Customer Reviews

Violations (Star Trek Voyager, No 4)

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

 

 

This is surely not the best star trek voyager book. There are just too many wrong details. For examples, as far as I know, Captain Janeway never called Chakotay: "Number one". She always use "Commander" instead (Number one is the way capt. Picard calling Riker). And since when the EMH has a name (this book name the Doc: Zimmerman). It's mentioned also that Voyager's computer main processor had trouble of handling data 5000 Megabyte/second. Come on.. read ST TNG Tech. Manual at least about the computer capability. 5000MB/sec is too small. Last thing, The EMH always starts with the promp :"Please state the nature of medical emergency!" instead of the phrase "What is the medical emergency?" like this book used many times. The political intriques also kind of confusing sometimes. Not many action in this book. Certainly there are beter ST Voyager's books such as Battles lines, Ragnarok, Marooned.

Not a bad offering overall, but whoever says this is the *best* Voyager book ever written obviously hasn't read too many! Unlike someone else, I enjoyed the planet's political situation. But I got *very, very, quite, extremely bored* when reading about the Doctor's "illness." It seemed like half the book was Kes and Harry standing in front of a computer in sickbay, trying to figure out what was causing his condition. Come *on*--they exchanged medical jargon like two dueling dictionaries. If you read this one, do it to see Captain Janeway and B'Elanna Torres as helpless hostages--an interesting position for those two characters, especially--NOT to see the Holodoc get sick.

Let me start off by saying I have read a lot of books and fan fiction. And this one... well, let's just say I do not recommend this book.

To start with, if you've seen the episode "Concerning Flight," you'll laugh out loud while reading this book. (And yes, I know the episode came *after* the book - still, it's no excuse.) Same premise as the episode, the main computer gets stolen. Ok, so Voyager just needs to get it back, right?

Well, I started reading this and so they refer to the Doctor as Zimmerman. Ok, I can get over that and ignore that little bit. However, after about the 40th major error that anyone watching more than 15 minutes of any given Voyager episode could have spotted, that's when I got a bit annoyed. I mean, if you're going to actually write a book on something, shouldn't you do your homework? f your answer to that question is no, well, I have a few papers you can write for me.

Why did I continue reading this book? Just to see how bad BAD could actually get. And let me tell you, bad got quite bad.

Don't read this is you're expecting a good plot, characters and writing. DO read it if you have some time on your hands and are in the mood for something humorous. For a fan who needs to read everything, go for it. It won't kill you and it might just make you appreciate the other books even more.

This book was okay. Parts of it were very boring, parts of it were sort of interesting, but it was filled with errors. First of all, the EMH's name is NOT Zimmerman (as he is referred to basically all the time). If Susan Wright had actually seen a few episodes of Voyager, maybe she would have noticed this! Also, Janeway DOES NOT call her XO "Number One." It sounds as if Wright is a TNG fan, so why is she writing for Voyager?!?!

The plot of this book was mediocre, and the characterizations were pretty bland. It was as if someone told her, Janeway is THIS type of person, and Tom is THAT type of person, etc. It didn't feel as if she really knew the people she was writing about. I hate that.

This book could have been a lot better if it had been written by, say, Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who are my favorite team of Voyager writers. They wrote my favorite Voyager book, Echoes, which I highly recommend in place of Violations because Echoes was SO MUCH BETTER.

I tried reading this book like 3 times before I was finally able to get all the way through it. It wasn't the best Voyager book I've ever read either.

Susan Wright surpasses herself in the writing of this book. The characters are so true-to-life that you can imagine their voices speaking the lines as you are reading them. The plot is exciting and different, and the aliens are well described without going into unnecessary details. A brilliant piece of writing.

There's nothing to single this story out as spectacular, but it's a very good, interesting genre novel, quite well written. The characters are handled well, the plot moves nicely, the timing is good, the word choice is fluid and professional. Well above average.

This is the second Star Trek book that I've read by this author and, to say the least, I am disappointed. All of the nitpicks previously mentioned are all true (and very annoying to a true Trekkie- especially calling the Doctor "Zimmerman"). Besides that, though, the story was just kind of boring and highly techincal in places. I ended up skimming quite a few paragraphs just because of the technical jargon used. I can understand a sentence or two, but not 2 paragraphs!!!!!!!!! All in all, not worth the time it takes to read it. (Check out Christie Golden's Star Trek books for some good reading)

"Violations" is Susan Wright's second Star Trek novel and it is another example of some very good writing in the Star Trek genre. Of all of her novels, I've always enjoyed her writing style which is well paced and structured and "Violations" possesses those same qualities.

Given how early this novel was written during the series run on television, one can tell that the author probably only had the series "bible" and some episodes to base her characterizations off of and I found them to be fairly accurate and in synch with the characters during the first season.

The cover art for "Violations" is fairly decent, although the image of B'Elanna is a bit off.

The premise:

A group of aliens' volunteers to help Voyager but once they're on the ship, they steal the main computer. Forced to negotiate with the aliens to get the main computer back, Janeway soon finds that she's dealing with a consortium of planets where thievery is an acceptable way of life. As Janeway and the crew fight to retrieve the ever important main computer before the barely functioning ship ceases to function at all, they become embroiled in a political struggle that could not only cost them the ship but their lives as well.

Overall, this is a fairly well written title for the time in which it was written and given the authors lack of a couple years of experience with the show. I would definitely recommend this early Star Trek Voyager title and any others written by this author. {ssintrepid}

I actually managed to read this book 'till the end. And the end (starting chapter 13, page 167) is really good. So was the beginning (chapter 1 p 1-18). But the pages in between, are a description of how Voyagers crew stumble around in the dark of a complex society which needs more than these couple of pages to be explained in. It's as if the author tried to make a civalization as politically interesting as Herbert's Dune, but with to little space to give it body, and of course with primary (Voyager) characters that have nothing to do with the society (but stumble around, trying several different non helpfull ways to deal with these politics which they don't understand either) If you haven't read all the other Voyager books, please read those others first. They are better (well mostly). For instance "Echoes" or "Mosaic" or "Marooned"