Greg Brodeur

The Riddled Past - There's a distress call from a dilithium planet's outpost and the DaVinci gets assigned to go and check out the situation. They find nearly all the outpost (except for the power station) destroyed and only two survivors. They set about trying to figure out why it was destroyed. I was happy that the linguist on board, Bart F. had a bigger role, hopefully every few books the authors/editors remember that Carol A. and Bart F. exist in the book too. A good story.

Here There Be Monsters - I really like most of what Keith R.A. DeCandido writes and this story wasn't any different. This takes place after the Star Trek novel series Gateways. I haven't read the series yet, but the story didn't give away any big unexpected twists from the novel series so I'm still on track to go back and read the original novel series still. Add to that the fact that ASL was mentioned in the story and this was a very fun story.

Ambush - This was a fast paced story. Lots of action and interesting ways to think outside the box for the crew members of the DaVinci ship. A fast read and a great read.

Some Assembly Required - That was different. There's a computer that a prospective Federation planet has acquired. But that's the usual part of the story. The interesting part is the race that bought the computer. The authors didn't just change what color blood or how many fingers, but went deep into a totally different mindset for these aliens. It was awesome!… (more)

I seem to be in a reading period where the Star Trek books I try to read are duds (i.e. Grounded). This book wasn't the worst Star Trek tome that I've read, but it was quite confusing when it came to the plot. As the novel went along the plot did smooth out, but it took awhile and never fully became clear like the books by Michael Jan Friedman or Peter David.

It also had other things in common with Peter David books. one of the subplots concerned Riker and Troi. This author tried to have the interaction have both the sexual tension that was present on the TV show as well as the camaraderie and friendship, but, in the book, it wasn't happening. At some times they seemed too snippy at each other, and then too funny for the situation. THis wasn't like "Imzadi", not by a long shot.

Also, all the characters, both the Enterprise crew, and the newly created for this story, seemed angry all the time, and then all of a sudden the anger was shut off and everyone was friends. I get why he did it, but it came off on the page as choppy. A three star story, but one that's on the low of three stars not the high.… (more)