Fire Ship (Book Review)
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If the Star Trek television series are to be considered a moneymaking franchise, then the line of novels from Pocket Books are doubly so. A huge fan of the TV series and movies, I've never fully warmed up to the books. For me, the most attractive part of Gene Roddenberry's creation is its role as a vehicle for social commentary. For the most part, the books have never really managed to capture the spirit of the show; save the works of Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and a handful of others.
Nevertheless, time and again I find myself reading them, always seeking out the rare gem. Despite the rush to push more and more Trek offerings on to the market in recent years, that sparkle has become more—rather than less—difficult to find. The latest trend is to publish multi-part concepts so as to bring the reader—and their wallet—back month after month.
One recent series was conceived of by Pocket Books' Star Trek headman, John J. Ordover, and frequent Trek author Dean Wesley Smith. The series, entitled "The Captain's Table," attempts to deliver stories through each captain's own words—an intriguing idea that comes at the Trek concept from a new angle.
But does it work? For the most part, yes. Working my way through the series I have enjoyed the offerings from TOS, TNG, and DS9. (These I read quite a while ago and so will come back and review them later.) Would the Voyager installment live up to its promise?
Penned by Diane Carey, Fire Ship certainly promised to be one of the better Trek books. Carey is one of the few authors that consistently puts together the better novels for the Pocket Books line, though more often than not she does her playing in the domain of Kirk and Spock. I wasn't sure going in how her thorough knowledge of prior Trek would translate into the newer arena of the Delta Quadrant.
Having finished the book, my verdict would be "so-so." When I rate
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