Intellivore (Star Trek: The Next Generation, No. 45) [Paperback]

Diane Duane (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1997

The Great Rift lies between the Sagitarius and Orion arms of the galaxy. Stars are scarce there, beyond the authority of the Federation, and legends abound of lost civilizations and of ancient monsters that prey on those who dare to venture into the vast darkness between the stars.

When several ships and colonies mysteriously disappear into the Rift, the U.S.S. Enterprise leads an expedition to investigate various disturbing reports. Accompanied by two other Federation starships, Picard and his fellow captains discover a bizarre menace of unimaginable power. And the only way to trap this destructive entity is to use the Enterprise as bait.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The Great Rift lies between the Sagitarius and Orion arms of the galaxy. Stars are scarce there, beyond the authority of the Federation, and legends abound of lost civilizations and of ancient monsters that prey on those who dare to venture into the vast darkness between the stars.

When several ships and colonies mysteriously disappear into the Rift, the U.S.S. Enterprise leads an expedition to investigate various disturbing reports. Accompanied by two other Federation starships, Picard and his fellow captains discover a bizarre menace of unimaginable power. And the only way to trap this destructive entity is to use the Enterprise as bait.

Product Details

• Paperback: 239 pages
• Publisher: Star Trek; First Edition edition (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671568329
• ISBN-13: 978-0671568320
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,809,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diane Duane was born in New York City -- a descendant of New York's first mayor -- and worked there as a psychiatric nurse before leaving the profession for the only one she loved better, the business of writing. Since the publication of her first novel in 1981, she's written fifty more, not to mention numerous short stories, comics, computer games and screenplays for TV and film, and has picked up the occasional award here and there. (She has also worked with Star Trek in more media than anyone else alive.)

Right now she's probably best known for her "Young Wizards" series of young adult fantasy novels, featuring the New York-based wizards Kit Rodriguez and Nita Callahan -- in business for twenty-five years now, their most recent adventure being described in the ninth YW novel, "A Wizard of Mars" (just released in paperback).

DD shares a two hundred-year-old cottage in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland with her husband, the Belfast-born novelist and screenwriter Peter Morwood, a laid-back white cat named Goodman, and various overworked computers... an odd but congenial environment for the staging of epic battles between good and evil and the leisurely pursuit of total galactic domination. (And a lot of ethnic cooking: her own favorite foods come from the cuisines of central Europe and the Mediterranean.) In her spare time she gardens (weeding, mostly), studies German and Italian, listens to shortwave and satellite radio, and dabbles in astronomy, computer graphics, iaido, amateur cartography, and desktop publishing ... while also trying to figure out how to make more spare time.

Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Cogito, Ergo Fastidio, July 21, 2005

By 

Christopher "chrysaetos" (Wengen-en-esprit) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intellivore (Star Trek: The Next Generation, No. 45) (Paperback)

Boy did this sucker have potential. A planet that feeds off of intelligence. With a great title (and cover to boot), a very interesting plot, and Picard and Data as the main heros here, I thought there would be nothing to disappoint.

Diane Duane commences on a languid note, introducing her Holodeck motif immediately. She uses the Holodeck better in subsequent scenes. I've always loved comparing Picard, Captain of a Starship, to a captain of a seafaring vessel.

Two other starships are brought in to aid in tracking this mysterious shifting predator. That's about all the excitement that happens. Deaths are treated as nuisances. The dialogue is supremely dry and everyone speaks as if voiced as one person. Two attempts are made at humor, near the end of the book, and are devastatingly timed. When operating a starship under attack, succinctness, I should think, would be of the essence. The captain does not joke with (in this case) her XO while attempting evasive or offensive maneuvers. Perhaps this wouldn't have been so bad had the captain and her XO established a joking relationship earlier, but nary a word was spoken between them beforehand.

I highly recommend the well-written books of Michael Jan Friedman and Peter David over this contractual bilge.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars STNG #45 Intellivore - A fairly good read!, May 2, 2004

By 

K. Wyatt "ssintrepid" (Cape Girardeau, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Intellivore (Star Trek: The Next Generation, No. 45) (Paperback)

Given the immense popularity and overwhelming acclaim that author Diane Duane received for "Dark Mirror," my anticipation for this numbered Star Trek The Next Generation novel was pretty high. Upon reading it though, I found the book to be good but lacking in a few areas. While Diane Duane's usual good style of writing is there where the premise is clear and executed well and the pace is steady but the characterizations are off and the overall feel of "Intellivore" is that much goes unsaid which is quite unfortunate.

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

The Premise:

In true Star Trek fashion author Diane Duane takes the Enterprise into a no win situation when several ships and colonies mysteriously disappear into a Great Rift that is outside of Federation territory. Captain Picard leads the Enterprise and two other Federation starships to investigate this mystery and what they discover can only be described as epic in its scope...

What follows from there is a fairly good numbered novel in the STNG line that I would definitely recommend to any and all fans of good Star Trek fiction despite the minor faults I earlier described. {ssintrepid}

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good ideas, bad writing, March 21, 2000

By 

Chris Vakulskas (Muscatine, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intellivore (Star Trek: The Next Generation, No. 45) (Paperback)

This book was both good and bad. It was good because it was sort of a new idea and it was very creatively written. I had the hardest time reading it though, it was incredibly "wordy" and the book just didn't seem to "flow."