Customer Reviews

The Escape (Star Trek Voyager, No 2)

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

 

 

The Escape

Review By Roger D. Noriega


Alcawell, planet in the Delta Quadrant along Voyager's course to Earth, that is over nine billion years old and home to a race of many a number over the age of the planet and all alive at once. Planet overcrowding is a thing of the past . . .

Watchman Drickel is called to duty once again: over ten years in Real Time since his last call. Where? A time-breach in Period 889. The time-jump-point is one hour after the planet-hoppers' incursion. Another vacuum ship in orbit and it is Drickel's job is to scare away the others - just as he has many times before. Torres, Kim, and Neelix board one of the many shuttles abandoned on this planet and accidentally activate it - they are sent to a time far away from their own. Voyager came to this planet in search of preciously needed raw materials on Neelix's advice. Now they find their away-team missing and Tuvok, Paris, and Seska discover ghosts - just as Neelix warned. Captain Janeway must solve the mystery and retrieve the lost away-team.

Real Time. Planet-hoppers. Vacuum Ships. Temporal Disturbances. 800 Violations. 600 Violations. 400 Violations. Control. Old Pointed Ears. Black Period. Red Period. No need to fret, the vocabulary will come to you as you read along. Here is a poignant example of the dilemma facing our dear captain:

"Let me explain why you found an empty planet, you already understand paradoxes, but there is a level beyond paradoxes in time travel. A level that we didn't discover for many years. About one hundred and fifty thousand years ago Real Time from here, we discovered that, for each decision point in Real Time, two or more alternate universes branch off depending on the number of solutions. Most of the time these branches simply blend back together like water running around a rock. But other times the branches form two or more distinct time lines. We discovered how to easily cross those boundaries between those time lines and in doing so discovered millions of uninhabited time lines."

By far, one of the best-told stories in Star Trek literature. This story is so simple and yet complex - you will come away with a clear understanding of time-travel that, as such, this adventure will be the standard in which you measure all other time-travel stories. The story is light on action but rife with mystery and wonder. My rating is low when compared to other adventures, but this adventure is well worth your time.

I am a huge fan of the Voyager series and have been since its TV debut. After beginning this book I was quickly sucked into the authors imagination as he built a complex but exciting time travel storyline. Describing the intricate threads that spread over millions of years and the complexities of trying to enforce law over generations was an entertaining idea and the author executed it well. However as the book progressed the books action and intrigue started to fade. As the book concluded I was left a little disappointed at the fact that there is no climactic ending.

The characters are well written and their interaction with each other is pretty spot on considering the author had very little to work with given the series had just begun. I found the interactions between Torres, Kim and Neelix to be well written and I appreciated the authors use of humor throughout their storyline. When it comes to Paris and Tuvok, their interaction was a little stale but it did have some really good parts as well.

All-in-all a good story but far from being epic. I would put this one further down the reading list if I were you.

All Feedback Is Appreciated. Thanks and Good Reading.

This book was exciting, engaging and entertaining. Each time I have read it.
A well written, well thought out Voyager book that doesn't have Borg! Who knew!

Star Trek is known for all it's time traveling in all the series and movies- Voyager is no exception with "Future's End", "Relativity", "Endgame", and many other episodes. This book is early- taking place in 2371 sometime during Voyager's first season. I would have to say that is was interesting to see time traveling that wasn't realted to Earth's past. After all Voyager is 70,000+ light-years away from Earth and it would be hard to do time travel with Earth's past. It was interesting to see the crew died- were brought back some millions, and thousands of years apart. Great novel!

This is the kind of story that would make a great Star Trek episode. I loved the whole concept of this novel. It was well thought out. The characters were very interesting. I enjoyed every page!

Particularly given that this story was written very early in the run of the "Voyager" series, making characterization that will ring true to those who've followed the series much longer difficult, and that it involves time-travel, a very difficult concept to do well, it is amazing how well-written this story is. The characterizations feel spot-on, (except for the fact that the EMH is consistently referred to as "Dr. Zimmerman", which is the name of his creator, but not one that was ever used for the EMH himself during the entire run of the show, a very minor quibble) rare in novels written early in the run of a series, and there are only minor glitches in the time-travel concepts, which are handled much better than is usual in stories that attempt to deal with the paradoxes inherent in time-travel. I found the time-travel aspects reminiscent of Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol" series.

This was a surprisingly good book, espically for the first in a series. The authors got the characters pretty well for the show being new, and it was funny. It was also complicated enough to be more than just a light read. I highly recommend it to any Voyager fan.

"The Escape" is the first in the line of original Star Trek Voyager stories and quite rare indeed insomuch as most first original novels for the other series just plain fell flat on their intended purposes. That is certainly not the case with this novel, as I believe Pocket Books and Paramount gave the authors the proper amount of time to get to know the characters from the episodes as opposed to only asking them to write a story based off of the bible written for the series. That patience pays off quite well in "The Escape."

"The Escape" is also only the second Star Trek novel for this extraordinary writing team and, as always, I found their writing styles to be quite intriguing and very fast paced. They just don't seem to get bogged down in the details as some authors do. This novel is well worth the time to read it based on the characterizations alone, which are extraordinarily accurate to the series and the characters at the time this novel was published.

The cover art for this novel can be counted among the best of any of the Star Trek novels at the time this novel was released, it's nice to see "some" thought actually being given to that aspect in Star Trek fiction.

The premise:

Captain Janeway finds that her ship is in desperate trouble. Voyager's systems are damaged and the warp engines are failing, without immediate repairs, the valiant but troubled crew could find themselves stranded between the stars, open to attack from the local hostile races. Janeway leads her ship to an ancient, deserted planet in hopes of repairing their ship and restoring their supply stores, but they soon find that the planet is hiding more than one deadly secret...

I highly recommend this early Star Trek Voyager novel as it is a true rarity among the first few Voyager novels and it makes for an excellent Star Trek read! {ssintrepid}

I have no idea how so many people liked this book. I just hated it! so many things in it are just not right.
First of all, while i am not a particular fan of time travel, i can enjoy it, but 400 million years in the past is a little too much! It's almost like the book is making fun of time travel and those that enjoy it!!
Then the characters- even if the writers had only seen the pilot episode they should know the characters a bit more! Neeklix is portrayed as a total idiot and coward, Harry as a total novice, Belana was slightly better but a little too agressive. All the characters in general were not well developed or portrayed.
The dialogue! Particularly the dialogue between Tom/Tuvoc and Janeway giving orders on the bridge was almost redundant! Not well developed at all.
I generally hate writing bad reviews, but this book was way too disappointing. It even had spelling and grammer mistakes in it! Sorry, but I just did not like it