Customer Reviews

Spirit Walk, Book One: Old Wounds (Star Trek Voyager (Paperback Unnumbered)) (Bk. 1)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Old Wounds is an interesting new addition to the Star Trek: Voyager story and a good, fast read. All but two of the characters we have come to know & love are there: Chakotay, new Captain of the Voyager, with Harry Kim as his head of security; Admiral Janeway & Tuvok teaching at Star Fleet Academy, where Seven of Nine and the Doctor are members of a Think Tank and the Doctor continues his fight for Holographic Rights. Tom, B'Elanna, and their daughter are on the Klingon world Boreth searching for clues about why some think their daughter is a Messiah. Neelix is still in the Delta Quadrant; Kes' whereabouts are unknown.

On his first Starfleet mission as a Captain, Chakotay is ferrying some colonists back to their home planet, evacuated during the Cardassian War. His sister, Sekaya, is along as a spiritual advisor to the colonists, helping to make their reintegration into the world easier. Back on earth, Harry Kim's beloved Libby is combining her career as a musician with her other calling as a spy for the Federation, rooting out moles. And several new characters are included, most notably Dr. Jarem Kaz, a joined Trill whose last host was active in the Maquis, the ship's physician, and Astall, the counselor from a race called the Huanni, who are even more empathetic than Betazoids. Commander Andrew "Priggy" Ellis, a by the book officer, is his second in command.

The trip is uneventful until they near the planet, when things go horribly wrong. . .

It's good to see most of the old faces in a new Voyager adventure. I enjoyed this and am looking forward to the sequel.

One criticism: the book cover read Spirit Walk Book One. It didn't specify one of two, one of three, one of six thousand. It would have been helpful to know how many were in this series.

The new Spirit Walk Voyager books are nothing short of amazing! The first 2 post tv show books, homecoming and farther shore, were marvelous captavating tales that didn't let the reader OR the voyager fan down at all!! The new Spirt Walk books keep up the great work with fantastic writing and great character insight! The author captures the crew of voyager perfectly in the amazingly fantastic super charged voyager thriller! I just finshed reading parts 1 and 2 and would reccomend ANYONE who ever had a slight INTEREST in Voayger, to pick these books up! You really can't put them down until you have finished them! My only comment is i want MORE!!! I can't wait for the next Golden Voyager books to come out because Spirit Walk 1 & 2 were so great!!! From raw cookie dough to ferocious looking gentle Klingon babysitters, the 2 Spirit Walk books do not dissapoint in the slightest!!! They need to make an animated series or an animated movie out of the 4 Golden Voyager books that are out because these books are the BEST!!!
I look forward to hearing about when the next Golden Voyager books are going to come out!!!!
Pick these books up folks, ANY fan of Voyager or Star Trek is SURE to love em!!!

Like the new Star Trek Titan novels, our other favourite First Officer gets a well-deserved promotion to Captain of USS Voyager. And brings along plenty of old and new interesting characters for the ride. We are introduced to Chakotay's sister Sekaya - and congratulations to whomever chose Sekaya's portrait on the book's front cover - yowsers! Apart from Chakotay, the spotlight is also focused on Dr. Jarem Kaz, the new Trill Chief Medical Officer, who has quite a few secrets of his own he needs to deal with. Also interesting and believable is the unresolved tension between the old Voyager crew and the veterans of the Dominion War. This kind of interpersonal conflict is much more believable than the conspiracy-fuelled actions of the previous Homecoming duology.

The first half- to three-quarters of the book is revisiting old characters and introducing new ones. Thats fine by me, as Christie Golden has a much more confident grasp of the characters by now. The result is a much better written book with more believable character motivations than what transpired in Homecoming. I still didn't enjoy these as much as the Star Trek Titan novels, but its still worth a read to revisit old friends. And I hope to see more adventures of the new Voyager in the future.

"Old Wounds" is the first book in the Spirit Walk series and the third book in Voyager "Re-lunch series." Chakotay is now the new captain of Voyager, who has been given the task of taking some colonist back to their home planet. But things are not like they seem on both Voyager and the planet. Now Chakotay and his sister will both have to face some the Alpha quadrent's darkest memories if they are going to survive.
I keep hoping with each book that the Voyager relunch will improve, but it didn't. I still find that the storyline invovling Libby Webster to be just unblievible. I would also that Ms. Golden would back Voyager characters the reader miss. Die-hard will more than likly enjoy but other might was to skip this book.

I won't bore you with specifics about this book. I'll just give my overall impressions. Writing to specifics would take pages.

I read Homecoming and Further Shore and enjoyed them quite a bit, although I did have a problem with Golden's writing style.

In Old Wounds I just about threw the book across the room. I'm not sure what books Golden has done previously to the Voyager Re-Launch but it had to have been Romance Novels, the feel of the writing is just that sloppy. This was a dismal affair. Plot points tossed together that have nothing to do with each other, slow pacing, and then the realization that you have 10 pages left and NOTHING has happened worth mentioning! Come on, I can't believe this is a re-launch of Voyager.
I'm scared to read Enemy of my enemy now.
Please, someone at pocketbooks get another writer on the Voyager relaunch and let Golden go back to books with Fabio on the cover.

Holy Cow......

Too bad the actor; Robert Beltran didn't get the chance to portray this character for a TV episode. Chakotay shines in this new book by Christine Golden. It's almost like reading an episode adaption only it isn't! I wish that the two book format was one of choice for the editors. The six and seven book sagas really get too drawn out. This one pits the old Voyager crew against the new recuits that have joined the ranks. It is like going home again with this series because the books transend anything the TV show has done with it's uneven quality.

I found this book on the returns trolley at my local library and decided to borrow it for a quick read.

It delivered a quick read I had chewed through it in a couple of days.

Having not had the opportunity to read the previous homecoming books was no impediment to my understanding and enjoyment of this story.

I liked revisiting old Voyager characters and meeting new ones, but my beef with the book is that it didn't come to a very satisfactory conclusion.

I was about 12 pages out from the end when I realized that there were too few pages for the book to reach the climax that it took way too long building up to.

I don't like cliff hanger endings and this book ended on one which, whilst it made me keen to return to my library in search of book two also pissed this aspiring novelist right off as having broken one of the cardinal rules of writing ie "finish what you started!"

A good one to slip in your suitcase for a weekend away, otherwise.

The imagery was much better in this book than the last two of the relaunch, as one can infer from my previous reviews of the first two in the series, Homecoming and Farther Shore. And although I really liked the dialogue of the previous two (one could actually hear the characters saying their lines) I didn't get the same sensation this time around.

I thought this one moved much ssslllooowwweeerr (slower). I had a difficult time putting the first two down, even though they weren't the best books either, but this one truly took me a couple of weeks to read, simply because I just couldn't get into it until the last few chapters. Things really picked up then and I found myself staying up very late into the night to finish. And WHEN I finished, I couldn't wait to start the next one (this time I bought both at once and didn't have to wait).

Overall, I thought the first two were better, but not great, either.

Since I am not the humanist that Roddenberry was, I have been glad to see Trek beginning to reflect upon areas of religion and spirituality in both Voyager and Deep Space 9. In the Voyager series, spirituality was a less dominant theme than in Deep Space 9 -- and I think the prominence given it in this book may be what troubles readers who find the book unsatisfying.

When I was a high school librarian, I first encountered Christie Golden as an author of books for adolescents dealing with the unseen worlds (so to speak). Imagining and portraying those ideas is her forte as a writer, and she does those things very well in Old Wounds. I like also that she follows Voyager characters who are not on the ship. While it might have been nice to see a little more overt action in this novel, it has the appearance of "setting up" foundation for stories to follow. I assume there will be more than the already-available Book 2.

Judging by this book, Golden's weak point may be multiculturalism. A majority of Americans seem unaware that "Native American" encompasses several hundred distinct cultures as different from each other as Spanish, German, English and Swedish are from each other. There is no more reason to suppose that all varieties of Native Americans would converge on Dorvan V than that there would be a "panEuropean" planet. I do not remember any indication from the TV series that Chakotay was from Dorvan V -- nor from the The TNG episode "Journey's End" that Dorvan V was inclusive of many tribes -- in TNG Dorvan V was pretty convincingly portrayed as an extension of Pueblo culture -- which is quite different from the sort of undefined Native American culture formatted for Chakotay. (I have often visualized his family as originally coming from one of the forest tribes he encountered in his trip with his father.) I think the cultural aspects of the series would have been better served if Sekaya, from Dorvan V, had been a sort of kindred spirit of Chakotay but not a blood relative with the attempt to tie Chakotay to Dorvan V. The true richness of Native American culture as it might develop into the future would have been better portrayed with her as not his sister but a fellow-traveler in vision questing.

I do look forward to reading more of this (hopefully) series.

I'm not a trekker or a trekkie, but I enjoy watching the shows and reading the novelizations. "Voyager" was probably my favorite installment of the show and up until now, I've very much enjoyed Golden's novelizations of the continuation of the story.

"Spirit Walk: Old Wounds" mainly focuses on Chakotay, who is now Captain of the Starship Voyager and his new crew. While there are a lot of interesting ideas set up, the book focuses far too much on middling interpersonal issues and conflicts. Basically, this a book where for large stretches of time, nothing very interesting happens and then you get something that's only somewhat exciting. Although some time is spent with Janeway, The Doctor, Paris and Torres, I really feel that these best characters of the series are largely ignored, particularly the show's standout - Captain Janeway. She's turned into some big-time Admiral who is off running diplomatic missions and doesn't seem to have that old spark. Did I mention that Commander Tuvok is entirely absent from the story, save only a passing mention?

I'd say that "Spirit Walk: Old Wounds" did just enough to keep my interest to make me want to continue reading Christie Golden's novelizations of the continuation of "Voyager." I'm really looking forward to the next edition becuase if Golden properly pays off what was set up in "Old Wounds," then "Enemy of My Enemy" should be a very good book. I just really hope that the format for this next book is a lot different because if not, I will quit about halfway through, like I felt like doing with "Spirit Walk."