Customer Reviews

Star Trek: Corps of Engineers: Creative Couplings (Star Trek: S.C.E)

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

 

 

I read this a few months ago, but some memories remain- it was complex, included characters that weren't really familiar to me and weren't introduced thoroughly enough that they became familiar to me... and it was on the whole so well-written (word choice, plot points) that I didn't care about its shortcomings.

It made me- as a Trekkie and as a reader- happy. It's a good continuation of the series. (I've read all of the other books in the SCE series, and was delighted to find this on the shelf.)

The trend in the ST universe of publishing what is essentially very well-written fanfiction disturbs me. This book has a more canonical feel to it than do many others that I've read, and it's pleasant.

This book doesn't have the Ooomph of the other SCE series; I am waiting to see how other readers find "Creative Couplings".

I have really enjoyed reading the SCE series of books. For the most part I have considered the price to be fair. The two part series Creative Couplings was a real disappointment. They divided the story into two parts charging $5.99 per part. Each book was extremely short compared to other SCE books. Creative Couplings should have been packaged into one book for only $5.99 or less. It was certainly not worth $12.00 for the two.

The story was fine but not exceptional.

I did have a new idea for the whole Star Trek world. If you can have a hologram doctor (introduced in Voyager and used in the SCE series), why not a hologram engineer to deal with all the various life threatening situations in engineering and let the humanoids get out and seal off engineering?

Captain David Gold and his wife Rachel are the first continuing Jewish characters in the Star Trek universe. (Yes, there have been a few other Jews in the novels -- see my own book, Jewish Themes in Star Trek -- but the Golds are the first major Jewish characters in an ongoing series.) In "Creative Couplings," Captain Gold's granddaughter, Esther, is marrying Khor, the son of a Klingon ambassador, and Gold is going to perform the wedding. (Which gets around the sticky question about intermarriage between a Jew and a non-Jew. It isn't stated in the book, but I imagine this is why Rachel -- who is a rabbi -- does not officiate. Although, since membership in the Jewish community is passed down through the mother, and the bride in this case is Jewish, that means their children will be Jews. Imagine -- Jewish Klingon kids! Perhaps future stories will deal with these issues in more depth?) Trying to bridge these two cultures in a mutually-acceptable ceremony is a challenge for both the Golds and the Klingons, but they succeed -- how, I'm not going to tell you.

This book is actually an anthology, with 5 other S.C.E. stories as well. I liked some better than others, but on the whole it was a good read. Although these other novellas don't have overtly Jewish themes, Captain Gold does use Yiddish expressions occasionally. I was most impressed that he does NOT degenerate into the "comic relief" role that is so often assigned to Jews in popular literature. Gold is a highly competent Starfleet captain who just happens to be Jewish. Very well done!

A very enjoyable read for any Treknologist, detailing the scrapes and puzzles that our friends on the USS Da Vinci get themselves into and out of. Would have been better minus the amusingly predictable "The Art of the Deal", but a good book on the whole.

I've really enjoyed the SCE addition to the Trek line. This book is wroth your time.

Star Trek Corps of Engineers: Creative Couplings is the lastest in the SCE Series and is as good or slightly better than the previous book. All of the SCE books are great and I hope that more will be coming soon.

Once more, the gang from Pocket Books has come up with a new set of interesting, compelling, and sometimes downright hysterical stories of the Corps of Engineers. This volume contains half a dozen, by authors both familiar and not. Subject matter ranges from a very bad day on Risa to a very small world in a pyramid - with a Klingon-Jewish wedding in between! VERY good reading.