Customer Reviews

Star Trek Envoy: A Captain Sulu Adventure

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

 

 

This is in review of the Audio version (1 Cassette, 1 hour run time). I was, overall, disappointed in this story. The thought of Captain Sulu crawling around on hands and knees through ductwork was humerous (although Kirk did it at least once). Takai sounds wooden in his acting role, and is at times drowned out by the sound effects (at least when listening in an automobile). I did enjoy the story, but it jumps around a bit, and the thought of a Star Base or base of any kind easily being taken over is ludicrous.

The writers and producers of ST Envoy had a great story idea in mind. It does present a philosophical question, though in my opinion it is not explored nearly enough. The story takes a back seat to the sound and music, which I personally do not like. Not only is the story too little explored, the production itself is as corny as anything I've ever heard. The sound designers intended this to be a splended 3-Dimentional sound performance, which it was. However, the sound effects are in some cases a distraction, which prevents the listener from being able to hear some of the dialogue without blasting their eardrums in the process. The alien languages were created with good intention, and in some cases they're not bad, such as the singing of the Pod, but in most cases, especially where there are several of them talking at once, it sounds like a mental institution gone wrong. It sounds terrible, but it is also laughable. The acting is tolerable. The head Admiral reminds me of one of my elementary school teachers who I absolutely hated because she was exactly like a drill sargeant, but that's just my opinion. Sulu is the only truely great performer in this production. If you want a good laugh and can handle a little bit of childish, embarrassing acting it's a nice buy, but I would recommend buying another book in most cases because they are usually better than this.

The concept for this is good: give a 3d sound experience to the listener and try to immerse them in the story. Unfortunately, it has some trouble spots in the story. First of all, the story starts out incredibly slow and slightly confusing. Once you pick up on what's going on (basically, when Sulu comes in), it gets better. It IS a good story, and it's great to see Captain Sulu in action again...it's just too bad it takes some getting used to to really enjoy it.

This is supposed to be taking place in the year 2291. That last decade of the 23rd century has very few stories in it. This could have filled the gap in that era as well as fleshed out Sulu's story.

Actually, it does add some depth to Sulu's character as we hear him try to find a fair compromise between his orders and his conscience. But the overall production of this is just irritating.

It's already been noted in other reviews that levels between sound effects and dialogue needed to be more balanced. So I wont say much more on that.

What I will say is that the gibberish of alien languages is just intolerable. They barely even sounded like a language. It was more like they told the voice actors to make nonsensical noises. Which they did in the extreme. I might have been able to look past it if every other sound wasn't a tongue rolling noise. It just sounds like someone did way too much meth and decided to learn Spanish in hyperspeed.

If the story was any good I really can't say. I was too distracted by these annoyances.

They did something similar in Cacophony. I was distracted by the random radio signals to follow what was going on in that.

But at least Cacophony was sort of fun.

If you're a die hard Star Trek fan like me that has to hear or read every Star Trek story ever published then buy this. It's not going to be very enjoyable for you to listen to but at least it's another chapter in the infinite saga of the Star Trek universe.

listened to audiobook... very poor story... boring.. annoying sound effects. almost trashed it after 10 minutes... and entire book is only about an hour.

This is not a bad audio-book but it could have a little more work on the characters with alot more depth. The backgdround music was also anyoying.

While the story line works well for an audio book the sound effects are a problem. The sound effects are distracting and in many cases drown out the words completely. The artists reading the material did a nice job. Now the sound mixers need to get on the ball.

I should have known it was crap, but ever the optimist I decided to give it a try. It was not just bad; it stunk: `Star Trek: Envoy' was garbage from the word go. The CD had one (1) track, and my cars CD player only lets you skip tracks (no fast forward - but it does hold 6 CD's). Instead of reading the story, these morons added sound effects, background noise, and had different people reading different parts. I got through about 10 minutes before I went to the next CD. It was loud, pointless, annoying, and endlessly repetitive - pure crap! I didn't even get to any of George Takei's dialog.

Some years ago, George Takei, a.k.a. Captain Hikaru Sulu took the opportunity to capitalize on his character becoming the captain of the USS Excelsior in "Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country." Star Trek "Envoy" a Captain Sulu adventure is one of those ventures.

Overall, the entire premise of the story and the all out production for this audio CD is well worth the price and the time. The only downside to the entire adventure is that in its attempt to create a realistic atmosphere, they use alien language in the background while Sulu listens to the universal translator. Thankfully, this isn't used too often in any of the episodes because it provides a major distraction to what's important, the story.

While it has been the rare L.A. Graf story that I've been enthralled with over the years, this story is quite good for this writing team.

The premise:

Captain Sulu is ordered away from the Excelsior in a shuttle craft on a mission to act as the Federation's envoy between two warring races, the Krikiki and the Den-Kai. Captain Sulu finds himself in a grave moral dilemma as he is to deliver a young Krikiki prince over to Den-Kai as a peace offering, but that prince will have to undergo isolation and physical mutilation.

What follows from there is a fairly interesting story that I would recommend to any and all fans of Star Trek fiction as it makes for a great hour or so while driving down the highway. {ssintrepid}