Book Reviews – Page 2 – theLogBook.com

Commodork: Sordid Tales From A BBS Junkie

Commodork Story: BBS veteran Rob O’Hara relives the pre-internet glory days of the bulletin board system, from his first computer and his first screamin’ fast 1200 baud modem (a luxury in those dial-up days) to the active Commodore 64 warez scene to the death of the BBS era, and how friendships and relationships from those days have stretched even into his life on the ‘net as we know it today.

Review: In the interests of disclosure, I’m going to point out up front that Rob has reviewed DVDs, books and Commodore 64 games aplenty for theLogBook.com. So if you love this book, and if you’re of a certain age, you will love this book, please remember that you can always come back here and soak up more of his fine writing.

I say with certainty that you’ll love “Commodork” because, having heard what some other folks are saying about this book, it’s quickly become clear that there’s a wealth of shared experience among those of us who were “online” back in the days when it was almost an elite thing, when only the technically adept could connect and configure a modem and even claim to be “online.”

Extra Life: Coming Of Age In Cyberspace

Extra Life: Coming Of Age In Cyberspace Story: Programmer and Wired columnist David S. Bennahum recalls tales of a troubled youth – starting with his parents’ separation and leading to some juvenile delinquency – that was turned around when he was presented with the gift of an Atari 800 computer. Though he originally wanted to play games on it, Bennahum discovers a new love in the art of programming and hacking, and new ethical struggles in learning how to use that knowledge.

Review: I’ll come right out and say this upfront about “Extra Life” – it’s a great read (and I’m not alone in thinking that, as apparently the rights to the book have just recently been optioned for a movie), but whether or not you really “get” the book’s emotional core and its author’s struggles will depend on whether or not you were around and aware of the computer revolution as it was happening. If nothing else, Bennahum really latches on the sense of sheer wonder of growing up in that era.

Fire In The Valley: The Making Of The Personal Computer

Fire In The Valley Story: An enthusiastic but fair retelling of the early days of the personal computer industry, ranging from the days when college geeks competed for mainframe time, to the birth of Microsoft, Sun, Compaq and Apple, to the modern-day internet browser wars (and the litigious atmosphere thereof).

Review: This book first came to my attention as the inspiration for the sometimes lamentably mixed-up TNT movie The Pirates Of Silicon Valley. If anything, Pirates merely served to drive the authors of “Fire In The Valley” to update and re-publish their book – and hopefully the movie drove curious viewers to delve into the whole story in print.

Game Over: Press Start To Continue

Game Over: Press Start To Continue Story: An overview of the history of Nintendo, one of the most influential companies in the video game industry. Traces the company from its beginnings as a playing card manufacturer to the heights of its popularity, when its video game consoles were in practically every home across the world. New chapters continue the story into the PlayStation era, when Nintendo’s dominance was surpassed by the international conglomerate Sony.

Review: “Game Over” is the story of a company. If you have ever read a corporate history, you know that they generally do not make scintillating reading. But author David Sheff has done something impressive. He has taken the hard corporate world and put a human identity to it. While there is plenty of hard information: data, trial information, etc., it is the stories of the men and women behind Nintendo that makes the story real.

High Score: The Illustrated History Of Electronic Games

Story: The authors guide us through a well-illustrated survey of the history of electronic gaming, from Spacewar through the Xbox, with a particular focus on the histories of specific game series, and the companies and personalities behind them. Abundant examples of rare packaging, prototypes and hard-to-find goodies are on display throughout.

Review: If you liked “Supercade”, you’re gonna love this one. “High Score!” is the closest I’ve seen to the “definitive text meets incredible variety of photos and visuals” mix that I’ve been hoping for someone to hit in the rarified genre of video game history tomes. And some of the stuff seen in here, I’ve never seen before – such as the cartridge-based Atari Video Brain that was scrapped to make way for the Atari VCS (a.k.a. the 2600), or the unused Centipede publicity poster and the rejected artwork for Atari’s Vortex, later reamed Tempest. Ample advertising material and box art are also reproduced here, a collector’s dream.

Leaving Reality Behind

Leaving Reality Behind Story: eToys.com was one of those great success stories of the late ’90s internet boom, a company whose IPO made almost everyone working there instantly rich – and then it faltered and crashed, taking that value with it. But was it the work of a group of art students from Europe – known collectively as etoy – who refused to admit defeat when eToys.com’s lawyers demanded that they surrender their internet presence for fear of hurting the online toy store’s trademarked name?

Review: This is a fairly well-written book, with lots of documented material to back it up. But “Leaving Reality Behind” quickly became a somewhat difficult read when I discovered that I couldn’t bring myself to root for Toby Lenk and eToys.com or his nemeses, referred to frequently in the book as the “etoy boys.” So much of what’s at the heart of this story is pure vanity and arrogance that it’s nigh-impossible to pick out an actual protagonist. I suppose the authors are to be commended for portraying both sides with all of their respective warts, and yet it seems clear that the authorial tone of the book favors the disharmonious group of self-styled artists from Germany and other countries, over the equally troubled would-be e-commerce giant.

Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Video Games

Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Video Games Story: In the 1960s, a government contractor working with computer display systems figured out how to get a game of video tennis going on a television monitor. But that game, which would later be reproduced by an enterprising programmer named Nolan Bushnell at a young company called Atari, would give rise to one of the fastest-growing sectors of the entertainment industry. Companies such as Atari, Coleco, Mattel, Magnavox, and Bally would ride that wave into the first home video game console era. Fortunes were made and lost by gambling on licensed arcade and entertainment properties, and a flood of mediocre software brought the video game market to its knees. And then a relatively obscure Japanese company changed the rules forever. Originally planning to license its technology out to Atari, a legal misunderstanding convinced Nintendo to go it alone in an uncertain market that they would later dominate alongside Sega and Sony. This is the nuts-and-bolts story of the video game industry.

Review: A great, in-depth book about the history, the swells and ebbtides, the fortunes and failures, and the numerous litigious episodes of the video game industry is long overdue. And after reading Phoenix, I’m sad to say that the book I’ve been hoping to read is still overdue.

Steve Jobs And The NeXT Big Thing

Steve Jobs And The NeXT Big Thing Story: Steve Jobs, once one of the wonder boys who created the now-fading legend of Apple Computer, later became more of a liability than a boon to the company with his unusual – and some would say ineffective or even counterproductive – management practices. Forced out of Apple in 1985 by John Sculley (the former Pepsi CEO who, ironically, Jobs had hired into the same position at Apple), Jobs convinced a small key group of Apple employees to follow him away from the company to start a new silicon valley venture, NeXT. Apple promptly sued, which gave the outgoing group a notoriety within the industry – maybe these people, with the legendary Jobs at the wheel, were a serious threat to Apple, and maybe NeXT would be a contender to be dealt with. With this kind of rumormongering working to his advantage, and with his own celebrity status also lending him credibility, Jobs sought investors with tons of money – including Ross Perot – and prompty proceeded to waste their money on such luxuries as a $100,000 corporate logo, a custom-designed headquarters building and manufacturing plant, and high-speed data lines running not only to the office but to his own home as well. NeXT did eventually turn out a computer, years late, millions over budget in R&D (not to mention more unnecessary expenses like those listed above), and thousands of dollars over the budgets of their target consumer demographic.

Review: Boy, I’d love for someone to update this volume…but perhaps not its original author. Published in 1993, it doesn’t cover such later developments as Jobs’ re-emergence as a savior of Apple, his humbling acceptance of investment money into Apple from the coffers of one Bill Gates, and the recent release of the Macintosh PowerCube – bearing a striking resemblence to NeXT’s flop of a computer, which also flopped on the market.

Videogames: In The Beginning

Story: Inventor Ralph Baer, creator of the very first home video game system and the man who holds the patent on interactive games that can connect to an everyday TV (as well as literally dozens of other creations), lays out a detailed chronology of how and when he came up with the idea for “TV games.” Also covered is how he’s dealt with those who have tried to stake their own claims on authorship of the idea, and how he has remained involved with the industry since then.

Review: In this book, Raph Baer grabs the title of “father of video games,” and spends much of the book backing the claim up with ample evidence. It’s amusing and sometimes a bit enervating to see how many attempts have been made to unseat him from that throne, for a variety of reasons. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell seems to have tried staking his own claim for PR purposes, but that’s not as eyebrow-raising as, say, attempts by Nintendo attorneys in the late 1980s to challenge Baer and his authorship of numerous seminal video game patents so they wouldn’t have to pay hefty licensing fees on the NES. (In the end, Baer says Nintendo settled out of court for a cool $10 million.)

Blake’s 7: The Programme Guide

Story: Tony Attwood provides a concise, episode-by-episode breakdown of the BBC’s most underrated (and underbudgeted) science fiction series, Blake’s 7 (1978-1981). In addition to the customary cast listings and plot synopses, there are also brief interviews with cast members Paul Darrow, Michael Keating and Peter Tuddenham, script editor Chris Boucher and producer Vere Lorrimer. The late Terry Nation, creator of the series, also wrote the book’s original 1982 foreword about the genesis of his ideas.

Review: Still the only BBC-endorsed official guide to Blake’s 7, The Programme Guide is handy not only for its chronicle of the show’s 52 produced episodes, but its very brief interviews with the show’s cast and crew.

Blake’s 7: Their First Adventure

Book title Story: When his government-enforced brainwashing begins to wear off, former resistance leader Roj Blake is convicted for a crime he didn’t commit and sentenced to life on a penal planet called Cygnus Alpha. During the prison ship voyage, Blake meets several other prisoners with no love for the totalitarian Federation: expert computer hacker Avon, hard-bitten smuggler Jenna, good-hearted (but, alas, also weak-hearted) thief Vila, and a gentle giant named Gan who is prevented from using deadly force by a violence-inhibiting brain implant (also courtesy of the Federation legal system). Combining their talents, Blake and the others turn the tables on their captors, seizing control of the prison ship, but their hijacking attempt doesn’t last long. Still en route to Cygnus Alpha, the ship encounters a larger craft of unknown alien origins, and the prison ship skipper loses several men trying to board and salvage the alien vessel. He then decides to use Blake and the other prisoners instead, but they survive the initial onslaught of the alien ship’s auto-defense systems, undock from the prison ship, and make a run for it. Though Avon and Jenna are skeptical, Blake insists on using their new vehicle – dubbed the Liberator – to go to Cygnus Alpha and free more of the prisoners.

Review: A light-speed adaptation of the first three episodes of the BBC’s cult TV classic Blake’s 7, “Blake’s 7: Their First Adventure” rockets through three hour-long scripts with all the literary verve of an early Doctor Who novelization by Terrance Dicks. (That is to say, little if anything is added to the existing text of the scripts.) In fact, the Doctor Who novelization comparison is apt since, for some baffling reason, the trio of Trevor Hoyle’s Blake’s 7 novelizations seem to have been aimed squarely at a younger audience.

Babylon 5: The Coming Of Shadows

Story: This book chronicles the making of the second season of J. Michael Straczynski’s groundbreaking SFTV series Babylon 5, which was also the last season to feature scripts written by anyone other than Straczynski for over two years. Interviews with actors, writers, directors and JMS himself run throughout the book, with a special section on how the show managed to stay on budget and a great deal of focus on the arrival of new leading man Bruce Boxleitner.

Review: One of the things I’ve always been curious about when it comes to Babylon 5 is: when did J. Michael Straczynski receive the divine inspiration (or head trauma) that told him that he needed to write damn near every episode for the rest of the show’s run? And whatever happened to story editor Larry DiTillio, who was Straczynski’s right-hand man in the Captain Power days but disappeared after B5’s second year on the air?

Babylon 5: Point Of No Return

Story: Leaning heavily on interviews with series creator J. Michael Straczynski and the main cast members, Jane Killick continues her analysis of Babylon 5, this time covering the show’s much-loved third season. Topics of interest include the tightening of the show’s story arc as the Shadow War looms, how the plot threads in War Without End might have been resolved if Bruce Boxleitner hadn’t taken over as the show’s leading actor the previous year, and the increasing reliance on computer generated visuals.

Review: If I wish one thing could’ve been different about Jane Killick’s excellent and informative series of Babylon 5: Season By Season books, it would’ve been devoting less space to episode guides (which can be found elsewhere) and more space to talking to the cast and crew.

Babylon 5: The Wheel of Fire

Story: In what is apparently the last of Jane Killick’s behind-the-scenes books about Babylon 5, the author examines the making of the show’s final season, beginning with The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, which technically capped off season four despite being produced by TNT. The guide then tackles everything from No Compromises through Sleeping In Light, though I admit to being very disappointed with the final episode’s coverage – it starts out with “What hasn’t already been said about this episode?” as an almost up-front announcement that you’re not going to get much out of this section. The Babylon 5 magazine coverage of Sleeping, and – quite frankly – Joe Nazarro’s liner note insert in the episode’s soundtrack CD, were more informative than this.

Review: What really makes Killick’s book isn’t necessarily her material, but the reminiscences of the actors, and some of season five’s key players – namely Tracy Scoggins and Robin Atkin Downes (Byron) – haven’t talked much about their B5 work in the past, so their comments here, though sparse, are refreshing. On the flipside, most of J. Michael Straczynski’s quotes are lifted from his Usenet postings – but unlike Hal Schuster (author of unauthorized – and, to be completely candid, unauthored – guides to nearly everything), I’m sure Killick had JMS’ permission to reprint these.

Chariots For Apollo

Chariots For Apollo Story: Long before men set foot on the moon or even set off on a journey to orbit it, NASA engineers and their brethren at several corporate contractors and subcontractors sweated blood to make sure that the astronauts would have spaceworthy vehicles to fly. Veteran aviation and theoretical engineers alike gave up family life, personal time, and other amenities because they faced the reality that, if their numbers were even slightly off, astronauts could die. Some of them watched their worst nightmares realized when Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died on the ground in the Apollo 1 fire. But they still kept up an unrelenting quest to get the numbers right and put Americans on the moon by the end of the sixties.

Review: A bit of a “tech novel” of sorts, Chariots For Apollo does not assume that anyone opening the book’s cover understands all of the terminology involved in going to the moon, let alone the math, but it does an admirable job of catching you up very quickly.

But that’s not the heart of this book.

Behind the tech talk, Chariots For Apollo is about the people who dreamed, and then built, the Apollo program (primarily the delicate lunar excursion module).

The Encyclopedia Of Soviet Spacecraft

Story: After a brief introduction on the dawn of the Soviet space program and its pioneers, this book offers a concise, launch-by-launch, mission-by-mission catalog of the entire space program through 1987. Launch sites and dates, crew rosters, and mission accomplishments are noted, along with a surprising number of photos and diagrams. In some cases, though, the mission details and even the physical details of the craft are still conjecture, despite the author’s best efforts, due to the secretive nature of the Soviet space program at the time.

Review: This book urgently needs updating.

I found “The Encyclopedia Of Soviet Spacecraft” quite unexpectedly while doing a bit of used book browsing, and my curiosity was piqued to say the least. If you’ve spent any time visiting this site, you’ll know that I’ve read and reviewed gobs of technical, historical and autobiographical texts on the U.S. space program, and on humanity’s push into space as a whole. But never before had I seen a book so detailed in its focus on the other half of the space race.

Full Moon

Full Moon Story: Photographer Michael Light delves into NASA’s archives and does what no one had done in the thirty years since the landing of Apollo 11 – gained access to the original master negatives and struck the first new copies of these iconic images from space since the missions were flown. The digitally scanned images offer a new degree of resolution to shots of the moon’s surface, the astronauts and their vehicles, and even their looks back at the Earth.

Review: I don’t normally spend a lot of time reviewing art or photography books here, because what is there to say? That they’re pretty? One would presume that, or the book probably wouldn’t have made anyone’s publishing schedule. This book quickly grew on me, though. It’s not pretty. It’s mind-blowingly gorgeous.

Genesis: The Story Of Apollo 8

Genesis: The Story Of Apollo 8 Story: Amid the tumultuous events of 1968, NASA mission planners watch a suspicious string of Soviet steps toward what may be a lunar mission, and begin preparing an ambitious swap of mission objectives. Instead of waiting until the lunar excursion module has been tested in Earth orbit, NASA will send its second manned Apollo mission to the moon using only the command/service module. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders are profiled from their childhood through their spaceflight careers, and followed closely throughout the mission in transcripts and the astronauts’ own remembrances.

Review: It’s not that the story of Apollo 8 has never been told; all three astronauts have published their own memoirs of their NASA careers, and Andrew Chiakin’s A Man On The Moon did an excellent job of putting it all together. But sometimes it’s hard to appreciate just how many risks NASA took with Apollo 8.

John Glenn: A Memoir

John Glenn: A Memoir Story: Former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn recounts his life, from an upbringing during the Great Depression to service during World War II and the Korean War, to a series of unexpected twists and turns that culminated in his manning Friendship 7 as the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth. But Glenn’s story continues into a series of false starts in the political arena, until his election to the Senate in 1974; some 24 years of policy making and surviving an increasingly hostile political environment are covered in brief, bookending his memoir with his return to space as part of shuttle mission STS-95.

Review: An absolutely engrossing read, “John Glenn: A Memoir” sheds some light on a man who chased his indelible chapter in our national history down with an attempt to keep shaping history.

Journey Beyond Selene

Story: The story of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is told in much the same style as the author’s account of the exploits of the Apollo 13 crew in Lost Moon, but occasionally the casual observer might be lost in the midst of some of the tech talk. While Lost Moon had a very human element in the crew and the ground controllers, Journey Beyond Selene is more of a romance novel for engineers. The human story is on Earth, as the engineers deal with the menaces of launch vehicles, NASA bureaucrats, a press corps more obsessed with manned flights, and an apathetic Congress…not to mention the fact that, quite simply, not all of their marvelous hardware worked.

Review: This recently published opus from the co-author of Jim Lovell’s “Lost Moon” tells the often-overlooked story of the frequently unsung pioneers of America’s program of unmanned space exploration.

Lost Moon (a.k.a. Apollo 13)

Lost Moon (a.k.a. Apollo 13) Story: Unusually for a book which concerns itself with events that were directly experienced by one of the writers, the entire story is told in the third person perspective, switching back and forth from the spacecraft to Lovell’s home, Mission Control in Houston, and even leaping around in time from Lovell’s early fascination with rocketry, the Apollo 1 fire and its demoralizing effect on the astronaut corps, Lovell’s earlier groundbreaking flight to the moon aboard Apollo 8, and so on. Of course, the book’s primary focus is the doomed April 1970 flight of Apollo 13, and how astronauts and ground controllers alike fought valiantly to bring the crew home safely.

Review: I missed “Lost Moon” when it was originally released just a year before the movie that it spawned. When I went looking for the autobiographical “Lost Moon”, I instead saw numerous books bearing Tom Hanks’ face and the title “Apollo 13”. Thank goodness the small print beneath the title mentioned that this was, in fact, the book that started it all – for a moment, I feared a ridiculous repeat of the Alan Dean Foster novelization of Total Recall, which itself was based on a Philip K. Dick short story! That’s a roundabout way to tell one story. This book, however, is another story entirely, and it’s well worth a read or two. For about the same price as a movie ticket, there’s a lot more story.

A Man On The Moon

A Man On The Moon: The Voyages Of The Apollo Astronauts Story: Each mission is given plenty of coverage, and a lot of attention is paid to the doomed Apollo 1 test mission as well as what the future of America’s manned moon presence could have been if not for budget cuts to redirect funding to the Vietnam War. I learned an incredible amount of information I had never heard before from this book, including something of a minor scandal involving the crew of Apollo 15.

Review: Though I thoroughly enjoyed Jim Lovell’s “Lost Moon”, I have to hand the definitive honors in the category of books about America’s push to reach the moon. It’s amazing how many of the astronauts, families and support crews Andrew Chaikin tracked down and interviewed, and the resulting gold mine of information and feelings barely fits into this admittedly thick book.

Moon Shot

Moon Shot Story: In a way, this book picks up where Deke! leaves off – the prologue of the book describes the arrival of the old members of Slayton’s team of astronauts for his funeral in Texas. But the main portion of the book covers Deke and Alan Shepard’s adventures through their risky lives as military test and combat pilots, the origins and selection of the Mercury astronauts, and medical problems that later kept both of them Earthbound during the Gemini years. Both of them served as administrators during that time, and they dealt with everything from the tragedy of Apollo 1 through the triumph of Apollo 11 and the Apollo 13 emergency, from their own unique perspectives – sort of.

Review: With the help of two other writers, both space historians in their own right, the book is written in a curiously detached third-person perspective, not unlike “Lost Moon”. (It’s interesting to note that, unlike quite a few other biographical and factual books on one subject which diverge in their details, virtually all of these books, including Lovell’s “Lost Moon”, agree completely on the events of Apollo 13.)

NASA & The Exploration Of Space

NASA & The Exploration Of Space Story: NASA’s chief historian charts the beginnings of the agency in the midst of the Cold War, the race to orbit and then to the moon against the Russians, and the evolution of manned spaceflight from Mercury to the Mir/shuttle docking missions. The text is accompanied by artwork from NASA’s archives, ranging from photorealism to abstract impressionism.

Review: Ah, that NASA artwork. With the marvels of real photography and computer animation, some of this book’s paintings, sketches, charcoal drawings and other works may seem a bit dated. But once upon a time, they were the only way you’d ever get to envision a spacecraft as it appears in orbit. Even now, it’s often still the best way to go, and stirs the imagination more than anything else. And when we’re looking at a space program that is, at the time this review was written, stalled until further notice, stirring the imagination would seem to be an absolutely vital thing.

This New Ocean: The Story Of The First Space Age

This New Ocean: The Story Of The First Space Age Story: The author traces the history of space travel from engineering imaginings to WWII missile technology through the planning stages of the International Space Station. Much attention is paid to military funding and applications of the space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as to the political ebb and flow that allowed Apollo to flourish and yet later all but crippled the Space Transportation System, of which the space shuttle was intended to be only a small part.

Review: Thrillingly comprehensive and yet astoundingly cursory in its treatment of some episodes in space history, “This New Ocean” leaves me baffled as to how to assess it, and yet still turning the pages.

I Am Spock

Story: Leonard Nimoy, who certainly needs no introduction, backtracks to his earliest days as an actor, the series of coincidences and connections that led to his most famous role, and the continuiation of that role – and his new role as a prominent director – on the big screen.

Review: In the 1970s, Leonard Nimoy’s first autobigraphical book, I Am Not Spock, aroused equal parts curiosity and ire among the burgeoning Star Trek fandom that was rising during the show’s post-cancellation syndicated run. Nimoy backpedals a lot in the early part of this book, trying to explain that, at the time, he was desperately trying to outrun his famous character’s shadow and prove that he was capable of many other things creatively.

Star Trek Movie Memories

Story: Star Trek’s own William Shatner sits in the captain’s chair once more, this time holding court and spinning tales of the lean years after Star Trek’s cancellation, as well as its unexpectedly successful return via the big screen. These are his voyages.

Review: Despite the relative immunity that biographers and/or autobiographical writers seem to have when telling their side of their respective stories, I’m amazed that Shatner didn’t incite so much as a single lawsuit with his first book, “Star Trek Memories”. It was in that volume that Shatner alleged everything from Nichelle Nichols’ now-well-known affair with Trek creator Gene Roddenberry to Grace Lee “Yeoman Rand” Whitney’s various addictions. That a lot of Shatner’s gossip turned out to be at least partly true in the end was surprising. No doubt his co-stars would’ve had the opportunity to carefully bury these facts when the time came for their own autobiographies.

The City On The Edge Of Forever

Story: Harlan Ellison’s complete original script, with revised drafts, for the legendary Star Trek episode is presented in its entirety, along with lengthy essays by Harlan on the story’s creation and the rewriting of its already storied history by various other parties, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

Review: This volume reprints the original draft, and several subsequent revisions, of Harlan Ellison’s multiple-award-winning, career-defining, critically acclaimed, and seemingly life-ruining Star Trek script, The City On The Edge Of Forever. A lengthy essay opens the book with the full background of the episode’s birth from Harlan’s own inimitable point of view. Numerous people have taken credit for City‘s success over the years, and just as many have been more than happy to lay the blame for any perceived faults in the story at Harlan’s feet. In this book, Harlan lashes out at all of them. Every last one of them. In a way, maybe “lashes out” is too gentle – he positively breathes fire at many of his former colleagues.

A Rock And A Hard Place

Story: The same Starfleet officer exchange program that once put Riker into a life-threatening situation aboard a Klingon vessel now sends the Enterprise’s first officer to the icy planet of Paradise, a remote outpost whose population of colonists are trying to tame its ecosphere. Taking Riker’s place on the Enterprise is Commander Quentin Stone, an officer with a colorful history and a legendary unstable temper. Somehow, Stone has stayed in Starfleet despite this trait which has endangered his career and others’ lives, but his career may not survive a tour with the more rule-bound Picard in command. And on Paradise, unnaturally fierce creatures, an inhospitable environment, and an old friend’s teenage daughter may be the death of Will Riker.

Review: I’ve probably mentioned it once or twice before, but I make little time these days for the Star Trek fiction publishing program. Too many of the novels I’ve read under the imprint of any of the Trek series have turned out to be merciless stinkers, though there was once a time when I did go out of my way to read Peter David’s books. And though many a fan would probably disagree mightily, I still think “A Rock And A Hard Place” may be the best Trek novel ever to hit wood pulp. It captures the flavor of the series and its characters, and it brings a rather wild guest character into the mix to challenge them. (And if you spot a wee bit of a resemblance between Quentin Stone and Mackenzie Calhoun, the captain of David’s later Star Trek: New Frontiers novels, I seriously doubt that it’s a coincidence.)

Star Trek: Ships Of The Line

Story: The computer-generated, hand-painted and photographed images that have graced the numerous Star Trek: Ships Of The Line calendars through the years are collected in a single, large-format volume, each piece accompanied by a descriptive text placing the artwork in the context of the larger Star Trek universe.

Review: As much as I try to avoid reviewing what are essentially “picture books” here, this one was interesting enough to grab my attention. The artwork is impeccable. Featured here are the first full printed rendering of the far-future Enterprise NCC 1701-J, though the prize among the recent works may go to 3-D artist Gabriel Koerner’s impressive redesign of the original 1701, which stretches design elements of past (NX-01) and future (24th century) Enterprises together over the same basic silhouette of the original. Andrew Probert, designer of NCC-1701-D, gives us our first good look at the oft-mentioned but never-seen 1701-D Captain’s Yacht. And there’s a curious picture which ties the fate of the Columbia (NX-02, sister ship of Jonathan Archer’s Enterprise) to the era of the Dominion War (!). Each picture’s accompanying slice of text hints at a bigger story yet untold; few of the pictures attempt to visually “retell” existing stories. I like that – we have the HD remastered episodes of the original TV series for that. Most of the works in this book tell their own stories.