Sue's SF Book Reviews

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Warped
KW Jeter
Pocket Books paperback, œ4.99

Together with The Search, this is an early unnumbered story set in
the DS9 universe and one of the blacker tales. Some unexplained
murders have taken place on the Station and Odo discovers that
these are linked to some new holosuites which have been adapted by
persons unknown. They use a new form of technology which links
deeper than usual into the user's brain, warping and twisting
their perception of reality both inside the holosuites and outside
in the real world.  Sisko's son Jake is one who has been sucked
into a forest setting in one unit, where a young boy catches and
tortures small animals. How far has the technology affected him?

Meanwhile political tensions on Bajor are reaching new heights.
Kira Nerise gets heavily involved through an old friend, and when
a rebellion overturns the government, it looks as though she might
be implicated through her connections with the rebels. The deeper
she and Sisko get embroiled in Bajor's politics, the clearer
becomes the connection between some of the rebels and the tampered
holosuites.

The book builds to a terrifying climax as all the links in the
book gradually come together. All the major players are there,
even Gul Dukat makes a brief appearance as does Kai Opaka. I got
slightly lost in the deeper implications of the plot, but the book
kept my interest from start to finish. Not an easy read but
enjoyable.
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Star Trek: The Next Generation #38 - Dragon's Honor
Kij Johnson and Greg Cox
Pocket Books paperback, œ4.50

'Captain Picard must defeat an alien armada!' shouts the cover of
this 1996 novel, and I had hoped that the 'dragon' of the title
might refer to 'real' dragons ... but no such luck, the closest we

get is the crocodile-like G'kkau, the bad guys (creatures) of the
story.

The planet Pai is the homeworld of the Dragon Empire, a colony
which was originally established many years ago from Earth and
owes more to ancient China than anywhere else. The ruler, the
Emperor, is also known as the Dragon. The Enterprise has travelled
to Pai for two reasons; for high ranking officers to attend the
marriage of the heir to the Dragon Empire to the daughter of one
of the Emperor's chief enemies, and to arrange for the signing of
the treaty which will signify the entry of Pai into the
Federation.

However, the G'kkau have other plans, as do certain traitorous
parties on Pai who are working with the aliens. The G'kkau plan to
invade and conquer Pai, and the Enterprise is powerless to help
until the treaty has been signed. However, the Emperor has his
doubts about the importance of joining the Federation, and is
stalling ... meanwhile the G'kkau fleet gets closer to the
planet ...

This is a nicely written book with an unusual storyline and
several twists and turns. Riker, who ends up trying to keep the
heir to the throne out of danger, has quite an eventful time, Troi
finds the Dragon rather too interested in her, while he also
covets Data for a completely different reason! Beverley becomes
the bride's surrogate mother, Worf meets his match and Picard just
tries to keep some Pai delicacies in his stomach. Humour and
tension in equal amounts make this a good read.
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Star Trek: Voyager - Marooned
Christie Golden
Pocket Books paperback, œ4.99

Of all the Star Trek books I've read recently, this is the one
which grabbed me the least. Kes (my least favourite character,
which didn't help) catches the attention of a space pirate called
Aren Yashar and through an elaborate subterfuge, he kidnaps her,
fascinated by her beauty and short life ... he has already lived
for several millennia and is counted as relatively young still by
his race's standard. Taking her to a planet on which he has a
base, he offers her a comfortable life, but Kes, of course, is
grief stricken at first and just wishes to be reunited with her
friends from Voyager.

The crew of Voyager, meanwhile, are in hot pursuit but, finding
where she is held, end up in trouble themselves when their shuttle
craft is disabled and crashes on Aren's planet. Janeway, Paris,
Torres, Nelix, Tuvok and Bokk are stranded on a hostile, strange
world. Will they survive? Will they rescue Kes?  Like me, you can
probably answer those two questions yourself without opening the
book.

Yes, the storyline is very predictable and really didn't grab me
though I persisted in finishing it. Knowing that the likelihood of
a regular crew member being killed in a spin-off book is nil, I
couldn't get concerned when Paris got bitten by a venomous bug and
was close to death but I just *knew* that poor Bokk, who no-one
had heard of before, wasn't going to make it to the final pages.
Things haven't changed much from the original series when we all
knew that the unknown crewman beaming down to a planet with Kirk
et al was about to cash in his chips.  Not recommended ...

















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