Sue's Sci Fi Bookshelf

                       Reviews by Sue

            Deep Space Nine #14: The Long Night
    Authors Dean Wesley Smith and Kirstone Kathryn Rusch

                  Pocket Books, RRP œ4.50

When revolution strikes the planet Jibet, its Supreme Ruler flees
in his space ship, the Nibix, with members of his staff and family
and a fortune in works of art. The plan is that they will travel
to a nearby planet while in deep sleep, but something goes wrong
and the ship is never heard from again ... until a trader brings a
very distinctive statuette into Quark's bar and tries to sell it
to Quark. But in the mean time, 800 years have passed, and Jibet,
its revolution past, has spread its population over 80-odd
planets and is trying to become a member of the Federation.

Word gets out that the Nibix has been found and ships arrive from
all sectors - Jibetians, Cardassians, even the Ferengi Grand Nagus
appears! Sisko, Dax, Bashir and O'Brien, with some ensigns, take
off in the Defiant to search for the ship. Will they reach it in
time? What caused its disappearance? And is anyone left alive on
it?  Meanwhile, Jake and Nog are exploring the station. Jake has
found a panel and behind it a system of passages which, though
officially uncharted, turn out to be of vital importance and not
as empty as they originally thought. Their discovery links with
the reappearance of the Nibix and the whole story builds to a
climax as the various threads of the tale are interwoven and,
finally, tied off.

Fans of the series will be immediately drawn into the story.
The characters are totally true to the series, acting and speaking
as they should. It is impossible to read it without hearing Quark,
Odo and the rest in your head. A good storyline, gripping and well
written.

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                 Star Trek:Voyager - Mosaic
                     Author Jeri Taylor

                Pocket Books hardback œ12.99
         Also available on audio tape for about œ8

Mosaic is subtitled 'the incredible life story of Captain Kathryn
Janeway!' but I wouldn't be quite so enthusiastic about it as
that. What it tells is parts of her life story, in flashback,
set against an away team mission on a planet in the Delta
Quadrant.  Tuvok is leading the 20-strong team, aided by Kes,
Neelix and Harry Kim, but the Kazon attack Voyager in orbit and
contact with the team is lost. In fact, even within the team, two
members go missing when they get trapped within a sealed room when
trying to find a way out of an underground complex. But to say
more would give away too much about this part of the storyline.

As for Janeway's life, certain events in her past become vitally
important in the current time line as similar circumstances


force her to confront ghosts from her past which she had kept
buried within her. We see her relationship with her parents
(especially her father), her sister, her first love and her
colleagues. We learn how she originally met Tuvok and how little
she liked him then, how she first encountered a young cadet called
William Riker and how certain choices and circumstances shaped her
character.

Mosaic isn't as gripping as The Long Night. The storyline is
rather disjointed as it goes from past to future and back again.
Even the sections from the past leap from one main event to
another, sometime jumping many years which can be disorienting.
I am also more of a DS9 fan than one of Voyager, and because I
find Janeway's accent exceptionally irritating, I couldn't help
but 'hear' her all the way through and that spoilt it somewhat for
me.
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          Star Trek:Voyager #7 - Ghost of a Chance
           Authors Mark A Garland and Charles G McGraw

                     Pocket Books œ4.99

The Prime Directive has always been vitally important to Captain
Kathryn Janeway but when Voyager finds an inhabited planet which
hasn't previously been contacted, and which is about to be
destroyed by volcanic action, she is forced to make a deep
re-evaluation of her belief in its importance. Should they
intervene and break the Prime Directive, as Chakotay believes, or
should they stand back and watch an entire planet of people die?

It is a hard decision for someone as rule-minded as Janeway, but
rules are sometimes meant to be broken, and at other times, they
are broken by other people ... in this case the Televek, a race
who turn up just in the nick of time to help Voyager and the
inhabitants of Drenar Four. But can the Televek be trusted? After
all, not even the crew of Voyager have seen them, only their
intermediaries and advocates, the Drosary. They seem very
pleasant, but there is something about them that doesn't add up to
the more perceptive crew members such as B'Elanna Torres.
Meanwhile some of the crew are being visited by ghosts who seem to
be trying to tell them something vitally important ...

There is a lot going on in this book, and your attention will be
gripped from start to finish. I worked out part of the plot fairly
quickly but that didn't seem to matter, I still enjoyed it
immensely.










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