Bill McCay

A somewhat more nuanced story about slavery than SPARTACUS, although still pretty broad strokes (it is Trek after all). I thought the most interesting part was the way that the avian aliens assumed humans weren't intelligent, or were less intelligent, and got drawn into thinking that way even when there was plenty of other evidence...of course, this got me thinking about how species or fantasy races are very bad metaphors for human race.

Huh. One of the few times Picard actually deserves a cover position, imo, and he doesn't get it. but ok, Crusher deserves front & center for being both a mom and a doctor. And the rebel slave does, too... the story is really mostly about them, their overseers, and their 'owners.' I liked it, a fair bit more than other reviewers, apparently.

Anyway, I guess these are 'comfort reads' in the sense that they're familiar characters whom we care about, and we know nothing is going to happen to show more them. So, yes, onward! show less

My first Tom Swift read, and it was quite enjoyable. A change of pace from the many mysteries I like to read. Tom creates a black hole while working on an experiment in his lab, and gets sucked into the void. Meanwhile, an evil Tom Swift from an alternate universe was also working on creating a black hole to escape the law and ends up getting sucked into the good Tom's world. Now it's up to good Tom to get back to his world cause on evil Tom's world he is a wanted felon.

I admit this book built up a great set of suspense... Then dropped the reader on its arse. It ended too quickly, too cleanly, too easily. I felt cheated by this novel's ending. While it was nice to see the Federation run into an alien that wasn't humanoid, it left much to be desired. The book attempted to get all the major characters involved in the storyline, which caused some point of view confusion at times, but still a good brainless read.