Starrise at Corrivale (Star*Drive Harbinger Trilogy, Vol. 1) (v. 1) [Mass Market Paperback]

Diane Duane (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Starrise at Corrivale accomplishes what it sets out to do: it's a reasonably entertaining primer for the Star*Drive universe, a campaign setting for TSR's science-fiction role-playing game Alternity. Star*Drive is fairly recognizable space-opera fare, a view of the future in the 26th century, with various stellar nations exploring and exploiting their way across the galaxy, often coming into conflict. Starrise at Corrivale, the first book of the Harbinger trilogy, is the first fiction to be set in Star*Drive, and is authored by an old hand at developing licensed worlds, Diane Duane. (Duane has written numerous bestselling Star Trek novels and has also borrowed time with Spiderman and the X-Men.)

Starrise at Corrivale revolves around well-meaning tough guy Gabriel Connor, a Marine for the Galactic Concord. Connor, who is part of the military contingent accompanying a diplomatic mission, is unexpectedly thrust into the center of intrigue in the negotiations between two hostile worlds. Duped into abetting a murder, then discredited and booted from the Marines, Connor must figure out what nefarious forces are at work in the system, and why, if he hopes to clear his name. --Paul Hughes

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (October 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786911794
• ISBN-13: 978-0786911790
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #470,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diane Duane was born in New York City -- a descendant of New York's first mayor -- and worked there as a psychiatric nurse before leaving the profession for the only one she loved better, the business of writing. Since the publication of her first novel in 1981, she's written fifty more, not to mention numerous short stories, comics, computer games and screenplays for TV and film, and has picked up the occasional award here and there. (She has also worked with Star Trek in more media than anyone else alive.)

Right now she's probably best known for her "Young Wizards" series of young adult fantasy novels, featuring the New York-based wizards Kit Rodriguez and Nita Callahan -- in business for twenty-five years now, their most recent adventure being described in the ninth YW novel, "A Wizard of Mars" (just released in paperback).

DD shares a two hundred-year-old cottage in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland with her husband, the Belfast-born novelist and screenwriter Peter Morwood, a laid-back white cat named Goodman, and various overworked computers... an odd but congenial environment for the staging of epic battles between good and evil and the leisurely pursuit of total galactic domination. (And a lot of ethnic cooking: her own favorite foods come from the cuisines of central Europe and the Mediterranean.) In her spare time she gardens (weeding, mostly), studies German and Italian, listens to shortwave and satellite radio, and dabbles in astronomy, computer graphics, iaido, amateur cartography, and desktop publishing ... while also trying to figure out how to make more spare time.

Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A well written, engaging introduction to a new SF universe., October 29, 1998

By 

Ernest C. Mueller (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Starrise at Corrivale (Star*Drive Harbinger Trilogy, Vol. 1) (v. 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

To be honest, I usually avoid gaming novels. Oh, I've read the "big ones," the original Dragonlance trilogy, the first couple Drizzt books, and the Gygax Gord novels, but that's about it. As a new Alternity GM, however, I decided to give Starrise At Corrivale a try to get a better "feel" for the Star*Drive campaign setting. I had at least heard of Diane Duane before (though I avoid other SF "lines" like the Star Trek novels on principle as well) and figured I'd give it a try.

I was pleasantly surprised. The story is quite involving, and the various plot twists grabbed my attention. The occasional combat scenes are well written, though the space combat ones get a little hazy and turgid at times - this might be on purpose, as the narrating protagonist was described as feeling that way at times. But the space combat was not really what you'd call exciting. The character interaction was the most interesting part.

The plot is an old standard, "disgraced hero must redeem himself by finding and exposing those who framed him." It is well done, however, and the mystery surrounding the book's events is maintained well.

The characterization of humans and aliens was generally good, with a couple lapses - I found the VoidCorp and Concord representatives to be somewhat one-dimensional. I liked the gentle treatment of the main aliens, a Fraal and Sesheyan mostly - there were enough little details to bring a sense of familiarity without any reducing to a sci-fi stereotype.

The depiction of the Concord Marines (the main military organization in the novel) was a little disappointing to me, they seemed too much like the Starfleet personnel of the Star Trek world (probably because of Ms. Duane's experience in writing for that line). I think the story could have benefited from a more "rough" feel to the organization.

Speaking of rough feels, there were more than a few typos and spelling/grammar problems in the book, disappointing especially for the first book out of the gate for a new line.

Duane managed to make the world interesting, which is always the main task of someone writing in someone else's world. She only lapses into intense-explication mode a couple times.

In general, for an Alternity gamer, this book is certainly worthwhile and enjoyable. For a non-gamer, this is a pretty good random SF novel, worth reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars engrossing story & good characters, January 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Starrise at Corrivale (Star*Drive Harbinger Trilogy, Vol. 1) (v. 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

I have enjoyed Diane Duane's other novels, although I haven't read any of her "series" books (Star Trek, etc.). In Starrise at Corrivale, I found her usual enjoyable use of language, characters to care about, and a good story. The villains are murky and in places one-dimensional: perhaps this is to whet our appetites for the next volume in the series?? Bring it on!! (and keep writing the Wizard books, too - I buy them for my niece - and read them before I give them to her!!)

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Remember 'Doc' Smith's Lensmen?, March 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Starrise at Corrivale (Star*Drive Harbinger Trilogy, Vol. 1) (v. 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

No, I won't say Diane Duane's book 'Starrise at Corrivale' is a Lensman book, but it brought back strong memories of those books. Her heros are heros with no real character flaws, her aliens are praisworthy and trustworthy - except for the nebulos hidden enemies that will surely be revealed in future books. I find her plots somewhat more convoluted (not a difficult task) but all in all, there seemed to be many simularities. I always enjoyed Smith's books, even if I did find them many, many years after they were written and the same is true of Starrise. There are better books out there but here is one that resurects a lost area of the SciFi genre in a manner that is not a 'dated' rehash of previous books. You don't need to know the plot details here, its enough to know that men are men and aliens are too. Good will prevail and our hero remains a hero - one guided by higher beings (although in this case the higher being is a human justicator will unmentioned power, political and armed rather than the more highly evolved alien Mentor).