than it ended up doing in this book, but it sets itself up for at least one more entry in the series. I’m hopeful that Sterling will keep the series going, but...
Seventeen-year-old Kevin Jason starts his first day at his new school by unintentionally punching the local bully through the cafeteria wall. When Kevin’s father, a legendary superhero, learns of this, he insists on training Kevin to master his new powers, though Kevin finds his father’s training methods a lot less exciting than he thought they were going to be. But Kevin’s training takes on new urgency when the local bully’s father—Master Chaos, one of the world’s most dangerous supervillains—breaks out of prison and declares Kevin his new archenemy for harming his son. Now Kevin must complete his training as a...
