Ghost of a Chance (Star Trek Voyager, Book 7) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Mark Garland (Author), Charles G. McGraw (Author) "COMMANDER CHAKOTAY'S SPIRIT GUIDE HAD VISITED HIM many times in his dreams..." (more)
Key Phrases: Nan Loteth, Drenar Four, Lieutenant Torres (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Badly damaged in a close encounter with a dwarf star, the VoyagerTM discovers a planet being torn apart by tremendous volcanic stresses. The planet's primitive inhabitants will surely perish unless the Voyager intervenes -- but the Prime Directive forbids them to act. And then the dilemma is increased by the arrival of another starship, a Televek vessel, whose crew offer to help both the Voyager and the people of the crumbling planet. But Janeway senses something amiss with their saviors, and she's haunted by ghostly visions warning her of a threat that make her loathe to accept anything from the Televek, even though they may be her only hope.

From the Publisher
Badly damaged in a close encounter with a dwarf star, the Voyager^TM discovers a planet being torn apart by tremendous volcanic stresses. The planet's primitive inhabitants will surely perish unless the Voyager intervenes -- but the Prime Directive forbids them to act. And then the dilemma is increased by the arrival of another starship, a Televek vessel, whose crew offer to help both the Voyager and the people of the crumbling planet. But Janeway senses something amiss with their saviors, and she's haunted by ghostly visions warning her of a threat that make her loathe to accept anything from the Televek, even though they may be her only hope.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Star Trek (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671567985
• ISBN-13: 978-0671567989
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,037,743 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #3 in	Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > ( G ) > Garland, Mark
  #45 in	Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Media > Star Trek > Voyager

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, but hopefully others are better?, March 26, 1999

By A Customer

This was the first Voyager novel I ever read. I'm new to the Delta Quadrant (I started watching in Season Four, how's that for new?), and before Voyager I never watched a Star Trek in my life! So, as far as this book goes, it was pretty good. I enjoyed the setting of the planet (Janeway, Tuvok, and Kim) much more than what was simultaneously transpiring on Voyager itself. I was VERY frustrated with Chakotay! Paris's reaction to the beautiful aliens is to be expected, unfortunately, but I was hoping for more objectivity from the usually level-headed Commander. Other than that obvious inconsistency, I felt that the others were mostly in keeping with character. It's good to see the same people in the novels that we see on the show . . . instead of reading and saying, "Oh, they would never do that!" As far as the whole "ghost" story, though, I wasn't very impressed. It never was made very clear exactly what they were--at least not for me. Why couldn't the crew have just discovered this new race, had to deal with the treacherous Televek (although their treachery was awfully obvious quite early on), and been able to shift the moons and save them, without a bunch of ghosts?? Yeah, I know that without the ghosts Janeway couldn't have had the knowledge that she needed to rescue the aliens, but any author who could write a Star Trek novel in the first place must be creative enough to come up with a better solution! And to agree with someone else, the whole transporter solution was a little too last-minute to be plausible. But I'll give it to them--after all, it's my first novel, I can't be too critical. To close, this will not be my last "Voyager" novel, but I do hope that there is some improvement in the others. I hesistate to give the book three stars; I think it's more deserving of two and a half, but keeping in mind that I'm new to Star Trek, I decided to give it the higher of the two ratings.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars STV #7 Ghost of a Chance - An interesting premise!, December 6, 2003

By	K. Wyatt "ssintrepid" (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"Ghost of a Chance" is the first of only two Star Trek novels by Mark Garland and the only one with Charles G. McGraw. While I found the premise of this story to be a very interesting one, the plot setup, execution and pacing to be somewhat troubling, detracting from the experience of the book. The saving grace for this novel is the authors' characterizations which were pretty good.

The cover art for this novel is pretty much the standard fare for when it was published, somewhat bland.

The premise:

While making an attempt to plus up the ships supply of deuterium, Voyager encounters a brown dwarf star, causing a great amount of damage. Chakotay starts having "visions" and believes they're linked to one of the planets in the Drenar system where they encountered the brown dwarf.

They soon discover that many of them are having visions and since the engines are in need of repair that will take several days, they decided to explore Drenar Four and discover a primitive civilization and their plight, severe volcanic stresses. The question of violating the Prime Directive comes immediately into play. An alien ship soon enters the picture, the Televek and they offer aid to both Voyager and the planets inhabitants but Captain Janeway finds their offer questionable and she soon finds herself in a quagmire...

While "Ghost of a Chance" isn't among the top Star Trek Voyager books available I would still recommend it as an interesting read in the series. {ssintrepid}

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good story., November 11, 2008

By	James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a pretty good story; there's plenty of action and drama, plenty of excitement, and if the authors' understanding of the Prime Directive is a little faulty, I suppose that's a fairly minor quibble. All in all, it's reasonably competently written, the characters ring mostly true, and the overall feel captures the feel of the fairly early Voyager episodes pretty well. Worth the read if you find yourself missing the show and wanting another story from the period before the Seven of Nine era.