Customer Reviews

Chainmail (Gateways, Book 2)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the second novel featuring Diane Carey's crew of the ship "Challenger" first introduced in the novel by the same name that capped off the Belle Terre series.

Carey has long been one of the best Trek authors of the lot, and when given her own canvas to work off of, she is simply excellent. Her ship and characters--a motley band of Starfleet officers and indigenous aliens serving aboard a patched-together starship--realize all the complexity and storytelling potential that the Trek series Voyager promised but never delivered. The characters are sharply-drawn, the dialogue crackles, and the action leaves you breathless.

Best of all, the story is genuinely creative and original. Unlike many Trek novels, which simply recycle plots from old episodes, and other novels, Carey's story is truly imaginative.

It's easier to understand if you've read "Challenger" (though not necessary), but still a great book. Here's hoping for a quick return of Nick Keller and the crew of the "Challenger."

If you enjoy a book that jumps straight into the action with both feet and hits the ground running then you should be very happy with "Chainmail", the second Gateways novel. Written by Diane Carey this is the Challenger installment in the series. If you are not familiar with the Challenger crew from the New Earth book "Challenger" you definitely want to read that first and become familiar with the characters or it would be very difficult to enjoy "Chainmail". "Chainmail" includes no familiar Star Trek characters. The story is populated with people entirely created from the imagination of the author.

Nick Keller and crew are the lone Starfleet presence in the recently settled Belle Terre sector. A very different type of crew on a very unique vessel. So it seems appropriate that Keller and company find themselves slap dab in the middle of a really weird situation. What are they to do with a ship full of animated corpses that seems bound and determined to destroy them, and what is it doing in their little corner of space anyway? It's a mystery all right.

This is the type of novel a reader either likes or loathes. A story you really have to pay attention to. Definitely not a light read. I enjoyed the plot immensely and the characters. But at the same time I found the writing style to be a bit too descriptive, very typical Diane Carey. The story is filled with confusion at times, and then suddenly there is a startling moment of clarity. "Chainmail" is certainly different that's for sure. So if you feel in the mood for something different, a mystery/adventure with a true Science Fiction touch and unique characters give it a try. If you're looking for a Star Trek novel of the kind you are typically used to then I would pass on "Chainmail".

This novel doesn't have much to do with the first one in the Gateways series (at least, nothing that is apparent now). If you haven't read the New Earth series, especially "Challenger", you'll be lost. And if you like to read about Kirk and the rest of TOS crew, you'll be disappointed -- they're nowhere to be found. But I think this is a good thing.

One problem with Star Trek books is that the authors have to use characters, locations, and situations that are already familiar to us from hours of TV and movies. You miss the creativity of sci-fi epics where the writer shapes the whole universe (Dune, Heinlein, etc)

Which is why I enjoy the Challenger novels (and Peter David's Excalibur series) -- the authors are free to create totally new crews, and getting to know new characters is exciting.

For instance, in "Challenger", we saw a lot of self-doubt and second-guessing from Nick Keller. There's less of that in "Chainmail" -- he's more confident and more assertive. We see him growing as a Starfleet officer.

This book starts off fairly slowly, and early on there are some chapters written from the aliens' perspective where you have no idea what's going on -- a device I'm not fond of. However, by about halfway through the book all the threads of the story come together, and I couldn't put it down. It's got all the elements that make TOS my favorite Star Trek franchise: a clash of cultures, a mysterious, ancient and powerful civilization, eccentric characters, and a minimum of techno-babble. The characters rely on their brains and diplomacy rather than on technology.

Unfortunately, the novel is just a first part, with a "to be continued" at the end. But at least the book was good enough that I'm anxiously awaiting the continuation.

There are a great many things to be said on the subject of this book, both positive and negative. On the one hand, I am no fan of the writing of Diane Carey; in this book, as she frequently does, she tries very hard to make creative use of the language, and generally fails miserably, succeeding only in using words incorrectly. Her idea of creative description is much like that of Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carrol; she insists that words mean whatever she intends them to mean, rather than what their actual definitions are, or even what a reasonable person would consider a plausible connotation. (She continues to insist that "sniggering" can be used when one means "niggling", for example, the third book of hers in which I've seen this usage.)

On the plus side, her strength has always been in her plot ideas and her characters, and both of those trends, too, continued in this book. Her characters are fascinating, her plot classic Trek, and the philosophical debate that made for a large part of the creative tension of the book was actually handled well and evenhandedly, and did nothing to detract from the action of the book.

On the down side again, there is the drawback that all books in this "Gateways" series will have, presumably until the last installment: they will all end on a cliffhanger, rather than being self-contained stories.

So it's a difficult call: If you don't mind a book with no familiar Star Trek characters (that is, characters from any of the TV series), don't mind a cliffhanger ending, and can tolerate the author's misuse of the language, this book has a good plot and fascinating characters. But if any of those caveats would put you off, by all means, avoid this book.

As a cog in the Gateways series this book, while well written, doesn't stand on its own in very annoying ways.

First, it looks as tho the author's New Earth Series had one or more books leading up to this one, and the book previous ended on a cliff hanger. It is very confusing when reading a book to come in on the resolution of another book's cliffhanger without having read that book. This spoiled the beginning of this book for a good ways into it until the reader finally has enough information to kind of catch up on what happened previously.

Second, this also hampers the reader's ability to identify and empathize with the characters. The crew of this ship has quite a few 'weird' characters. That in itself isn't bad, of course. It can be quite interesting. However, the introduction explaining why these characters are weird, why that's OK, and why that is interesting, is lost somewhere before this book started. So if you are reading this as part of the New Earth series, you'll be fine. If you are just reading the Gateway series, you're left in the dark.

Finally, none of these Gateways books has an ending in the book. You must buy book seven to resolve the crisis at the end of each book. This is a very low class tactic, in my opinion.

Due to this story fragmentation by the author and publisher, what might otherwise have been a very fine book is ineptly damaged. Without these greedy tactics that really make this book only the middle of a story, it might have been 5 stars. Since it cannot stand on its own, I have to dock it a star for the missing beginning and another for the missing ending.

As to the story itself, as in many Trek books there is a new alien race. Part of the success of a Trek book involves how successfully the author carries out the details of the aliens, and here Diane Carey does a good job making them believable and interesting. The story is exciting and quite different. If you can get over the fact that the book lacks a beginning or an ending, you'll enjoy it. LOL

I found myself unable to stop reading and going back to my room again and again to see wht would happen next. I wasnt the biggest fan of New Earth, but keller made quite an impression on me in the Challenger book. Here, theres no hand holding and no easy reading. any eye closers and bored folks need not apply, this is teh most challenging and unexpected story format In some time. Even though I love NEW FRONTIER, its not quite this challenge filled.

I am amazed I liked this so much, because I see so clearly in my head Bones and Data when they speak in the easy, familiar books I have read, and this is all new stuff, and like algebra instead of multiplication.

I have read every single pocket books star trek novel of every series, so I know of what i speak.

Out of the 4 or 5 hundred novels to date, this easily makes the top 50, and just might be in the top 25.

Bring on more Keller, Diane! You got all the magic!

This book is the continuation of the Belle Terre book series. We get to see what's happened since the last time we were there. When Kirk handed over the responsiblilities to the Challenger.

I wasn't too impressed with this book. It was slow to read and I thought that it needed to be later in the series. We needed the continuation of the first book next to conclude and wrap up the loose ends of book one.

Now we have more loose ends and this can be very confusing to the reader of a series.

I guess marketing now is taking over the Star Trek book series with no reguard to the reader. What a shame...

I usually like Diane Carey's work, but this one is a real eye lid closer. I drags and is a very slow read.

I am not a fan of these mini-series books with multiple authors, but someone at the book publishers is... another way to get your money.

Diane, you can do better than this. You rushed this story and you needed to get it "right"... I wasn't impressed.

I've read all of the paperbacks, and this one is not a good one. Save your money folks, pass this one by.

This novel like many people have said here is pretty confusing at times and you really have to pay attention. I thought there was a good 100 pages there they could have cut out. The part where they are on the grave ship was a little repetitive and the way Carey constantantly reminds us that Nick Keller is the "cowboy" in this sector could have been cut down. I found most of the characters interesting such as the first officer. The Zoa character to me was totally unrealisitc, on any other ship she would have been long gone.
Another aspect that was annoying was the characters acted at times people from this era and not people from the future. Specifically the way they speak, the lingo they use is straight from the 20th century. A little is o.k. but not constantly. Not even the people from the TV series Enterprise act like this even though they are much closer to us in time.
Many people have stated it and needs repeating there are moments that the novel achieves clarity and that is when it is at it's best. the cliffhanger in particular is very good better than the one in book one in my opinion. The sad part of this book is there is a good story in there dying to come out but better editing might have helped.

...any more than I do the "New Fontier" cycle. Both are built on a premise of a Long John Silver clone skipper and his raffish crew of square wheels. There's a growly amazonian officer here who decks her captain without really being in mutiny--presumably it's "for his own good". In the "New Earth" series this book is a sequel to, Starfleet pulls the cliche Cold War era stunt of taking sides in a nasty regional conflict in which neither side--Blood Many or the Kauld--are particularly civilized. In this book, a Bood Many "guest officer" tries to impose his culture's strictures on a Fleet vessel when an officer disobeys an order--their penalty for that is death...This is definitely beneath what I've come to expect from Diane Carey...

I went right to this book from Book Six of the "New Earth" series, because I couldn't wait to read more about OTC Nick Keller and the *Challenger.* This story did not disappoint me, though there were moments I had trouble getting my head around. The aliens from the other side of the Gateway were introduced rather abruptly, so it was tough reading for a while. But I stuck with it, and it was well worth it. This story has substance and purpose, and it reads like a breeze (well, sometimes a breeze through a stable, but a breeze nonetheless). You can't beat Diane Carey's writing style, and with this one she's pulled off some mighty good ones.

Don't know exactly what it is about Keller, Savannah, Zane, Zoa, and Shucorion, but I'm connecting better with this crowd than I did the New Frontier crew. Sorry, Peter!

The only disappointment for me, I guess, was that the ending made me think I should be reading the "Gateways" series in order rather than skipping around. No matter, I'm still skipping around. If it looks like I'm missing something by doing that, oh well. Won't be the first time.

Two warnings: 1) Anyone still hunting for familiar Trek characters (or even familiar Belle Terre characters) will not find them in this book. On the other hand, if you loved Keller & Crew in Book Six of the "New Earth" series and are looking for more adventures from them, this is definitely the one to read. 2) This apparently ain't the last we'll be hearing of *Challenger.* And to that I say yee-haw!