Customer Reviews

Once Burned (Star Trek New Frontier: The Captain's Table, Book 5)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Given Peter David's unswerving talent for dialogue and characterization, the "first-hand" storytelling style of Mackenzie Calhoun's ill-fated tour of duty on the U.S.S Grissom is--not surprisingly--a real page-turner. Calhoun is the best character to come out of David's "New Frontier" series, and this story will probably convince you of that, too.

"Once Burned" is a tale which revolves around the darker aspects of human nature, and as a result the Starfleet characters do not fit the 'almost-perfect' molds of their "Next Generation" counterparts. In fact, a few of David's characters are downright shallow and thuggish--a little too much so. However, despite this drawback, this book contains enough of that familiar Trek flavor to make the story enjoyable.

This is a must-read for "New Frontier" fans, but it's accessable enough for new readers as well. Either way, this is a Trek book worth reading.

Peter David does it again and brings another exciting chapter to the New Frontier Mythos. Now that the TV Series for TOS and DS9 are over. I get my Star Trek fix for David. In "Once Burned", Mackenzie Calhoun tells the fateful story of the USS Grissom that has only been hinted at in the regular series. Peter David uses the "Captain's Table" concept to the fullest by telling a story in the past thus allowing new readers to jump on board, but also adding another dimension to the Captain for us older readers.

A+

The first chapter had me a bit worried. It moved a bit too slow for me (as do many of Peter David's first chapters). But true to form, it picked up from there and ZOOOOOM we were off.

GREAT story. GREAT action. You feel the uncertainties and worries as Calhoun tries to deal with the much loved captain of the Grissom. I nearly cried at the end when you discover who he is telling the story to! Definately a MUST READ for any Calhoun fans!

Peter David gets to do what we all love to do: color outside the lines, AND get full approval from The Powers That Be to do so. While Mr. David can be a big pompous windbag in person, he sure knows how to pen a wonderfully satisfying story.

When I read a Star Trek novel, I wanna be entertained, and Peter David's stories entertain me "Rakash." Oh, sorry. To discover what "Rakash" means, you gotta read the book.

Anyway, because of David's outstanding ability to write the words, I'll forgive him his "windbag-ness" every single time.

For those of you following the New Frontier adventures of Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the intrepid but rather whacko crew of the Excalibur, you will certainly remember the many references to the incident aboard the U.S.S. Grissom.

Well, this here little paperback describes that incident in full detail. And believe me, it ain't for the faint of heart.

Once again, the Captain's Table bar sets the stage for Star Trek storytelling, and Peter David is one of Trek's finest tellers. Action, adventure, heartache, revenge, death, destruction, humor, sex, and scandal - this book has it all and then some.

Another excellent addition to both "The New Frontier" and "The Captain's Table" series. I particularly like the cover art with the author drawn in the background. In "Once Burned" we finally get Captain Calhoun's back story about what happened to him on the USS Grissom. This back story had been eluded to several times in the previous "New Frontier" stories. As with most, if not all of Peter David's stories, this one is a completely captivating page turner. In this trek masterpiece, we find out where the tension between Captain Calhoun and Admiral Jellico originated. A truly exceptional story. If you've not picked this one up, I recommend you do so before it goes out of publication. Thank you to Peter David for another great read.

'Once Burned' could possibly top the charts as the BEST book of the year so far! Talk about a page turner! I couldn't put the thing down! Peter David takes the rare opportunity to tell it in first-person and runs with it. It brings a whole new level to the character of McKenzie Calhoun, and the character stays true and consistent all throughout. And it reveals to us the many mysteries about why Calhoun acts as he does, and what happened to make him this way. Tragic and exctiting, the action is wonderful, and the pure horror of what they all go through stand out in this wonderful work of fiction. I read TONS of star trek books, and this one stands out as possbily one the best books I have ever read, up there even with classics such as "Imzadi", "Prime Directive" and "Federation". Most certainly a book worth reading!

Another great tale about Mackenzie Calhoun by Peter David. This book tells of the distatrous voyage of the U.S.S. Grissom, which Calhoun was second-in-command. The best part is being in Calhoun's mind, and it shows just how much pain he has gone through.

This is the only Captain's Table book I have read. The concept of a bar that transcends time and space to give captains rest is incredibly lame, so I started skipping the sections related to that. My review is only for the story behind Calhoun's early Starfleet career, which is told in the first person.

Calhoun comes across as mostly the good guy. His ego and lack of a genuine concern for others keep him from being someone worth emulating. There are points in the story where you know what the right decision would be, and then Calhoun backs down from the high road to choose the path of least resistance. But at the end he finally takes the right course of action.

When I finished the book I was left wondering why I spent time reading about a guy who isn't willing and/or able to make the right decisions consistently. Yes, this makes Calhoun more "accessible" or easier to relate to since we all have failures, but it's not something that I would read again.

I read this book after finishing the first five New Frontier novels. I was kind of indifferent about reading this series anymore since the more recent novels (Destiny, Vanguard, etc) seem to be better written and have deeper stories. Now I'm pretty sure that I'm done with New Frontier (unless someone can convince me that the series gets better).

What is great about Star Trek: New Frontier, is that it is not related to any of the tv series and can take a life on its own. This is the best New Frontier book I have read yet. Calhoun is not as serious, scientific-oriented as some of the previous Captains. This was a great story in that it showed his background, him leaving Starfleet, and his eventual appointment as captain of the Exacalibur. I thought that this was a very sad story of his previous Captain-Captain Kenyon and what drove him past his Starfleet ideals and insanity to the break of all out mental illness. Calhoun who grew up on Xenex and was accustomed to the savagery and barbarism did not step out of line to stop his Captain from intervening in revenge with interspecies conflict. A great novel that had nothing to do with the Exacalibur, but with Calhoun's shady past.

I still dislike the basic concept for the "Captain's Table" series; actually, the concept isn't TOTALLY bad, but it is TOTALLY incompatible with the Star Trek universe. Which is unfortunate, because the internal stories in these books have been consistently excellent. This one is not only not an exception to that rule, but it may just be the best Star Trek story I've read. Unfortunately, since it's implanted within a "Captain's Table" frame, I can't rate it five stars, but the internal story itself is easily worth that.

This book did, for what it's worth, attempt to answer some of my earlier objections to the "Captain's Table" concept; they seem to have their own version of the prime directive and it keeps people from creating temporal anomolies. Of course, if the system REALLY worked, Calhoun would never have seen Captain Kenyon in the bar, and been tempted to break that rule. It simply wouldn't have come up. But if it hadn't, we the readers wouldn't have had it explained why the very existence of the Captain's Table didn't wreak havoc with the time-frame. But there ought to have been a better way. NO ONE should have that kind of temptation placed in front of them, only to have it snatched back away from them. A lesser character than Calhoun would have been irreparably traumatized by the experience, and that's not what the Captain's Table is about, right?