Star Trek Seekers:
All That's Left
by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore
***Some Reviews may Contain Spoilers***
Pocket Books: November 2015
ISBN: 9781476798608
This month's Star Trek novel brings us the fourth installment in the newly minted Star Trek Seekers series. This is a 'spinoff' of the popular Star Trek Vanguard book series. Overall, the book is a fast read and has a faster paced plot. At times, it reads as a space action novel but has enough dramatic twists and turns to interest the more intellectual Star Trek fan.
My largest complaint about all of these original and only book based creations is that there is a large lack of familiarity with the characters. It is also a bit challenging to keep them all straight, especially so when there have only been four books, released about a year apart. Only two of them, including this novel, involve the crew of the USS Endeavor while the other two focus on the crew of the USS Sagittarius. Both ships and their respective crews are on separate missions and are not crossing over at this time.
The upside is that we get to see new adventures and are not tied down to the classic format with both character and story. This is a chance to explore some new areas of Star Trek without having to 'reset' some of the characters or universe around them.
So essentially, this is a trade off.
As far as this book, it does turn into your basic fire full phasers at the aliens with the twist that our crew are being controlled by the aliens so they can't harm the aliens without harming the crew. It's a nice crisis to have, although we have seen something like this before. Despite this being a repeat idea, the authors of this outing do manage to keep your interest as the reader. The ending is much better than a classic we defeated the enemy aliens and showed them humans are boss. It was nice to see the story work out with a bit of an opening where we could come back and revisit this planet and the two alien species, or even, visit the home planet of a single species in a couple of decades.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
This month's Star Trek novel brings us the fourth installment in the newly minted Star Trek Seekers series. This is a 'spinoff' of the popular Star Trek Vanguard book series. Overall, the book is a fast read and has a faster paced plot. At times, it reads as a space action novel but has enough dramatic twists and turns to interest the more intellectual Star Trek fan.
My largest complaint about all of these original and only book based creations is that there is a large lack of familiarity with the characters. It is also a bit challenging to keep them all straight, especially so when there have only been four books, released about a year apart. Only two of them, including this novel, involve the crew of the USS Endeavor while the other two focus on the crew of the USS Sagittarius. Both ships and their respective crews are on separate missions and are not crossing over at this time.
The upside is that we get to see new adventures and are not tied down to the classic format with both character and story. This is a chance to explore some new areas of Star Trek without having to 'reset' some of the characters or universe around them.
So essentially, this is a trade off.
As far as this book, it does turn into your basic fire full phasers at the aliens with the twist that our crew are being controlled by the aliens so they can't harm the aliens without harming the crew. It's a nice crisis to have, although we have seen something like this before. Despite this being a repeat idea, the authors of this outing do manage to keep your interest as the reader. The ending is much better than a classic we defeated the enemy aliens and showed them humans are boss. It was nice to see the story work out with a bit of an opening where we could come back and revisit this planet and the two alien species, or even, visit the home planet of a single species in a couple of decades.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
