Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reynolds trusts his young audience, and it pays off,
By A Customer
This review is from: Mission to Horatius (Star Trek: The Original Series) (Hardcover)
First, let's get one thing straight. Mission To Horatius _is_ a children's book. As such, it must be reviewed and discussed in that context - to criticize it for not appealing to adults is simply unfair.I don't know any children who have read the book recently - I do remember that my own reactions, back in 1970 at the age of 7, were quite positive. The book has a well developed plot, and Reynolds was smart enough to realize that he could throw in some good subplots without losing his young readers. The main situation is plausible enough within the world of the original Star Trek: the Federation has received a distress call from a solar system in an unexplored part of the galaxy, and the Enterprise goes there to find out what is going on. Along the way, the captain and crew encounter three different cultures, various perils and dangers, etc. Some sacrifices must be made when writing a children's tale, and characterization suffers somewhat here. Readers will search in vain here for any explorations of Spock's Vulcan heritage, Kirk's legendary love life, as well as more fundamental aspects of Trek culture (Klingons, Romulans, etc). I don't know what Reynolds' personal background is, but I suspect that he was in the armed forces at some point - the characters act considerably more "military" than in the TV series (e.g., Kirk's manner toward junior officers). Adults may find parts of the book unintentionally hilarious - the idea of using LSD as a tranquilizer, for instance. On the other hand, there are parts which are clever even by adult standards - the perilous situation in which the chief shaman places the crew is particularly so. Which brings up another point - Reynolds, even though writing for children, is not afraid to use words like "shaman", "Teutonic", "theocracy", etc. He trusts his readers to either know what these mean, or to get a dictionary or ask an adult, or to simply figure out their meaning from the context. He's right to do so, of course. If you're an adult considering reading Mission To Horatius, you'll probably find it a pleasant enough trip down memory lane, if you were a fan of the original Trek series as I was; but in all honesty, you probably won't get terribly excited about the book unless you read it already as a child and want to revisit it. If you haven't figured it out yet, though, I'd highly recommend this book for kids.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Like a double-length episode of the original series,
By Joseph P. Menta, Jr. (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Mission to Horatius (Star Trek: The Original Series) (Hardcover)
As "Mission to Horatius" was the very first Star Trek "tie-in" novel, this sturdy little hardback reprint is worth checking out for historical interest alone. But if you cut it a bit of slack and forgive some of the overly broad plotting and comedy, it actually does a fair job of providing a few hours of genuine entertainment. It certainly delivers the flavor of the original show, before countless Trek novels had added layers of subtle characterization and other levels of sophistication to the original mythos. Not that those latter improvements are bad, but it was nice to read a story that, aside from the longer length, felt just like an original Trek episode. Fun, and worth seeking out.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
not a great story, but worthwhile for Trek fans,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Mission to Horatius (Star Trek: The Original Series) (Hardcover)
This reprint of the first official Star Trek novel (originally published in 1968) is not exactly what you -- or anyone else -- would call a classic, but it is potentially of interest for hardcore Trek fans.
Published while the series was still on the air (the only one that was, in fact), the novel is extremely weak in terms of characterization: McCoy is fairly close, as is Spock, but the others seem like different characters altogether. This is understandable -- the series had not yet becmoe a classic, after all -- but it's also distracting and impossible to overlook. Interestingly, the plot revolves partially around humans who have emigrated from Earth to alien worlds in order to create their own type of society. This is somethig that almost totally jars with the "Trek philosophy" of Gene Roddenberry, who wassort of insistent that in Earth's future, humans pretty much ALL got along, with any obstacles coming from elsewhere in the galaxy. This element of the novel isn't taken too far, but it is still an interesting peek into a different type of Star Trek. And ultimately, that's the value of the novel: its status as a historical document that shows what the Star Trek universe was like circa 1968. That universe was far from fully formed, and this novel is very much worth reading from that standpoint. On the level of plot, prose, dialogue, and character, though . . . not so much. Although I will admit to very much liking the way the story is resolved. All in all, you probably know already if this is the kind of thing you'll enjoy. One final note: the book itself is very handsome, a nice reprint of the original. The hardback binding is in the style of '60s novels for teenagers, and it's cool that Pocket decided to replicate that form, rather than just churn out a mass-market paperback.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
