Customer Reviews

Her Klingon Soul (Star Trek Voyager: Day of Honor, Book 3)

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

 

 

When I bought this book, I was looking forward to a tale focusing on B'Elanna Torres and an explanation of her conflicted emotions and past. I was disappointed. The first few chapters discussed the Day of Honor, but once they land on the planet it is forgotten and the story becomes a typical episode of the show! In fact, the show handled Day of Honor better in its episode dedicated to the topic! There were scenes that stood out in my mind. Torres holding her own and earning the respect of her fellow prisoners then leading them on a grand escape was worth the buy and well-written. I also liked seeing Torres and Kim together. Their friendship is rarely explored in these books. The plot was interesting and the characters had potential. I think this book is good, but it should stand on its own and not be part of the Day of Honor series.

I don't really think I'll be able to give this book a fair review - If I read it again I may be able to not go on my gut instinct - but, at this point in time I have no desire to read it again.

The plot plods a long at a slow pace. We have Torres and Kim stuck on an alien world, Torres and Kim have very nasty captors who hit them a bit, Torres and Kim earn the respect of the other captives and then well you fill in the rest. Anybody who's even vaguely familiar with Star Trek or Tv Sci fi in general could easily plot this book.

Then we have the very strange B plot. At turns its integral to the "kidnap" A plot but at others its totally useless and just distracting. I'm never a fan of the writers of Trek books fleshing out who would be the "guest stars" on the show at the expense of the regulars. Here, in a book that I am led to believe by the blurb on the back is a book about B'elanna Torres and HER Klingon soul I learnt more about the now long-gone Kes than I did B'elanna. That's not the reason I spent my hard earned cash to buy the book.

So, mainly I was dissappointed. I expected it to be an insight into one of my favourite characters and I just got the surface of something that has been more successfully looked at in the show.

Maybe it was just the fact that it had the Kazon in it that irked me. But then I am a Post - Scorpian Voyager fan so reading this book out of context may have been my real problem. If I'd have read the book when it first came out without the benefit of hindsight then possibly I'd have enjoyed it more.

While I agree that this book was probably not the soul searching story it was proclaimed to be, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The interaction between B'Elanna and Harry was wonderful all the way through. Their friendship has always been one of my favorite aspects of the show, and I think it was never given the attention it deserved. That's not the case in this book. They behave as the close friends they seemed destined to be after Caretaker.

I also really enjoyed the way Torres was portrayed in this book. She was courageous, formidable, and still very feminine. Those are the qualities that drew me to her in the first place. (Compounded by Roxann Dawson's outstanding acting.)

Perhaps it should have been a stand alone book, and not part of the Day of Honor series, but it was well written and memorable regardless. If you like B'Elanna Torres, you'll enjoy this book.

I'm virtually certain that when Pocket Books moguls John J. Ordover and Paula Block sat down to hash out the basic premise for Star Trek's Day of Honor saga, a four novel series which would illustrate the nuances of the aliens' most scared holiday and its affect on each incarnation of the franchise, they faced a small problem when confronted with that one simple word that more than a few Trekkers find at once interesting and confusing: Voyager.

In each of the other Day of Honor entries, the reader is introduced to this rather fresh concept and how it impacts upon the lives and motivations of our favorite long time characters. From the experiences of Captain Kirk's villianous Klingon enemy Kor to Lieutenant Worf himself, the Day of Honor is a concept fully realized thanks in great part to the ability of the reader to successfully grasp what the celebration means to the average Klingon warrior. This is easily achieved via the use of characters which have themselves become fully realized through decades of solid writing thoughtfully planned and wonderfully executed. Characters unlike Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres and, consequently, a fair portion of Voyager's command crew up to the time "Her Klignon Soul" was written and published. Unfortunately, this is a trend not changed by author Michael Jan Friedman, who, with all respects to the fellow writer and New Yorker, is rarely on his best game unless he's putting words into Captain Kirk's mouth.

When I first took the novel into my hands, I was expecting to, through its reading, gain a greater understanding of Torres' tortured past, the confusion and doubt she must experience regularly thanks to her mixed heritage. All that I got was an all too familiar crew-taken-as-prisoners storyline and a plodding, melancholy subplot having nothing to with the novel's central premise but which, ironically, possessed more of the spirit of the work's seemingly intended theme. Dealing with a dying alien woman and her refusal to accept the treatment which would cure her, the treatment developed by one of her people's greatest oppressors, the "B" story provided that one-shot character with a golden opportunity that should have belonged to the potentially fascinating and sadly overlooked Torres.

My greatest complaint with "Her Klingon Soul" is that, in many parts, the works seems to be about anything but. It provides only glimpses and hints about its theme of honor where those issues should have been central and yet manages to almost drive those points home where they probably count the least.

As an episodic tale, envisioned by the reader as a mediocre and modestly budgeted entry in the television series, the work is satisfying. A frantic search for missing crew members, a valiant struggle on the part of slave-laborers Torres and Kim to survive in the harshest conditions imaginable and even a debate on an alien woman's right to choose death over the helping hand of a bitter enemy...it all works to provide the novel with again familar yet satisfying elements of drama, suspense and the occassional laugh line. But, in my humble opinion, the most obvious aspect of the work is what it doesn't contain, the one element I feel it in some way all but promised its reader: insight into the uncommon and potentially intriguing landscape of "Her Klingon Soul."

This book has it's entertaining moments - mostly, they're confined to the 1st and 2nd chapter, where B'Elanna has to endure the Day of Honor good wishes of her colleagues.

What disappoints about this book is how poor the characterisations are - they feel off. Janeway definitely comes across as a bit inept and rather silly, Tom Paris comes in at the start and end (this is pre their relationship days I guess) although B'Elanna is about 60% there in terms of her portrayal. What's missing is the spark, that extra juice that makes Torres such a cool character.

The plot is okay only and the Day of Honour feels more like a calender coincidence than a real plot driver or revealing of any true character. B'Elanna's discomfort about Day of Honour is confined to how her previous DOH seem to have been like bad luck days for her.

For a better effort at B'Elanna having a bad day, the Voyager Episode 'Juggernaut' works.

No, this is *not* the character piece on B'Elanna that it claims to be. It's just another plot-driven story of "Voyager crew in jeopardy, let's find a way to save them at the last possible second." I would have found it more compelling if Torres's alien acquaintance from the planet (sorry, forgot his name) would have actually--gasp--*died*! But in the world of Star Trek, we can't have that. Oh well--we could have seen B'Elanna's reaction to his death "as a warrior"... and maybe even some real insight into her Klingon soul.

First off I did a little reading on the author and found he's a comic book writer for Dark Horse Comics and has written many Trek books. This particular Voyager novel picks up on the Star Trek: Voyager TV show and its characters, seems like the first season to me. This is a several part series with B'elanna Torres (half human and half Klingon) and though the story refers to events in past books, the author makes it easy to catch up without reading the past novels to know what's going on.

Several things about this book: If you have never seen the Voyager TV show, you may get lost and not understand how the characters interact. It's clearly a fan book. Secondly, Torres is struggling with her Klingon identity and others in the crew are trying to say congrats on her Day of Honor, a Day observed in the Klingon culture which she reviles and tries to avoid all company.

All this changes when the crew of Voyager are baited by the Kazon. The Kazon kidnap Torres and Kim and hold them hostage so as to get the transporter technology that only Voyager has in the Delta Quadrant. Big fish gets eaten by the bigger fish as another alien race boards the Kazon vessel and kidnaps the kidnappers. Confusion ensues.

We are introduced to a few races and at times it seems the author is padding his novel to stretch it out a bit. The writer fails in his lack of succinctness in descriptions and reactions of characters.

Still, the lessons learned about honor, duty and sacrifice are well-learned but at times taken for granted by the Voyager crew until put to a test. Especially interesting were the slave labor camps that one of the aliens was dealing with as well as the forced asteroid mining that Kim and Torres nearly get killed in escaping.

Not a bad Voyager book. I may check out more of Michael's stories. Hopefully his later novels are less padded and more interesting since he is an award-winning author.

An excellent look into the character of B'Elanna Torres and her conflicting emotions regarding her half-Klingon nature. The characters other than B'Elanna were handled well also, and the plot, while not in itself memorable, was competently handled and was a good vehicle for the character study. The writing, as usual for Mr. Friedman, was smooth and unobtrusive.

This book is my favorite Voyager book. It is action packed and full of suspence, with every turn of the page there is a nother twist thrown at you! This book keeps you on the edge of your seat until the last page! The author did a super job. I highly recomend this book.

I did like this book, however it is boring in places. Though I think I am partial, B'Elanna being my favorite character. It is very exciting when they are caught by their enslavers. From the title of the book, you would think it would talk a lot about the Day of Honor, though it is only mentioned a few times in the book itself. It also didn't seem the author truly knew the personalities of the characters. Despite these things however, I found it to be exciting, suspensful, and sweet. It will seem like de shavoo when you read it. One moment I remember it being almost like the Day of Honor on the series.