Customer Reviews

No Limits (Star Trek New Frontier)

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I have read "New Frontier" since the beginning, and I was a bit reticent to pick up this anthology, wondering what these new voices would bring to the universe Peter David built. Indeed, I was curious as to what, exactly, the stories would be; as David says in the introduction, it was a tough decision to decide where the stories should take place, and ultimately they are all in the various characters' pasts, which makes for an interesting read.
The results of "No Limits" are wonderful, illuminating the established characters with new details, explanations, and purpose. Every story adds something new to the characters, whether it is Calhoun's loyalty to Picard (the opener, "Loose Ends"), Kebron's love for fish (the aptly titled "Waiting for G'Doh"), Morgan's quest to end her existence ("Alice, on the Edge of Night"), or Burgoyne's life-altering experience with "visions" ("Through the Looking Glass").
The standouts in the anthology are David Mack's Kebron tale, which offers great insight into his psyche and gives new meaning to "stoicism;" both of the Soleta stories, one which shows us of her fateful first meeting with Rajari, the second which gives us Spock; Josepha Sherman's "Turning Point" which finds Si Cwan as an adolescent coming to the realization that the Royal Court of Thallon does not sit well with his conflicting opinions of high and low castes; and, of course, Peter David's tale of Shelby and Calhoun's ill-fated honeymoon. Oh, and we finally get to meet Morgan Korsmo and see that oft-referred to incident, Wolf-359, and the battle waged on the "Excalibur."
This is a great addition to any "New Frontier" fan's library, or any Trek fan's for that matter. This also works as an adequate introduction into the hearts and minds of the characters that have been changing since 1997. Pick it up. It's one of the best Trek anthologies out there, and it's great to see some new voices add their talents to the ever-expanding crews of the "Excalibur" and the "Trident."

After reading Ilsa J. Bick's Well of Souls, just a terrific and griping book, I was inspired to find more of her work. Whoever said that her story in this anthology about Morgan Primus got him choked up is right on. "Alice, on the Edge of Night" just shines, and Bick's ability to get into the heads of her characters and make you care about them is truly amazing. She has a deft command of language and phrasing that left me gasping. Other people have griped about her writing, but I find it refreshing and captivating. I hope to see more by her in the Trek universe. Several reviewers at the Well of Souls website mentioned having her do a series. That's a good idea.
Other terrific stories: David Mack's Kebron story, Sherman's story about an adolescent Si Cwan, and, of course, Peter David's tale of Calhoun's and Shelby's honeymoon.
Please, someone -- do this again. With these writers. Please.

I tend to avoid short story collections, as short story collections tend to vary in quality; but this is a collection of short stories set in the Star Trek: New Frontier series that was crafted by Peter David, and since he was the editor, I gave it a shot. Lately, as another reviewer has mentioned, I have been frustrated with where the series is going (too heavy handed, too humerous in a blunt way), but these stories were a complete change of pace, and in a very good way. They are reminiscent of the DS9 relaunch, where various authors have obviously been given an outline to follow, but granted creative expression.

The stories take turns with the various characters of the New Frontier cast, and as such, I found some of them quite interesting (Shelby switching from engineering to command track, a diary-entry story featuring Lefler, a really solid bit of character study for McHenry), but others, based on characters I couldn't really care all that much for (Kebron, Si Cwan), just didn't do much for me.

However, a few of the stories blew me away. Most notably, the one about Morgan Primus (Robin Lefler's immortal mother), was done with such a deft touch of emotionality that I actually got choked up, which is rare enough with Star Trek in general, but very rare in short story Trek fiction. I honestly place it on a level with the TNG episode "The Inner Light." Yes, that good. I, too, will be seeking more stories from Ilsa J. Bick.

Which brings me around to the good part about short story collections - that you often meet a new author worthy of more research and reading. All in all this was quite good, and if you're an anal collector of Trek such as myself, you'll want it.

'Nathan

In his introduction to NO LIMITS, an anthology of eighteen short stories involving the New Frontier characters, Peter David notes that when this volume was first announced some fans expressed reservations at the idea of having authors other than David himself dabbling in the New Frontier sandbox. If you've got doubts, you can put them to rest. This is an excellent collection of rewarding stories by authors who amply demonstrate that they know the characters they are writing about.

One of the pleasures of reading a large collection such as this is that the order you read the stories in doesn't matter, every time you pick the volume up there is something new and different to look forward to. Some stories will capture your imagination more than others but within the pages of NO LIMITS the reader gets to experience a little bit of everything--comedy, drama, action and adventure. The various authors effectively use their individual storytelling styles to explore key moments in the characters lives, and every story to some degree just adds to the overall tapestry of New Frontier. And while my own personal favorites of the collection, "Waiting for G'Doh", "Q'uandary", "Lefler's Logs", "Performance Appraisal", "Making a Difference", "The Road to Edos", "A Little Getaway" and "Out of the Frying Pan", may not be your own, I have no doubts that anyone reading NO LIMITS should find plenty to satisfy.

I understand there was some trepidation over 'giving' Peter David's New Frontier characters to others to write, but after reading the stories contained in this anthology, I believe there was no need to worry. That these were stories written *prior* to the characters' becoming a team on Excalibur did, I suppose, lessen the pressure, but still, it was a task that couldn't have been done without minding the 'future' David's already written. Each author picked a character and wrote a story - and each did so with flair, not some little humor, plenty of continuity, and an obvious love of the New Frontier universe in the first place.

I noticed one or two errors that smacked of haste in putting this book together, but those in no way diminished the overall enjoyment of it. Go ahead and buy this book - and then test your mettle at next year's Shore Leave convention by getting as many authors as you can to autograph the thing!

I obviously disagree with the other reviewers about the quality of this collection. It is a series of short stories covering an episode in the past of the main characters in the New Frontiers series. A few of the stories are entertaining, some of them are just annoying.

The book starts off with an adventure of Mac when he worked as a lone operative. I thought the logic and motivations of the story were so poorly thought out that the unbelievability of them ruined the story for me.

Shelby's story was just purely boring. The author thought they could take a tale of data analysis and make something fascinating out of it. The author failed. Not only was it boring, but the detail of the supposed data analysis just sounded trite and ignorant of the intended subject. Zack Kebron's story was an extended joke. It had its humorous side, but was far to long for the mediocre punch lines. Dr. Selar' story was, I thought, one of the more interesting, and was a worthy read. Si Cwan's story was OK, but nothing extra special.

I think that all the writers involved are capable of much better work than was evidenced in this collection. A few of the stories look like they had some real work and thought put into them. Most of them appear to have been quickly dashed off to get a cut of the book, and no more.

Since these stories don't really impact the continuing series of novels, it can safely be skipped without missing anything. If you are a completest, read it. Its not a complete waste of time, but it is not nearly as entertaining as Peter David's novels in this series are.

This anthology is excellent, although with my tastes, it was a mixed bag. A couple of the stories were a bit more simplistic than I would have hoped for, and some had pretty jarring inconsistencies (the ones that got to me most were in the story about Soleta's first encounter with Rajari). However, that aside, as a general thing, the book is definitely worth getting, especially for a New Frontier fan. Most of the stories offer quite a bit of insight into the character of focus, and none of the plots dragged (although I have to admit, I was in a hurry and skipped "Redemption" the first time through; I am planning on reading it, but can't review it at this time). My personal favorites were "Alice, on the Edge of Night," about Morgan Primus (it was fantastic), and although I can't think of a positive thing to say about D'ndai's character, "A Lady of Xenex" was my other favorite. None of the stories except his own had Peter David's sense of whatever it is that governs NF (I chose to believe it's irony), which I missed, but even for that, the book doesn't come up wanting.

I haven't been keeping up on my New Frontier reading, the series of Star Trek books by Peter David about Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and his crew of the starship Excalibur (which has recently been split up into two ships, I understand). Nevertheless, I decided to ask my library to get a copy of the New Frontier short story anthology, No Limits. The series is exclusively written by Peter David, so it was interesting to see how these characters would be handled by other writers (though edited by David).

Perhaps I expected to be able to catch up before it came in to the library, I don't know. But it didn't, and I realize after finishing the book that it may have been a mistake to read this book first. It doesn't contain many spoilers for the book series (except for the New Frontier timeline at the back of the book), but it tells some of the back story of a lot of the New Frontier characters, some of whom I haven't met yet. These stories also give us history to some of the conflicts that are currently taking place in the series, such as that between Kat Mueller and Cray, the Andorian. Of course, I haven't encountered either one of these characters before, so the story ("Performance Appraisal," by Allyn Gibson) lost a lot of its impact. It's still a well-told story, and I did enjoy it, but the nuances were completely missed.

That being said, the anthology was a hit and miss affair, but most of the stories were at least entertaining. In the aforementioned "Performance Appraisal," we get the story of Kat Mueller when she was still an assistant chief engineer on the Grissom as she vies for the position of "nightside" commander. She has developed a new method of detecting cloaked Romulan warships that they are testing near the Neutral Zone. Unfortunately, they come upon a Romulan ship that claims they have crossed the border and threatens to blow them to pieces. It will take quick thinking from Mueller to save the ship and prevent the Romulans from figuring out exactly why they were there in the first place. Even without knowing the characters, the story is still extremely well-written and fun (especially seeing the Romulan commander, Tomalok, again). Cray's malevolence is palpable, especially in the final scene which obviously leads up to what's happening in the book series now.

Another good story is the first one, "Loose Ends," by Dayton Ward. This tells the story of an intelligence mission when Calhoun was working for Starfleet Intelligence, involving the aftermath to the "Next Generation" episode, "The Pegasus." Picard has agreed to turn over the illegal Federation cloaking device that as on the Pegasus. Calhoun has been tasked with infiltrating the Romulan ship and destroying it. The way he does so is quite ingenious, and Ward's story is definitely a great way to kick of the anthology. The story has an energy and a wit that is very much in the vein of Peter David, though it doesn't sink into silliness as David's work sometimes can. I did think that Calhoun succeeded a little too easily in his task, but that would be the only fault I can think of. The writing is crisp, the story moves quickly, and Ward packs a lot into a few pages, showcasing Calhouns sense of loyalty (to Picard, who sponsored him for Starfleet).

The best story in the anthology, though, is David Mack's "Waiting for G'Doh," or "How I Learned to Stop Moving and Hate People." This is an early story in Zak Kebron's life. Zak is a Brikar, huge and rock-like, with a wicked sense of humour (though it's not really in evidence in this story). He's assigned a mission of staking out a park on the planet Iban, where a Federation bureaucrat named G'Doh is meeting some Cardassian agents to pass on some secrets. Zak, being rather conspicuous, is going to be beamed inside a statue in the park, where he will have to remain motionless until the meeting takes place. His only point of contact with the outside world is Sotak, the Intelligence agent who communicates with him about the constant delays in the meeting. Poor Zak suffers all the indignities, including having a bird do its business on him, all of which he has to suffer silently. This leaves nothing but his thoughts, and those are hilarious as told by Mack. This is one of the few stories in the book that really seems to capture the Peter David humour. From the title of the story to all of the jokes inside, to the seemingly never-ending wait for the arrival of the G'Doh, this story doesn't miss a beat. Even more surprising, since nothing actually happens in the story until the end (which, I guess is probably more than happens in the original play). I couldn't stop laughing while reading this story.

The rest of the stories in No Limits are range from fairly good to pretty good. Some of the stories seem quite inconsequential while others obviously set up parts of the book series. For me, the least interesting stories were "Redemption," about the origins of the god of the Redeemers, Xant, and Terri Osborne's "Q'uandry," where Dr. Selar meets the female Q entity from the Voyager television series. Osborne's writing was fine, and tried to salvage the story, but it used one of my least favourite episodes from the series (the Q civil war) and was based on the in-joke that Selar and the female Q were played by the same person. It just didn't grab me. Xant's story might have if I were more familiar with the Redeemers.

Ultimately, I am glad that I read No Limits. I may have to reread it once I have caught up on the books, to see if it resonates a little more with me. On the other hand, I was gifted with being able to read some good stories by a lot of the current crop of Trek writers, in addition to a few I had never known before. If you're a New Frontier fan, you definitely have to pick this up.

David Roy

i used to like new frontier, but i thought that Peter David's writing was getting too obvious. his jokes are all really heavy handed and not very funny. but i was curious to see what other writers did with the characters, so i bought no limits.

this was a great idea. since Peter edited the book, maybe he'll see how to write more subtle. David Mack's Zak Kebron story is funnier than anything Peter has written in years. i thought that Terri Osborne's Selar story was going to be a stupid joke story when i realized that it had two of Suzie Plakson's characters in it, but Terri's a really good writer, and made the joke work. Peg Robinson made calhoun's brother into a much more interesting character, and most of the other stories were pretty cool too. some werre only okay, like Kieth deCandido's Soleta story and Loren Coleman's Shebly story, but pretty much all of them were good.

the best is Ilsa Bick's Morgan story, which is the best story in the book and was worth buying the book all by itself. i wasn't going to read Isla's well of souls novel because i don't care about captain garrett, but now i'm going to because her Morgan primus story was so great.

And this book is a testimony to that earned "greatness" and was sheer pleasure to read, not to mention own. Even though I grew up with the Original Series Star Trek, I also came to love TNG as well and, later, VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE as well as any other novel incarnations of Star Trek. Being an avid fan of sci-fi in general, however, it would be an injustice on my part not to mention the many other old and new sci-fi works that both led me to Star Trek and which have forever forged my love for all sci-fi works: "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Puppet Masters", "Foundation", "2001", "2010", "Rendezvous with Rama", "Ringworld", all the "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" books, as well as books as new to the genre as "Advent of the Corps" and others.