2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intricate story, January 7, 2004
This review is from: Enemy Unseen (Star Trek, Book 51) (Mass Market Paperback)
This has a fairly involved story. The Enterprise is hosting an alien delegation and the Federation negotiating team. The aliens have a complex honour system that results in some very amusing misunderstandings. The Federation team includes a spy attempting to sabotage the negotiations, and the alien delegation has another spy simply attempting to wipe them out, with little concern for the Enterprise crew. Essentially this is a murder mystery with a diplomatic subplot. The characters are very strong, well described and vividly written, although only one of the Enterprise regulars, Admiral Kirk, is a major character in the story. One problem I can see is that the character interaction gets so intricate that it might not appeal to people preferring more straightforward presentation. Also, the author's language is fairly intricate in itself. Finally, it is definitely written for a mature audience.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Starts slow, picks up to "good"., July 11, 2003
This review is from: Enemy Unseen (Star Trek, Book 51) (Mass Market Paperback)
First of all, this book is NOT for fans of Mr. Spock; for reasons of her own, the author writes him out of the story early on, and only brings him back for the epilogue. (He is on a leave of absence to attend a scientific conference, and is replaced by a temporary first-officer in training, a character of the author's own devising.) If this concept is not to your liking, you may want to take a pass on this book.
Secondly, the plot is a bit contrived, as are some of the minor plot points. Still, the book is reasonably well-written, and by the end of the story had actually overcome its deficiencies to the extent that I could not say that I didn't find it an enjoyable read. As is not uncommon in mysteries, the main characters seemed unduly slow on the uptake in solving the puzzle, but I suppose that was neccessary to prevent the story from being over too quickly.
All in all, an enjoyable book, but one that doesn't bear too much scrutiny. Accept the flaws and enjoy the read, but looking for holes in the plot and characterization is like shooting fish in a barrel.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
A decent read, September 14, 2010
This review is from: Enemy Unseen (Star Trek, Book 51) (Mass Market Paperback)
Synopsis:
Enemy Unseen is a Star Trek novel that takes place in the Star Trek: The Motion Picture time frame. It follows the Enterprise assigned to ferry a diplomatic mission of a race named the Kaldorni to a territory treaty negotiation. Along for the ride are some Federation diplomats intended to help with the negotiation. The wife of the chief ambassador is an old flame of Captain Kirk's and possibly a spy to boot. With Spock away, Captain Kirk must confront the ambassador's seductive wife, an assassin among the diplomatic party and keep the negations from falling apart. The novel focuses primarily on Captain Kirk.
Review:
My history with Star Trek novels is not as extensive as some. I've read a fair number of the original series ones (maybe 10) and about half as many of the TNG novels. Star Trek novels tend to fall into the "light read" category. You really don't expect great literature from them. But then, that's sort of true with most TV spin off novels.
While few expect excellent writing in their Star Trek novels, this one manages to be one of the more readable ones. Believe me when I say that I've found not a few Star Trek novels to be awful. This one is fairly entertaining, if not exactly outstanding literature. The story holds together well enough and provides a mediocre and somewhat entertaining mystery, if also being just a little convoluted. I did have some issues with it obviously.
I don't feel that the author got Kirk's "voice" down exactly, and for whatever reason, Spock is almost completely absent from this story, replaced by a fellow named Patrick Brady as first officer and a Deltan named Tenaida as the science officer. Someone named Commander Layton also serves as Kirk's confidant, but she's barely fleshed out at all, making me wonder what I missed; maybe previous novels. Of the original crew, only Kirk and McCoy really get much face time. The rest are barely shown at all. Spock is replaced with a computer; Literally. For some, this might be a disappointment.
As I mentioned earlier, this novel is more than a little convoluted. There are a lot of threads to keep track of, and the novel focuses heavily on new unknown characters who have little relevancy to the audience. I'm not sure why the choice, perhaps to mix it up a bit. Most Star Trek novels seem to be pretty heavily focused on Spock, Kirk and McCoy. The down side here is that since the new characters are not heavily fleshed out, there isn't a lot to make the reader care about them despite the danger they're in.
One thing I did like was the alien interactions. They weren't spectacular, but I've always liked it when authors try to create alien races with truly alien cultures. The Kaldorni are not entirely this sort of race, but they have their moments with their talk about universal harmony and the like.
Overall, this is a readable novel and one that I found mildly entertaining but its winding story, new characters and the like hurt it. Also, fans of Spock will be disappointed as he's barely in the novel at all.
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