Customer Reviews

Challenger (Star Trek, New Earth, Book 6)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book with two frames of mind. On the one hand, I wanted it to satisfy as a fun Star Trek adventure, and as the wrap-up to the New Earth story. On the other, I knew that Challenger was designed to set up a potential spin-off series featuring an all-new ship and crew, along the lines of Peter David's Star Trek New Frontier series (which I have just started reading and enjoying). So, with that in mind . . .

Challenger seemed to get off to a real slow start. I was about a quarter of the way through the book before I got hooked. Once that happened, however, I was very hooked indeed. Diane Carey managed to take a number of seemingly unrelated elements from across the various New Earth books and brought them together in a fairly satisfying way. I don't think this makes the book the ideal jumping-on point, but enough is explained that readers who just want to see how the Challenger adventures start shouldn't feel too lost.

If I hadn't known that this was a sort of pilot for Challenger, I would probably have been disappointed at the somewhat minimal role that Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise take. However, once the future crew of the Challenger finally started taking center stage, those thoughts vanished. Ms. Carey has put together a collection of colorful, likeable characters. With a healthy mix of Starfleet officers, civilians, and aliens, things should be diverse and interesting enough for a long while. Here's hoping we see more of these folks in the future!

This is the sixth and last of the series. However, this one would not stand alone as well as the others as it ties a lot of unfinished lose ends together. We learn more about the Olivium and its thefts and again meet the big black energy absorbing cloud moving through space. This was a well written book and had more good interaction between the Start Trek crew. A definite read for all Star Trek fans.

I forced myself through the middle four novels in this series ("New Earth"), and I can't really say I'm sorry I did, though it was a struggle. Book One, which introduced us to a literal "wagon train to the stars," was a clear winner, but the books in between had me thinking "Oh, no! Not AGAIN!"

Nevertheless, I fell in love with those poor, beleaguered colonists on Belle Terre, and I'm sincerely glad I made it through to this last novel. Not only does it help tie up loose ends from the previous novels, it's a rousing story in its own right, introducing us to a whole new band of misfits, not unlike Peter David's "New Frontier" bunch. Once again, I applaud Diane Carey's writing style, most especially her portrayal of non-regulation-boot wearin' OTC Nick Keller and his cobbled-together ship, the U.F.P.F. *Challenger.*

She speaks well, too, of the starship *Enterprise* in one of the finest paragraphs in the whole book: "Holding her much-reduced family in the petal of her cupped hand, the starship that had protected them for years, extrinsic proof of their high-priced wins, streaked through space pretending there wasn't a strain on her bones at this (warp nine) speed. *Enterprise* gracefully turned her shoulder to the insult, proving herself once more not just a jumper but a workhorse." You just can't get any better than that.

But wait, you can! *Challenger* has bled into yet another series of novels, "Gateways." You'll find the reluctant OTC (NOT captain) Keller and his intrepid crew in Book Two, "Chainmail," written by My Girl, Diane Carey.

With Challenger, the New Earth saga comes to a very nice finish. All plot lines are tied up (some unfortunately so), a new ship and crew take over from the Enterprise, and all is well. All being well is the problem. I dont know if this was set up to be a story on it's own, or a launch of yet a new Star Trek series. As a finale it comes short of target, but works great if it is an introductory tale of the Challenger and her crew. This particular ship and crew I wouldnt mind seeing again, just like those of the Excalibur. These new faces are fun, a refreshing change from the same adventures of Kirk, Spock, and company. I hope a visit to the Sagitarius cluster comes again soon.

I think this series has plodded along for too long already. I snatched this book right away, because I wanted to know what happened, but the story line just keeps dragging on. Now that someone else has come to take care of Belle Terre I think the Enterprise should be able to leave more easily.

The best part of this book was not the plot, but the writing. It sounded like reading an old Western novel. Worth a try, but don't get too excited.

The "New Earth" series was bogging down over the course of six books, but this book brings just about everything so far to a head. Maybe this was just too long a series for the story idea involved--it was a big one, but maybe not this big. But in this book, Billy Maidenshore-a rogue who makes Harry Mudd pale by comparison (he's more like a composite of Angus Thermopyle and Nick Succorso from Stephen Donaldson's "Gap" series)-pushes the envelope a bit too far and discovers the hard way that Uhura is no one to be trifled with. There's the young first officer of a ship whose captain's instability gets the vessel destroyed, but team him with Scotty, plus an alien POW, and he reminds you of Kirk when he was that age. But Kirk never accomplished the scratch-building of a warship from salvaged parts, even with the redoubtable Scotsman. There's the conflict of the Blood and the Kauld, who have been at war so long that it's practically a secular religion to both cultures. The appearance through the course of the series of the Federation people, who don't seem to think it's important to wipe out other cultures as the only way to survive, has always puzzled the combatants-until both sides need the Feds to help them against a new enemy. Kin yew say "common cause"? I knew yew could. The Belle Terre colonists themselves transcend their xenophobia and their total absorption in their own problems to help the "captain because he needed to be" build his makeshift vessel. If this series could have been cut down to a trilogy, all three volumes could have been as strong as this one.

As usual, Diane Carey comes up with a very good storyline. As usual, her word choice is somewhat awkward and clumsy from trying too hard to use the language creatively. Unlike her usual fare, however, in this case, it's just somewhat awkward, not flat-out wrong most of the time; other than a few too many typos (which is hardly unusual these days in mass-market paperbacks; it's hardly unique to Diane Carey) there were very few instances in this book where I could say with absolute confidence that the word she had chosen was the WRONG word for what she was trying to convey, although there were still numerous times when I found her word choice jarring.

The only other major flaw that I have to quibble about is one that I should have been commenting on for the entire series, but it only really struck me in this book: they make such an issue out of being sensor blind during "gamma night", and how dangerous it is to move the ship during that time. Certainly, it would be an unneccessary risk at most times, and therefore one that it would be foolish to take. But in an emergency (say, while under attack) it would certainly be worth the risk, given that (as is pointed out in an unrelated discussion in the book) space is so vast, and so, for the most part, EMPTY, that entire galaxies can pass through one another without collision. As such, the odds of actually running into something large enough to get past the navigational deflectors while flying blind is about as likely as, say, being killed by a Siberian Tiger while walking the steets of Des Moines. And that's WITHOUT having had an opportubnity to map where you're going beforehand; once you're in-system, and have had a couple of 20-hour periods to map the area, establishing where all major masses are, what their trajectories are, their speeds and accellerations, it should be perfectly simple for a ship with computers like those the Enterprise has to travel anywhere within-system trivially, with little risk of meeting anything large enough to be a problem. Not to mention the fact that most masses in a planetary system travel in the plane of the ecliptic, so if one were simply to move "vertically" out of that plane, there would be virtually nothing to hit.

Travelling blind through space, even at high warp speed, is NOT like driving blind down a city street. It's more like driving blind on a perfectly paved, almost empty 80-acre parking lot. Only more so.

After more or less trudging my way through the first novel in the New Earth series, "Wagon Train to the Stars" where, quite uncharacteristically, Diane Carey's writing just didn't mesh and had nothing but pacing problems, "Challenger" brought about a quite welcome relief. Back in form with her usual style of writing, "Challenger" is a true joy to read as the pacing is "dead on" and the story just flows. I particularly enjoyed the fact that she carried the main plot and two sub plots in this story and brought all three of them together for a somewhat anticlimactic, but highly intriguing conclusion.

The cover art for "Challenger" is perfect, as was the cover art for the entire series.

The premise:

Shaking off the events of the previous novel "Thin Air," Captain Kirk and crew are quite expectant as their relief is on its way in the form of the USS Peleliu, who are expected to stand as the Starfleet authority in the Occult system for the next two years.

As the USS Peleliu is headed for Belle Terre though, she is suddenly attacked by the All Kauld, during gamma night, and her captain, Roger Lake starts showing signs of mentally cracking after he'd been exposed to an undetectable virus, some time before this mission began. Weakened but not destroyed, the Peleliu comes limping into the Occult system. The first officer was also killed, leaving the second officer, Lieutenant Nick Keller, to deal with the problems set before him; a nearly destroyed Starship and a mentally unstable captain.

At Belle Terre, Captain Kirk and Spock are dealing with a whole new issue; mysterious, inter-dimensional probes that are impervious to phaser fire are taking the quantum olivium and stuffing it back into the Quake moon.

Billy Maidenshore, originally imprisoned earlier in the series has now freed himself and he's taken over an olivium runner known as the Pandora's Box, which had also been converted into a prison ship. Along with his control of the ship and olivium mining, he's taken Uhura and McCoy captive.

Diane Carey beautifully rolls all of these events into a solid, well told, fast paced novel in which Captain Kirk must find a way of stopping these mysterious probes from stealing the olivium, Lt. Commander Nick Keller has to deal with the destruction of his ship and his crazed captain and Uhura and McCoy must find a way to stop Billy Maidenshore.

I highly recommend this novel to any and all fans of Star Trek fiction! Even if you find it difficult or impossible to make it through the first few books of the New Earth series, I believe "Challenger" can be read on its own. {ssintrepid}

I, unlike many, enjoyed the New Earth series, for the most part. True, the plotlines did get repetitive after a while, but many of the characters throughout proved very interesting.

If I had to make a negative comment at all about New Earth, I would say that it lacked what has really lured folks into these Summer six-parters...the crossovers. I've always enjoyed how the different crews all figure into a particular storyline.

Anyway, not to dwell on the negative...this was a great book. I like the fact that we have yet another new crew to enjoy, with a wonderful cast of characters. I hope we see a lot more of them. In fact, this is what we need more of...new stories of the Challenger and Excalibur crews. We get far too little, and this is what REALLY keeps me coming back for more. As for creating TV series about either of these crews, I may be in the minority, but I absolutely HATE the idea. Let's not let our imaginations be watered down by a television producer's vision of what these characters "should" be. I can't wait to see Keller, Shucorion, Zoa, Zane and Savannah be further developed. Way to go Diane Carey.

I was getting a little down on the New Earth series. After a great beginning with "Wagon Trail to the Stars", the series became repetitive with "Oh NO, trouble, prepare to evacuate the planet, yet again". This book had none of that foolishness. Taking center stage was a new group of Not-Ready-For-Primetime heroes that gel and form the next great adventures. This is a diverse group that doesn't fit the typical Star Trek mold yet, a group that I soon began to care about and hopefully, will have further opportunities to learn more about. It is my hope that with the demise of Star Trek television that this new jumping on point would lend itself nicely to television. A new crew of fresh faces wouldcut production (salary) cost and make for great stories. I enjoyed this book, look forward to further adventures, and hope that enough of that famous Star Trek support get behind these characters and let Paramount know we need are Star Trek fix.