Customer Reviews

Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Fury Scorned

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

 

 

I, like other Star Trek fans, have a sound ability to suspend reality and enjoy fantasy. If the plot isn't that exciting, you can usually get into the character development. My problem with this book is that I was faced with a ridiculous plot: Enterprise creates a worm hole through syphoning off power from a soon-to-go Nova sun, to allow the nearby doomed planet, with its 20 million residents, to then move through (yes, the entire planet!) to safety several light years away and a new, more stable sun. And yes, all this is an experiment that Data pulled out of his positronic rear end. There are then 'teaser' plots that don't go anywhere: ancient civilisation that had abandoned the planet previously, despite having some clever stabilisation control in the middle of the sun; writings of the ancients (that disappointingly are never interpreted through a failure of its archeologists to locate a Rosetta Stone equivalent); dolphin-like creatures who 'might' be ancients, studied by a cult-like group dwelling under the ocean; a completely unconvincing child hostage scene that is resolved in a poorly described narrative 'blip'; and a strange reference to Federation politics overtaking the traditional 'doing the right thing'. From a character-development perspective, the only point of recall was Worf admiring the scenery of the planet - snooze. My kingdom for a Batleth swinging, Daktagh wielding warrior!

This novel really didn't gel at all with me, and truly seemed like Star Trek pulp. Would only recommend people read this, if they want to fill "Novel No# 43" to complete a gap on their bookshelf.

Ok, lets not kid ourselves. This is a good, solid Star Trek story, but it isn't brilliant, nor is it original. This book is just another Enterprise-saves-the-planet affair, only this time (wait for it...) the planet gets sent through a wormhole. That's right.

If this were possible, wouldn't it be mentioned before in Star Trek? As it is Data's 'revolutionary scientific experiment' seems a little farfetched and ridiculous. It does manage to keep your interest though, and it didn't take me too long to read. I think the best bits were the part where that piece of the planet breaks off and the actual crossing through the wormhole.

I will admit that once I managed to forget about the absurdity of the whole wormhole thing, I did enjoy this book, although I still think there are a lot of better save-a-planet books (Death of the Princes, Last Stand, Double Helix #1...)

I think people who like that kind of pioneering/scientific Star Trek book will probably go for this. I give it 'average' - three stars.

This type of story has come up before. There is at least one novel that I know of the Classic Trek series that is pretty much the same as this novel. This Novel is pretty much predictable in all senses, and you know, as well as I do, that none of the main characters ever die. Just the ones that are extras. Deana could have died, but she was saved. I don't recommend this novel if you want to read something that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Yet, this novel does keep you slightly intrigued if you let it.

Data's "revolutionary scientific experiment" is unbelievable. The outcome is predictable, so it simply wasn't enjoyable. There are far better TNG books to read. Also annoying is how Deanna Troi is addressed as "Lieutenant Commander" despite the fact that she is a full Commander (even the three solid pips on her uniform on the cover of the book indicates this).

I found this book to be boring and unoriginal. Also, I'm not much of a scientist but I don't really think you can make a planet travel through a wormhole.

More of a thinking than a doing book. Captain Picard is faced with a planet with millions of people on a planet with a sun about to go nova. He must decide to either take as many people as he can and flee the nova (which will occur in less than a week) or try to move the planet through a wormhole to another star- and risk both the Enterprise and the entire planet.

Pocket Books is really trying to pull a fast one with this book. It's nothing more than a reprint of the 1996 book of the same title. The 1996 edition was in a mass market paperback format and listed at $5.99. This edition is in a trade paperback edition (with slightly larger type and very wide margins) at a list price of $18.99. If they wanted to reprint this book it should have been in mass market format at the current price of $7.99 for those editions. This edition is an easy way to make an extra $11.00.

Oh yes, the book was never very good to begin with. If you missed it in 1996 you didn't miss much.

This book is reasonably well-written, which is why I've given it 2 stars rather than one. But the basic plot concept is remarkably silly; Picard & co. have a long-shot chance to save a world threatened by the nova of its sun, but must proceed without telling the inhabitants what they are doing because the Federation council is worried that it will LOOK BAD if they say they're trying, and the plan doesn't work? They'll be accused of fostering false hope for the purpose of pacifying the inhabitants? Meanwhile, people are committing suicide because they have given in to despair? I realize that the Federation council can be stupid & bureaucratic, but they have never been THAT stupid, and I refuse to belive that Picard would have gone along with the restriction, even if he is more of a model of military discipline than Kirk was; he's more compassionate than that. Besides, how is it that he can't tell them what he is doing because that might give false hope, but he can completely mislead them with completely false hope in order to get them to take shelter as they need to? That makes no sense at all. Further, if a sliver of the planet was sliced off by the edge of the wormhole as it went through, I suspect that it would have done a heck of a lot more damage than the authors have it doing. It might not shatter the entire planet as it would have if it had actually hit a physical object, but if a chunk of the pole was sliced off, the planet would also have lost a significant bit of its atmosphere, and that would surely have produced hurricanes & such even beyond what was described. And I also don't accept that there were no recriminations afterward from those people who lost loved ones to suicide who might not have had Picard & the Federation admitted that there was a plan, however long-shot; surely, there would have been less than universal acclaim and acceptance of what had been done. In fact, I find it incredible that none of the ministers for the planet voiced even minor objections after the fact to the fact that this action was taken without consulting them; this was, after all, their world and their right to decide whether the plan was acceptable or not. The fact that the plan involved significant risk to the Enterprise, and therefore to the few thousand children who had been evacuated to the Enterprise, might have led them to insist that the Enterprise not take the risk. Probably not, but that should have been THEIR call to make, not Picard's, and I find it dubious that NOBODY said so, even after the fact.

There was just too much here that I couldn't suspend disbelief far enough to swallow, and considering that I was willing to suspend disbelief far enough to accept the opening of an artificial wormhole large enough to pass a planet through, that's saying something.

Star Trek-The Next Generation: A Fury Scorned written by Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski is a Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise save-the-planet book.

Faced with a population of twenty million and who and what to choose to evacuate Captain Picard and crew are facing steep odds. A dying sun, soon to go nova, threatens the planet Epictetus III and all that inhabits this planet. The U.S.S. Enterprise crew must come up with a solution or all will be lost.

Running out of time, Data proposes a revolutionary solution to this ever growning concern... a wormhole. But, not just any wormhole, no sir... a wormhole big enough for a whole planet. I know it sounds quite farfetched, but this is scifi and anything is possible. But will this novel experiment work? Can the U.S.S. Enterprise be saved? Only time will tell and the answers are in the ending of this book.

For action-adventure this is a good book as the narrative flows and it makes for a rather quick read. Captain Picard's trust in Lt. Commander Data and a solution that is highly experimental and weigh in the balance. But, this book will engage the reader till the end. This is not the best written book in the TREK universe, but it sure isn't the worst either.

"A Fury Scorned" is the first novel in the Star Trek genre by Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski. As Star Trek fiction goes, this novel is a fairly decent one and this writing team has proven that they can write some fair to midland type Star Trek novels since this novel was published.

The overall premise proves to be a fairly interesting one, where this novel falters is in the pacing and the execution of the plot setup. There were times within the story that the pacing was just too slow and the story somewhat stuttered, which detracted from the overall experience of the book.

The cover art for this novel is pretty much the same standard fare for the majority of the novels published at the time when this one was.

The premise:

Captain Picard and crew find themselves faced with Epictetus III and one of Captain Picard's toughest dilemmas' ever; the planet's star approaching nova and too few ships available to evacuate the population of over twenty million inhabitants. As has happened many times before, Data proposes a radical new scientific experiment which "may" save the entire planet and its population...

What follows from there is an interesting story but one that is ultimately non-engaging due to "quirks" within the plot setup and execution thereof and the pacing.

I would recommend this novel as it is part of the line of all Star Trek The Next Generation novels for those that wish to read all of them but to the casual fan, this may be one to pass up on for it is not a "great" example of Star Trek fiction, but it is also ultimately not the worst either. {ssintrepid}