Greg Cox

Though I liked the show a lot — minus a couple of character caveats, this is the first book I’ve ever tackled in the Star Trek universe dealing with the Voyager crew. This also happens to be one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve ever experienced in the book franchise based on the various shows. Whether it’s the Original Star Trek, Next Generation, or Deep Space Nine, everyone knows the quality of writing and stories for the paperbacks of their continuing adventures in that universe can run from dreadful to really good — but sadly, heavily weighted toward the former. Usually the characterization is off, or the story is lackluster, or the writing is terrible. I’m ecstatic to say that NONE of those things apply here.

Greg Cox has done a marvelous job of capturing the essence of the characters from the show, and he’s wrapped them in an entertaining and enjoyable story that while no new shakes, is like a splendid episode we simply weren’t allowed to see. Sure, if you critically examine it upon finishing, it has some standard similarities to an oft-repeated narrative — a seeming paradise with a dark underbelly — but it’s so well done and so entertaining, while you’re reading you simply don’t care. There’s humor and drama, a few thrills, a few dark moments but not so much it takes away from the good feeling throughout that you’re “watching” a lost episode.

Perhaps Cox’s greatest achievement is the way he chose to criss-cut the story, seamlessly flowing from one portion of the crew to the next to give us, the “viewer,” a cohesive overall picture, just as the film editors did on the show. Other writers in the Star Trek universe often choose to focus on one or two main characters, perhaps to make it easy on themselves, but Cox takes the road less traveled, giving most of the crew a chance to shine, and moments that provide us humor or drama, even a tiny bit of insight. It makes this one feel full and well-rounded, much more like a terrific episode where everyone is involved. That brings me to my next point:

By including Harry, Paris and Chakotay, Tuvok and Kes, Neelix and The Doctor, and especially Kes, this lessens the role the grating Janeway has to play in this. If you’re one of the millions like myself who laments that producers did not cast Erin Gray in the role of Janeway, and went with Kate Mulgrew instead, you don’t have to worry about the character as she was written, or as portrayed by Mulgrew, nearly ruining another great episode with her caustic, Kathryn Hepburn-level grating voice, and condescending personality. To be fair, that was the way Janeway was written, but I truly believe Gray would have brought more to the role, and perhaps found a way to dissuade the six people who wrote her character from turning her into such an infuriating mess. With her “screen time” wisely lessened here, though she does play an important role as Captain, she slides down the literary palate much easier here than in the show.

On the technical side, I did run into a number of typos in the print version — either an actual typo, or a “to” missing in a couple of sentences, for example — but they appear in as many mainstream books as they do self-published, despite what you hear from reviewers trying to pull the wool over your eyes. In this case, as is so often the case, it was ticky-tack stuff not relevant enough, nor frequent enough to ever become a distraction, or even an annoyance. And, this was a pretty big book as well. I only mention it as a preemptive strike because someone else is certain to laser in on it. Trust me, it’s nothing. If it was, I’d tell you.

I won’t go into fine detail about the plot on this rare occasion, since the premise is well explained on the back cover of the book and in the introduction of the listing, but suffice it to say I LOVED this one, and had an enjoyable time flying through it. For those wondering about the time frame on this one, Kes is still with Neelix, and Paris and Torres aren't even beginning to come together yet. A great read; a blast, in fact, and a book I’ll be keeping around so I can read it again at a later date. That says it all.… (more)

Let me start by saying again, as I did for the previous books in the series, that I love The Librarians. I think the show is better than it has any right to be, and a large part of that is due to the great casting. The movies were good as well, but I think the show really took the overall story world to a new level. I'm glad to be able to read these books, though I wish they were a little more clear about where they fit into the series. This one pretty clearly happens after the end of season 3, though beyond that, I can't say for sure. And while the book does attempt to give some basic understanding of the overall setting and backstory of the Library and the Librarians, I think this book is best read by someone who has seen at least the TV show. Knowledge of the movies isn't really necessary for this book.

Now to the story itself. I liked that the Librarians mostly worked together in this book; the way they play off each other is a big part of why the show is so good. I didn't care for the first chunk of the book that dealt with the end of an ongoing case. While that kind of thing is common in an episodic format like this, it seemed to drag on way too long. I just wanted to get onto the main story. Something I noticed more in this book is that the characters aren't coming through all that well. I think the reason I thought they were before was simply because I'd watched the show recently and could apply the recent memories of their personalities to the book. But the further I get from watching the show, the more I realize that, absent of knowledge of the show, the characters are fairly 2-dimensional. Add to that the way that the audiobook narrator tends to make everyone sound like they're almost always scared or unhappy in some way, and it just wasn't a very enjoyable read. In the end, the next time I go back through the Librarians movies and series, I'll probably read through these books again along the way; however, I'll most likely read them myself, instead of listening to the audiobooks. Though the books aren't as good as the show overall, I do think that fans of the show who are sad it's over might enjoy having the extra "episodes" from these books.… (more)

Let me start by saying again, as I did for the previous book in the series, that I love The Librarians. I think the show is better than it has any right to be, and a large part of that is due to the great casting. The movies were good as well, but I think the show really took the overall story world to a new level. I'm glad to be able to read these books, though it's frustrating to me that they're so vague about where they fit in the series. This one seems to take place after season 3, but while there are plenty of references to Prospero (and a spoiler for the end of season 2) and definitely to Dulaque (from season 1), there aren't any references to Apep from season 3. Plus, a major development for Cassandra that took place at the end of season 3 definitely doesn't come into play in this book, so it seems it can't have happened. Maybe it's just supposed to be vague, but I would have preferred to be able to read it at the right time while watching the show. And while the book does attempt to give some basic understanding of the overall setting and backstory of the Library and the Librarians, I think this book is best read by someone who has seen at least the TV show. Knowledge of the movies may not be necessary.

Now to the story itself. Overall it was decent. I didn't mind the Librarians being separated as much as others did, partly because they still each had a counterpart of sorts to work with. I thought some of the story was weak, for example the nursery rhyme connection to the man in Florida was a major stretch, and for a while, I kept expecting someone to say they were wrong about which nursery rhyme they'd associated it with. The stakes were as high as they get, and there was a bit of a twist that I only figured out a moment before Baird did. In the end, there things I liked more about it than the previous book, and things I like less about it. This book had all the campy fun of the show, and I like that the characters' personalities come through on the page like they do on the small screen. I still don't care for the narrator's breathy tendencies, and if I do re-read this series in the future, I'll probably skip the audiobooks. Still, I'm enjoying this extension of the show.

Fact check: Jenkins explains that "Mother Goose" is more of a title, passed down through generations, the bearer of which is meant to guard the spells that end up being written down and distributed as nursery rhymes. Elizabeth Goose was her generation's Mother Goose, and a real-life person, however her maiden name was Elizabeth Foster, and she married the Goose name, so it's weird she was coincidentally that generation's Mother Goose (and that this isn't brought up in the book). Also, Jenkins says that "tourists in Boston flock to what’s claimed to be the grave of the ‘real’ Mother Goose, blithely unaware that she was actually only one in a long line of Mother Gooses, carrying on an ancient tradition." But the grave in Boston that has become a tourist attraction is actually the grave of MARY Goose, unrelated to the woman whose rhymes prompted the publishing. Mary Goose was actually the first, late wife of Elizabeth's husband.… (more)