Star Trek Voyager 15: Echoes
     Authors: Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
         and Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Pocket Books œ4.99

Travelling through the Delta Quadrant, on its long way home,
Voyager is buffeted by a shock wave - the first of several -
which has travelled through space from a nearby system. Picking up
a distress signal too, the crew decides to investigate and sets
course for the point of origin, which turns out to be a planet
called Birsiba. There they contact a man called R'Lee who explains
that the shock waves are being caused by their new world-wide
transport system which they recently activated, and are now unable
to shut down.

Janeway offers their help, hopefully in exchange for some
armacolite which is needed for repairs to their warp engines. Yet
the main thing which seems to be occupying R'Lee is not the pulses
affecting his planet but some small changes he has noticed, such
as the fact that in a picture on his desk his daughter's eyes,
which he clearly remembers being a vivid green, are now grey.
Another wave hits, and contact is lost. Regaining the link with
the planet, Janeway and company talk to R'Lee again, yet he has no
memory of their previous conversation, and stranger still, he
appears to have changed his clothes and jewellery in the middle of
the ongoing crisis.  Meanwhile, on another Voyager, Janeway and
her crew stare in horror at a nearby planet-shaped mass of debris
... realising that it is made from bodies. Over three hundred
billion of them. And as another subspace pulse spreads through the
ship, another three and a half billion bodies join the mass - and
these are still alive.

This is the chilling start of Echoes, the best Star Trek book I've
read so far. It took me a while to work out exactly what was
happening because there are so many seemingly conflicting
storylines going on that it can be hard to keep the story straight
in your mind. The book is moving and exciting in equal quantities
and I found it hard to put it down. Highly recommended, despite
the gruesome images.
                                                 Sue
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