Customer Reviews

Grand Designs (Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers)

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

 

 

I enjoy most of the stories in the Corp of Engineers series, but I just could not get into 'Orphans'. I wanted to finish it, because I hate to just stop reading a story without completing it. It was choppy, it didn't flow. Some parts just didn't even make sense. I was so proud when I got to the last page.

The Star Trek Corps of Engineers series is a series that follows the exploits of the USS da Vinci, a ship whose mission is, essentially, to find solutions to technical problems that are beyond the abilities of the engineering staffs of regular ships. There is a skeleton crew of command and security officers, but the majority of the crew of 40 are top-notch engineers.

The series has been told in chronologically consecutive short-story format, so each book in the series has had around 5 stories; this book is no exception. The stories have generally been of high quality, closer to classic science fiction than the usual Star Trek stories, with more emphasis on science in the plots than most. This book is no exception, and I would have rated it at five stars except for the last story, (Sargasso Sector) which on its own I would barely have rated a second star.

The story was entertaining enough, but far too much of it was simply implausible. (I realize that there is an argument to be made that when one is dealing with faster than light travel and matter transferrence as standard technology, plausibility is not terribly important, but what I'm talking about is INTERNAL plausibility within the Star Trek universe.) I'm aware that there is a counterargument to my complaint, but I've considered that argument and found it wanting. Unfortunately, in order to detail my complaints, acknowledge the counterargument, and explain why it failed to be sufficient rationalization for my tastes would involve giving multiple plot spoilers, and given that those spoilers would ruin the only positive that the story has going for it, I'm unwilling to do so. The only objection that I can give that would NOT be a plot spoiler, by itself, would seem trivial and picky. So I will simply say that the story did not at all work for me, and leave it at that. If you have less insistence on stories making internal sense than I do, you may enjoy it. In any case, it's just one story out of five.

This is another entertaining tale of the Corps of Engineers. The new Tellerite second officer is a nice addition.

Grand Designs is the least of a very good bunch. The others in the series take a problem and have an ingenious engineering solution. These stories are rather pedestrian and none would be included in the previous volumes. Avoid this one.