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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Gives Trek a black eye, March 21, 2003
I've read a few of the Trek novels and found most of them to range from respectable to very good. Garth of Izar is a black eye to the original Trek. In a word, the quality stinks. Part is due to the writing itself - florid and full of speechification that tries to capture the flavor of the original Trek episode "Whom The Gods Would Destroy" which featured Steve Ihnat as the mad Lord Garth. Ihnat merrily chewed the scenery as an insane, shape-shifting star fleet legend while Shatner looked downright subdued caught between Ihnat and green-painted Yvonne Craig. Evidently, the writers of this book thought they could cash in on all the televised hamming by gifting their characters with overblown speeches. Unfortunately, campy overacting doesn't translate well to the written word. The single dumbest mistake, though, was editorial. The book begins with a dream sequence (always a bad sign) where Kirk imagines himself as a bridge officer for his hero, Garth, as the good ship Heisenberg does battles with the Romulans...I mean the Klingons...no, wait, it's the Romulans, er... And that's the point where any self-respecting Trek fan realizes that Pocket Books doesn't share that respect. They didn't respect the readers enough to assign an editor (or possibly an editor and writers) who care enough to keep straight the Romulans from the Klingons. I could go on with a laundry list of hack mistakes - improbably plotting, ridiculous reactions, etc., but why bother? This turkey is a waste of paper and ink.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating concept, mediocre execution., February 3, 2004
We start with a fascinating question: In the original series episode, "Whom Gods Destroy", the villain of the piece was "Garth of Izar", a former starship captain then an inmate in a mental institution for the criminally insane. By the end of the episode, Kirk and the Enterprise have successfully delivered a new drug that is supposed to cure his insanity, and it shows every sign of working. SO....if he's been cured, and is no longer dangerous or insane, what do you do with him? Surely, the Federation and Starfleet have sufficiently progressive ideals that they would not continue to penalize a man for what he did while clinically insane after he's been cured, don't they? Not to mention, they wouldn't deprive themselves of the services of one of their best captains when it was no longer neccessary to do so, would they? So if the cure worked, and Garth was reinstated at full rank, how come we've never heard of him again? This book does an excellent job of answering those very good questions. And other than the fact that for the first ten pages, they can't seem to make up their minds whether his most famous exploits were at the expense of the Klingons or the Romulans (a mistake that probably comes from having two authors working together, but which it is unforgivable that no one, authors or editors, caught before going to print) the book is reasonably if not spectacularly well-written. Not a great Star Trek book, but a good one; an excellent idea, tolerably well-handled.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dull And A Bit Confusing!, April 30, 2003
The beginning of this novel consists of a disjointed dream by James Kirk in which the villan switches between Romulans and Klingons in midstream, although I have to say in defense of the writers that dreams often do not make much sense, so this can be explained in that way. This novel is based on a character in the earlier original series, the authors state that this character rivals Khan in interest; I like at least one previous reviewer disagree. Overall, my impression of this novel was one of slight boredom as I read it, it just did'nt have that spark that the top Star Trek novels have, this is just pulp science fiction, average and run-of-the-mill. Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski are veteran Star Trek writers, and perhaps when two talented writers work together it kind of muddies the waters, with the result being a work that seems to be a result of tedious labor and not much inspiration. My favorite Star Trek novel is SPOCK'S WORLD, this novel is not nearly as good. However, if you are like me and partial to the original series it is nevertheless well worth reading.
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