Present Tense: The Janus Gate Book One of Three (Star Trek The Original Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "THE GREAT STARSHIP TREMBLED, frame and struts wailing in distress as she careened into her own attenuated warp field..." (more)
Key Phrases: cave jumper, karst mound, lost survey team, Captain Kirk, Survey Team Three, Lieutenant Uhura (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Beam aboard for a bold new era in Star Trek storytelling! Beginning with this thrilling all new trilogy, the original five-year mission of the Starship Enterprise™ is reimagined via the many valiant crew members who served under legendary command if Capt. James T. Kirk. Who are these exceptional men and women often asked to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of interstellar peace and exploration? What are their stories? Their saga begins in

THE JANUS GATE
book one of three
PRESENT TENSE

The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise™ is exploring the seemingly peaceful and uninhabited world of M-3107 when a bizarre and inexplicable transporter accident causes both Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy to vanish completely. Transporter records suggest that the two men were transported somewhere, but their ultimate destination remains a mystery.

Now in command of the Enterprise, Spock dispatches a search-and -rescue team -- consisting of Security Chief Giotto, Transporter Technician John Kyle, and Chief Helmsman Hikaru Sulu -- on an urgent mission to recover the missing officers.

But then the rescue team disappears as well!

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Star Trek (May 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671036351
• ISBN-13: 978-0671036355
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #249,272 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great book, strange synopsis on the back cover, June 4, 2002

By A Customer

I am a big trek fan and loved this book. The premis of this trilogy is to tell a story from the perspective of Kirk's crew. This is touted as being unusual in the Star Trek original series library. I don't agree with this. Ishmael,Home is the Hunter,Ice Trap and Fire storm are similar, the latter two also by LA Graf.

The story is complicated but the continuity is excellent. I have read over one hundred of the original series books and LA Graf is obviously very familiar with all the characters. The story is set before Sulu, Uhura and Chekov become friends, during the first five year mission. LA Graf beautifully reveals the personalities we already know. It does spoil the suspense a little since we already know who lives and dies.

However we are given so many references to stories already known I don't think a new reader would follow the plot,(or see the point of it all)

Me, I LOVED IT!

One strange point was that the synopsis on the back cover bore no resemblence to the story inside the book. Go figure!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..., September 13, 2002

By	James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Or in this case, the man writing the blurb for the back cover, which apparently was based on a VERY early rough draft/plot synopsis, which bore VERY little resemblance to the eventual story.

The actual story is intriguing, one of the best I've seen. There are a couple of caveats: I HATE cliffhanger endings, so that's why I docked the book one star; if you don't share my dislike of stories that end "to be continued" without resolving any plot points, then consider this a five-star rating. Other than that, my major caveat is that the claim in this book is that at this point in time, Uhura ranked Sulu, and was fourth in the Enterprise chain-of-command after Kirk, Spock, and Scotty. This is clearly not canonical; Uhura was not in command-track at all, and while it's possible that Sulu wasn't yet fourth in the food chain, Uhura was certainly not ahead of him.

But this is a minor quibble, and one I'm willing to overlook, given how good the story is. I must admit, I'll be interested to see how the author gets them out of the corner s/he's painted them into; this really is a proper cliffhanger, as it certainly seems like there's no likely way out, but we KNOW that they get out of it, as the story is set early in the first five-year mission, just after the episode "The Naked Time". Or just before it, depending on how you look at it, given that at the end of that episode (and the beginning of this book) the Enterprise has just been accidentally timeslipped three days into the past.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Underground Success, September 8, 2002

By	Mark Sheridan (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

Having been a little disappointed by the quality of recent Star Trek novels it was with some trepidation that I bought this multi-book series. Fortunately L.A. Graf has had a number of successes in the past and proves there is still life in the original Star Trek universe. The author has written a number of works that have a common thread of an almost obsessive fascination with the characters of Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov, and while I don't always agree with how they are represented it is true that I have never been disappointed by Graf's story writing abilities. Here we have a basic "transporter gate" type story but unlike last year's terribly weak "Gateways" series, the author manages to breathe life into the story by the added twist of the time travel nature of the transporter. As the first book in the series is is mainly a set-up piece, but it is full of mystery and intrigue and nicely leads into book two. The clever way that the adventure is slotted into the original Star Trek timeline is also indicative of the author's attention to detail and is appreciated by a long time fan of the original series like myself. A good effort all round and I look forward to reading the next book.