Customer Reviews

From the Depths (Star Trek, Book 66)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a very good story about the dangers of fanatacism, even in a good cause. It is well told, with good pacing, excellent action, fine characterization, and only a few places (fewer than the average mass-market paperback) where it could have used a bit more proofreading to eliminate sloppy errors in language. The only thing that keeps it from a five-star rating is that, as far as I'm concerned, the ending was a bit too easy; it's difficult to explain why I feel that way without giving away too much of a spoiler, but I feel that it was never sufficiently explained how Kirk solved ONE of the problems he was faced with. It was just assumed that once the other problem was solved, that one would go away too, which seems to me highly unlikely.

This is one of the most really SF-like Star Trek books in the series. I say this because in this books, next to the normal first contact episodes, the ever present klingon warriors, the torpedo's, the bantering between the 3 leading characters, in this book two interesting alien societies are sketched. Esspecially the strongly individualistic culture of geneticly manipulated humans, that have adopted themselfs to their tasks, their waterful environnement and their own wishes is fascinating.

This book was fun to read and is now proudly part of my growing collection of star trek books.

Star Trek plots are rarely very deep or detailed. Kirk falls for all the women, shares some when he can; all manage to be scantily clothed (sorry no pictures -- use your imagination). The Klingons are two-dimensional revenge-seekers. The societies the Enterprise helps (or interferes with) are sprinkled with "aliens". In this case, though, let's remember that when Star Trek first played, a multi-racial team was unusual. From The Depths updates that topic to a far future where The Federation sees itself in the forefront of multi-species tolerance. But as with all good science fiction, the unreal future is a metaphor for the commonplace present. Are mutations -- read handicaps, differing abilities, different ways of organizing society -- are some better than others? Should we be proud of ours and denigrate those of others? The plot, which starts with a war of attrition and only one side humanized, twists and turns to a surprising and humbling outcome. As always, a good Star Trek episode makes you think, while being fun to read.

This book, to me, was fantastic until the very end just falls apart and everything is suddenly fine again. The world created was very beautiful and diverse and described in great detail. I enjoyed that part.

But there's no action. None. It's basically a lot of romantic tension for Kirk and then in the last 40 or so pages of the book the action happens... and then passes. Like that. I like to expect more action than that in my Star Trek books.

However, I am giving it four stars because the world created and the characterization was better than average. I fell in love with the world and there are decent roles for Kirk and Spock. Not much McCoy. It was like reading a fantastic novel, and then having the last half of the book chopped up and summarized into less than two chapters. That wasn't a HUGE deterrent to the book itself, but if you are looking for loads of action, you might want to find another book. If you are a huge science geek like myself, the book redeems itself with the planet.

First ST novel I couldn't finish. The story is spread too thin over too many narratives, the main cast act unbelievably, and the original characters are irritating.

And maybe it's a pet peeve, but why don't people bother to think up good names for planets and cities? Obvious derivatives never sound as cool as they're supposed to. Okeanos? For an ocean planet? Really?

The basic plot and action sequences are actually quite good, but the annoying libertarian (corporate anarchy) theme and the inability of the author to put down the thesaurus and just use words that do not require a look up every other page leaves this a three star ST TOS adventure

Another reviewer commented on the humor in this novel. I would comment on that as well, if I could find any humor at all.

It may be an average Kirk vs. Klingons novel but It's no average. It's great.

This book has humor and has more action.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This is the point in the Star Trek series where the books start getting better. Some older ones by Lee Correy and Marshak and Culbreath were terrible.