Customer Reviews

Swordhunt (Star Trek, No. 95: Rihannsu, Book 3)

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

 

 

I'll start by saying that I thoroughly enjoy Ms. Duane's writing style and her ST books in particular. In my humble opinion, only her and John Ford's books actually could stand on their own as good reads without the Star Trek name. Good, inventive characters, good plots, well written, entertaining; she's got them all covered.

That said, I'm rather peeved at Pocket for these books. When your first $xx book ends at chapter 4 and the next $xx book starts at chapter 5, you know that you're getting ripped off. This is one book at best split into two so that suckers who either want to see how the story turns out, like me, or those who just mindlessly buy every ST book will spend twice as much money. Then, after spending $xx, you find that it ends in "To be continued". These books are simply setting the stage for the actual story. Nothing much happens in them plot-wise that makes them worthwhile, rather they set up a premise for us to buy the book about later.

Had these books been put together as one paperback, I'd give them a 4 out of 5. Since they took one book and split it into two, with a third to come, I give it a 1. The book's a cheat.

Matt

I agree with the other reviewer that said you need to have read the first two books of this series. Also recommended is to read Ms. Duane's super novel "The Wounded Sky."

The usual Diane Duane trademarks are all here--good characterization, excellent supporting cast and an interesting situation for the original series crew. Duane has one of the richest supporting cast of Trek characters out there and she uses them all. My biggest complaint is that Pocket has become far too greedy. This book and the one that follow are obviously intended to be one novel (the first chapter of the next book is Chapter Six and this one ends with Chapter 5) but instead it's split up so we can double the price. Here's a novel idea, Pocket--if you want to have me ante up a large sum for one book, publish the next segement in hardcover and give me the whole story at once!

OK, rant aside.

This is an entertaining series and worthy of reading. Duane does a lot of interesting things with the Romulans. She makes them far more interesting than TNG did. It's also interesting that she ties in some elements of John M. Ford's views on Klingons from "The Wounded Sky."

Diane Duane is by far my most favoraite Star Trek author and I would have bet long odds that any book that she wrote is a "must have". However, 'Swordhunt' and 'Honor Blade' proved this assumption to be totally wrong.

There just seems to have a 'whole lot of nothing' going on in both stories. Correction: You have one somewhat hectic Star Trek shot-em-up style space battle in each book . . . and the rest of the story (??) so far seems to be in a continuation that has not yet been printed.

I have read and re-read both books a number of times and I have yet to have any clue as to what is actually going on.

No doubt, if and when we actually get to the *real* story . . . in the next volume . . . all this seemingly wasted effort telling a back story will make sense . . . but as it is now, be prepared to be disappointed.

It is clear that most of us are unhappy with the way Pocket split these books up. Swordhunt is nothing without Honor Blade, and even that is continued with no publish date known to us readers. Packaging a group of books as a series is one thing, even though it doesn't thrill me, but not providing the completion at the same time is an insult to our intelligence. It greatly detracts from reading a story when you have a year's intervention where your memory of details fades. Having said that, the story is outstanding. I detract a star from the rating because of the way it's split up.

In reading this and the follwing book, I was a bit confused and disturbed by both the pacing and the lack of focus in the plot. I've read much of Ms. Duane's work ("My Enemy, My Ally" remains one of my favorite books of all time, even fifteen years after I read it and ten since outgrowing Star Trek fandom), and have come to expect a higher standard than these books are written to. Then I suddenly realized that this and "Honor Blade" appear to have been a single book (or two-thirds of one, as there's a "To Be Continued" at the end of the latter one) at some time, but for some reason were serialized and rushed into publication. This has a very disruptive effect on these two books, making them read disjointedly and awkwardly. The main plot and myriad sub-plots do not tie in together at the end, leaving the pair of books feeling very unfocused. Aside from that...the thing that's always impressed me about Ms. Duane's writings is that she doesn't write about plots or characters so much as themes, and the plot and characters are merely vehicles by which she explores the themes. Sadly, this is lacking in these two books, which read more as straight adventure books. But still, they're not entirely unentertaining, and a light read.

Diane Duane's _My Enemy, My Ally_ is one of my all time favorite Star Trek books, so I was eagerly anticipating Book 3 & Book 4 of the Rihannsu series. Unfortunately, this book is not in the league as _My Enemy, My Ally_.

_Swordhunt_ continues the story of the Enterprise, Ael and the sword stolen in the previous book. _Swordhunt_ goes off on tangents, but ultimately goes nowhere. It should never have been a book on its own, it should have been one book with the fourth installment of this series. The books main strength is in its characters (and frankly, its the only reason to read it). The characterization of the original Enterprise crew is quite good. The Duane characters of Ael and her crew remain quite compelling. Other good Duane-created characters, such as Naraht and K's't'lk return, and are much appreciated.

The plot (what there is of it) drags on. Fortunately, the story improves greatly in the 4th installment. This book is only weakly recommended as a prelude to the 4th book. They should have been one book.

It's worth reading but not at the Kindle price. No paper, no ink, no glue, no fuel costs, no Text-to-speech. Do yourself a favor buy a used paperback. Don't support the "Publishers" price gouging. No TTS, $3.99. with TTS $5.99 max.

The Romulans used to be my favorite Star Trek villains. I read the Rihannsu series because I thought it would be a fun exploration of Romulan culture and history. However, I barely recognized the Romulans in Rihannsu. The book degrades them and seems to radically alter their characters. The main character, Ael, seems too perfect, while the rest of the Romulans seem like a bunch of buffoons. Furthermore, the book radically changes Romulan history that just doesn't seem realistic. It's too bad - the Romulans as presented in the Original Series were fascinating characters who had both honor and deviousness. The Romulans in Rihannsu have little of either.

This is book 3 in a series of 5; the first is "Star Trek #18: My Enemy, My Ally", the second is "Star Trek #35: The Romulan Way". Then follows this book, and "Star Trek #96, Honor Blade", finally concluding in "Star Trek: The Empty Chair" (unnumbered). As you might be able to tell from the numbering, there was a LARGE gap of time between books 2 and 3 of the series; to be honest, I found it difficult to follow this book due to how long it's been since I read the previous installment in the series (and unlike the first two books, which each stood reasonably well alone, if my memory serves, this one does not). I would definitely not recomend this book unless you've RECENTLY read the previous installments.

The other problem with this book (indeed, this whole series) is that Duane began it before the powers that be in the Star Trek universe had given us much in the way of background to Romulan society, culture, and history; she filled the missing bits from her own imagination, and did so admirably. Unfortunately, when the canonical stories finally did fill in some of those blanks, they did so very differently than Duane did, so what we now have is clearly an "alternate universe" story, taking place in a parallel reality very different from the standard Star Trek timeline. The story is still good, but it cannot be fit into what we've seen of Romulans in Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager without TREMENDOUS amounts of rationalizing.

The first two books in what is now, apparently "The Rihannsu series" were excellent. Doing for the Romulans what _The Final Reflection_ (John M. Ford) did for the Klingons, the first two tightly-plotted books described Rihannsu history and culture: both books were good enough to be fanfiction, and have been treated as source material by many Star Trek fans.

I suspected, from the no-enthusiasm that was apparent in Trek fandom, that books 3 and 4 weren't as good. But I bought book 3 anyway, out of a completist instinct. That was a mistake. Book 3's plot plods along: we not only find nothing new about the Rihannsu, the information we already had is used in no interesting way: and finally, the supreme cheat, it turns out that "book 3 and book 4" are actually two halves: at the end of book 3, "the story continues in - ".

As my reaction while reading book 3 was somewhat "Why did I bother?" I shall certainly not be buying book 4, but I feel cheated - The Romulan Way was a sequel to My Enemy My Ally, but both were self-contained novels. Books 3 and 4 are really Part 1 and Part 2, and honestly: not worth the price of one book, let alone two.

I am disappointed in Diane Duane, because I know she is capable of much better. I am disappointed in Paramount, which seems to have given up on the concept of *good* Star Trek novels. If there was a rating for less than 1 star, that's what I would have given this book.