Welcome to 2010! Our very first review of the year is at hand, and it’s a novel review. Not even a Star Trek novel, can you believe it?

Set outside of Boston in 1954, Shutter Island is a crime thriller novel with a creepy twist. Written by Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island is the type of book that you just can’t put down once you pick it up; it’s just that good.

It’s 1954 and U.S. Deputy Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, are sent to Shutter Island, where they are to investigate the disappearance of a woman named Rachel Solando, a patient at the psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane that is run on the island.
Read the rest of this entry

In the world of Alera, magic abounds. The people of the world bond with elemental creatures called furies — elementals that let the people channel their powers of earth, water, air, fire, and metal — but not Tavi, a fifteen year old shepherd’s apprentice. Tavi cannot furycraft, but he is a very clever young man, and when his home is threatened by war, will his wits be enough to save his family, his home in Calderon — and all of Alera?

Read the rest of this entry

I grew up long after the original run of Star Trek was off the air; but I remember sitting down with my grandfather — the man who raised me — on Saturday afternoons, after the cartoons were done, and watching reruns of the original Star Trek. The USS Enterprise’s adventures were cut short two years before the completion of their five year mission, but I loved every episode (some more than others, admittedly) and always wondered what other adventures Captain James T Kirk and his crew had that we didn’t get to see.

In Dave Galanter’s novel, Star Trek: Troublesome Minds, we get to see one of those lost adventures.

Read the rest of this entry

The events from David Mack’s Destiny trilogy shook the very foundations of the Federation. Billions of lives were lost and many of those who survived were changed forever. Left to help pick up the pieces of the Borg-decimated United Federation of Planets is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise and his crew; but a darkness lies on the horizon, a storm is brewing even as the post-war Federation tries to pull itself back together. Can Picard and his crew help rebuild the Federation without losing the peace?

Read the rest of this entry

Voyager has had a rocky few years as far as novels go. The very first novel to take place after Voyager’s return from the Delta Quadrant, Homecoming, was written like bad fanfiction. The three books that came after that were less than spectacular, only slightly better than Homecoming–but just barely. The Star Trek novelists and publishers seemed to get the hint and shelved Voyager novels, thankfully giving us a reprieve from the horrible writing that had plagued the relaunch of the series from television into novel format.

Of course, as the Trek world moved on, the Voyager crew slowly crept back into view, namely Kathryn Janeway and Seven of Nine. As the events leading up to David Mack’s epic Destiny trilogy unfolded, we as readers and fans were left with questions and loose ends from previous Voyager novels. What was desperately needed was a novel that dealt with the tragedy the Voyager crew faced in the novel Before Dishonor; what was needed was a novel that tied up the loose ends that were created in the horribly written Homecoming book. In Full Circle, there is a novel that does both of these things, and more. Read the rest of this entry