What Lay Beyond [Import] [Unbound]

Peter David (Author), Keith R. A. DeCandido (Author), Diane Carey (Author)

Product Details

• Unbound
• Publisher: Star Trek Books (June 2002)
• ISBN-10: 0743431138
• ISBN-13: 978-0743431132
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and pointless, November 21, 2001

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A. KAPLAN "Penelopecat" (Las Vegas, NV United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gateways #7: What Lay Beyond (Star Trek) (Hardcover)

Instead of one big novel involving characters from all six current Star Trek book series, this is a collection of six short stories, each one picking up from the cliffhanger ending of each of the Gateways novels from the individual series (if that makes sense). While this sounded like a cynical marketing ploy, I had hoped that the six stories would build on each other to present some sort of unified whole, bringing the whole adventure to one grand conclusion. How wrong I was!

The Star Trek (original series), Challenger, and Voyager stories could--and probably should--have easily been included as concluding chapters in their respective books. Each one is nothing more than an epilogue to the main story. The Deep Space Nine and New Frontier stories present somewhat separate adventures, but that doesn't make them much better. In both, characters get transported to significant locations (an important historical moment for Colonel Kira, a mythical afterlife for Calhoun and Shelby) where nothing of any real consequence seems to happen. Of course, since both series present ongoing adventures, it's possible that these tales plant seeds for upcoming stories. Even if that were the case, it doesn't make these stories any less inconsequential or any more satisfying.

The Next Generation tale, longer than the other five, does, indeed, wrap up the Gateways story. But, like the other five, there's no real reason (besides financial) that this story couldn't have been included at the end of Doors Into Chaos.

Because four of the stories are completely dependent upon what came before, there is a complete lack of tension or suspense. All the big events happened in the parent novels, and all the authors have left to do in What Lay Beyond is tie up the loose ends (even when there aren't really any loose ends that need tying up). Any opportunites for suspense that could have been sustained through the other two stories are completely ignored by their authors. Frustratingly, those two authors, Peter David and Keith RA DeCandidio, have done particularly good Star Trek work in the past, which makes their lackluster contributions here even more disappointing.

So, if you followed the Gateways saga so far and need to see what happens next, I recommend waiting for the paperback. Nothing of enough consequence happens to make this an immediate must-read.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Loud sucking noise, April 22, 2002

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P. Wales "pamw23" (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gateways #7: What Lay Beyond (Star Trek) (Hardcover)

The loud sucking noise is the $$ being sucked out of your wallet.

Once upon a time, Star Trek hardcovers were saved for truly excellent ST stories (e.g., Spock's World, Sarek, Prime Directive, Pathways). Then they slipped a notch, but were still *decent* reads (e.g., Best Destiny, Imzadi, Shadows on the Sun, Kahless). Then the quality slipped another notch, but the books were still worth buying used ... or borrowing from the public library (e.g., Genesis Wave (Books I and II), Imzadi II, I,Q., Warped).

And once upon a time, even the "series" books were pretty decent reads (e.g., Invasion, Millennium, Section 31).

But, now...a whole new low!

The editors really missed the mark with this finale to a rather interesting premise. They should have just added a few more pages to each of the other six books in the series (especially considering how much paperbacks cost these days!) and saved the hardcover (and my $$) for a really GOOD book, instead of engaging in this marketing ploy to part us from our hard-earned cash.

Borrow this one from the library (just to read the TNG part)...don't even waste money on it from the used book store, unless you can find it for less than a buck.

I used to just be disappointed in the way the novels are "slipping" in quality - but now, I'm really angry. Listen up, ST editors at PocketBooks: Here's one Star Trek fan who will be very wary of all of those "Book X of Y" series that seem to be all that you can publish lately. In fact, I will no longer buy a single one until after the whole "set" is released, so I can see what I'm getting first!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars could have been something more, January 18, 2002

By 

"ja1864" (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gateways #7: What Lay Beyond (Star Trek) (Hardcover)

The book was a disappointment like many of the reviewers have stated here. I did enjoy the NF and DS9 stories. The DS9 in particular for me was excellent. I thought the weakest was the Challenger story and it seemed to be the one that had the least connection with the whole Gateway story. The other stories refer to each other a little but the Challenger one nothing at all. It's a separate universe bascially. I also felt that the ending really was lacking. Basically the book like the series had it's high point and low points.