Kevin Ryan (1)Critiques

I found this book intensely unsatisfying because Picard really didn't go through any kind of character arc—nor did anyone but Lieutenant Barclay, and Barclay's character arc was the SAME arc as it always has to be with him, where he's a scaredy cat who proves himself. Picard is about to negotiate peace with the Gorn, but is thrown back in time to the first encounter with them, where they razed a colony and Kirk fought one of them hand to hand; he watches the colony die, but learns nothing and doesn't change his opinions at all. The writing's fine, but I couldn't get over that static feeling.

I was going to give a positive if hardly glowing review for this Star Trek novel but I lost the will to live somewhere around the halfway point. There are just too many character perspectives and I wasn't interested in half of them. Basically, I read these stories, which are my weakness, for the original characters, not the author's creations. Kevin Ryan offers up a fair but fawning depiction of Captain Kirk, makes the redshirts look brave and loyal and has even created an interesting Klingon character, but he stretches a minimal plot - granted, the start of a trilogy - too far. Fight scenes run for pages and descriptions get repetitive (Kirk and his hunches). Also, the formatting in my Kindle edition was atrocious, with completely different scenes running seamlessly into each other. So thanks, but I'll pass on part two, even for 99p.

Pfft. Kevin Ryan's ho-hum translation of the season one episode 'Errand of Mercy' has almost finished off my current craze for reading Star Trek novelisations - almost (must give William Shatner's novel a go first). The Klingons are the silliest of the ST alien races, from the name down to the throaty language, and I have absolutely no interest in the intergalactic version of a Patrick O'Brian novel. There are one or two nice moments between Kirk, Spock and Bones, but otherwise this is a deadly dull story with no imagination. Perhaps the episode is more entertaining!

van helsing is a really good movie and i was told the book was even better. so if you like vampiers,wear wolfs, frankinstine and more you should do what im going to do and check out this book!

After Kevin Ryan's Errand of Vengeance trilogy was released over two months, it took almost four years for all the books of its followup, Errand of Fury to come out. Though it's neat to get the buildup to the Klingon/Federation War in "Errand of Mercy", what we actually get here is the same as the previous volumes in both Errand series: Kirk and his valiant security forces fight some Klingons in a bloody battle and win. The second half of the book actually novelizes "Errand of Mercy", but aside from a couple scenes of the Enterprise in space, adds nothing of any interest. We might as well have stuck with James Blish. Meanwhile, Lieutenant West does something that has no bearing on the plot; if his side-story was intended to show how he would become the paranoid conspirator we saw in The Undiscovered Country, it failed. Indeed, Ryan's characterizations-- of the Enterprise crew, other Starfleet officers, and various Klingons alike-- are rudimentary at best.

While waiting the release of the new "Star Trek" film, I found myself yearning for a new adventure of the classic crew. Enter Kevin Ryan's latest installment of the "Errand of Fury" series, "Sacrifices of War."

The series is part of Pocket's on-going attempt to have "Trek" novels that boil down to little more than crew comes across problem, crew solves problem, crew head on out for more adventures. I commend them for this and it's been remarkably successful in a lot of the other on-going "Trek" series. So why hasn't it worked with classic "Trek"?

Part of me says that a big reason was the original series was intended to be episodic. But so was "Next Generation" and the movies set post-"Nemesis" have incorporated an arc and new characters rather successfully. Another part of me wonders if it isn't that the calibre of talent and the potential to mine new and interesting stories isn't richer in the more modern Treks, simply because they've had less time for novels to be published. I think that's a huge part of it.

And then you've "Sacfices of War." I can see what the novel is trying to do. It's trying to offer some kind of build-up to the events we see in "Errand of Mercy," making the potential war with the Klingons not just come our of nowhere. So, we have a novel where various parties are getting ready for war and we see the Federation in dire straits, facing an overwhelming enemy who is predicted to defeat them unless something drastic occurs. The story is full of minor characters, introduced mainly for this series and it allows us to see the world of classic Trek through eyes other than those of the main characters.

I didn't find that all that compelling. Part of what drew me to classic Trek (and still does) is the main characters. I like to see them in action and to have new adventures with my old favorites. And this story had the potential to give us some depth to the characters, especially Kirk as he faces the burden of being on the front lines of a potential war. Instead, we have the first two-thirds devoted to a Kirk-led mission to destroy a Klingon weapon's stash and prevent it from being used against the Federation.

And that may be part of the problem with the book. Placing it so directly into the original series canon and having Kirk lead the mission, it takes away some of the drama. We know Kirk will live to fight another day. And that's a problem faced by all Trek novels, but it seems a bit more conspicious here. Kirk leads a shuttlecraft full of recruits on this dangerous mission. And yet, none of them die. In fact, it seems like the author goes to great lengths to make sure that none of the new characters die, since many of them appear to be haunted by the death of team members in previous novels.

It ends up taking away a lot of the tension and fun from this section of the novel.

Then, there's the last third which is a retelling of "Errand of Mercy" that adds nothing to the story. Yes, it's probably a more faithful adaptation than what we got from James Blish, but do we really need another novelization of an episode that's aired for forty plus year on TV and is easily accessible on DVD?

I was very happy to find out that the Roswell television series was being continued in these books. A New Beginning takes place immediately after the series finale with the group of aliens/humans arriving in a small town and their van breaks down. Soon enough it is strange that something weird is happening and that people are disappearing.

Although I unfortunately found that the books written to take place during and after the series did not really have the heart and soul which the show did, I think I may re-read this story. I read it over a year ago along with all the other Roswell books. My recollection was that this was one of my favorites which took place after the end of the series.½

A Klingon is surgically altered to appear human in order to assassinate Kirk. He instead finds that humans are not the monsters he's told they are -- in fact, it seems that the Klingons making decisions are worse they say humans are -- and he has to decide what to do about it.

I noticed that on several occasions throughout this series that one Klingon character's name was substituted for another, as if the author (or maybe the editor) wasn't sure what to name these people.

A Klingon is surgically altered to appear human in order to assassinate Kirk. He instead finds that humans are not the monsters he's told they are -- in fact, it seems that the Klingons making decisions are worse they say humans are -- and he has to decide what to do about it.

I noticed that on several occasions throughout this series that one Klingon character's name was substituted for another, as if the author (or maybe the editor) wasn't sure what to name these people.

A Klingon is surgically altered to appear human in order to assassinate Kirk. He instead finds that humans are not the monsters he's told they are -- in fact, it seems that the Klingons making decisions are worse they say humans are -- and he has to decide what to do about it.

I noticed that on several occasions throughout this series that one Klingon character's name was substituted for another, as if the author (or maybe the editor) wasn't sure what to name these people.