BOOK REVIEWS -------------- STAR TREK 61 - SANCTUARY by John Vornholt ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Colin Gunn ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ I don't know if any of our readers had the same sense of deja-vu as I did when reading this book as I did. But I just coudn't get the feeling out of my head that the chase scene between the Enterprise and the Shuttle of the criminal's ship down to the planet of Sanctuary was lifted from another novel or film/tv show. I did not like this book. The story just was not Trek. John has wrote other Trek novels in the past, namely Masks (Next Gen) and as well as in this novel the characters were really off. I really didn't like the idea towards the end of the novel of Kirk, Spock & McCoy building the balloon to make their escape (shades of the prison escape from the film Mysterious Island!). I couldn't identify with any of the characters apart from one. Scotty was typically Scotty. Also hard to believe was Starfleet didn't know the location of the planet. Yet the Orions and Klingons did!. A nice idea, but not Trek. STAR TREK 62 - DEATH COUNT by L.A. Graf ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Colin Gunn ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ This is one of the novels that begins to break the mould for classic Trek stories. The author has realised that, `Look there's more characters in Trek then the big three'. This book is really a Sulu, Chekov, Uhura novel. But don't despair, the other characters are featured heavily as well. If you can get past the obvious errors in this book, it's one really good read. The errors are to do with trying to put a date for the story to take place. Chekov is the Security chief on the Enterprise which would put it somewhere between The Motion Picture and The Wrath Of Khan. However the red tunics are clealy mentioned so this would put it sometime in Wrath's time- line. O.k. you may say. But it doesn't stop there. In one section of the book, Chekov is made out to always wear Starfleet gold, which would attempt to place it during the original tv series time. Now on to the Shuttlecraft used in the story. As we know Shuttles don't travel at warp speeds unless a warp-sled is attached. As one isn't mentioned I took it as being just a standard shuttle (although it is said the shuttle has its own warp containment field). Also the description of the shuttle sounds to much like the shuttles in Star Trek 5. So that puts it in that time line. Also mentioned (and I don't mean to have a go at Bill Shatner here), is that Kirk's SLIM figure is seen entering the access corridors. Now all due respect but Bill's figure began to sag a bit during the 2nd season of the series. Was the author still trying to place it in the original series time frame? Apart from the above, this is a good book to read. With plenty of well handled character parts. and not a bad detective style story as well. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION 13 - THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDERS ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ by A. C. Crispin, Reviewed by Alex Kerr ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ A.C.Crispin is the author of two other Star Trek books, "Yesterday's Son" and "Time for Yesterday". "The Eyes Of The Beholders" is Crispin's first Next Generation novel, and in fact turns out to be a pretty good attempt. The novel consists of one main storyline, with a couple of sub-plots making an appearance now and again. The first of these sub-plots concerns a young Andorian child, Thala, blind from birth and whose only relation on the Enterprise - her father - was killed five weeks previously in the vicious Borg attack. Also having no mother, she has been taken into the care of Lieutenant Selar, a female Vulcan medical officer and assistant to Beverly Crusher. Under Andorian regulations, Thala must return to her closest living relatives. However, she does not wish to return to them and they do not wish to have her. The caring Lieutenant Selar finds she must think of a solution before they reach the next Starbase. The second sub-plot counters this by being much more humourous. It deals with Data's attempts to become (of all things) a romantic novelist. Requiring constructive criticism on his efforts, Data gets various reluctant crew members in turn into giving him their opinions. Unfortunately, Data is not the best of romantic novelists, and, having given his critics a heavily romantic piece of text to read, they then find themselves in the awkward position of having to make helpful comments without hurting his feelings. Luckily, the central storyline is on hand to provide the main depth to the book. A routine space-mapping mission is interrupted by a request from Starfleet Command that the Enterprise break off and investigate the disappearance of a Klingon ship on a newly opened trade route. While on their way to its last reported position the crew learn that a Federation ship has also dissapeared in the area. On their arrival they are alarmed to find the Enterprise being dragged by a powerful force toward an unknown destination and are subsequently pulled into a "graveyard" filled with many derelict ships of all size and description. Making their way to the centre they discover a huge and powerful alien artifact with a very disturbing property - it begins to trigger nightmarish dreams of frightening realism, so much so that insanity and subsequent suicide and murder soon follows. Enough of the plot, what about the book? The idea of the artifact and space graveyard is an interesting, if not 100% original one, with a good deal of potential. The story moves along at a reasonable pace on the whole although there is the odd part that you wish Crispin had not laboured quite so much. More positively, the manifestation of the nightmares on the crew leads to some extremely descriptive and colourful, if a little bloodthirsty, text from Crispin. Treatment of the characters is fair with the Vulcan Lieutenant Selar elevated to one of the main characters in the book. The novel features a more sickly sweet happy ending than most I have read - the sort of thing that would be heavily toned down if it were to be turned into a televised episode. It makes one wonder how much stronger Star Trek would be as a whole if there was less predictability to its stories. The Eyes Of The Beholders is a worthwhile purchase, another good book in the TNG novel series, but certainly not one of it's classics. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION 22 - IMBALANCE by V. E. Mitchell ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Alex Kerr ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Imbalance has already been reviewed once in Issue 3 of The Final Frontier, so what is there to add? Well, how about the opinions of another reviewer? For those who haven't read the previous review, a brief overview: the Jarada are a race of insectoid beings who suddenly wish to open diplomatic relations with the Federation. They are usually unfriendly, have had almost no previous contact with the Federation and have an extreme devotion to protocol - THEIR protocol. On this occasion however they have requested that Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise personally oversee the exchange of ambassadors, and behave uncharacteristically accomodating and friendly towards the Enterprise crew, practically welcoming them with open arms. Unfortunately this doesn't last long and with the away team separated as each crew member takes an indivdual tour of relevant parts of the Jaradan complex, things begin to turn nasty as hoards of the creatures (foaming at the mouth, of course) claw their way after the confused and worried crew members. Having set the scene, what is my opinion of the book? Well, V.E.Mitchell tackles the task of storytelling by chopping and changing to each member of the away team in turn. Now this is a perfectly acceptable way to go about setting out a story for a reader, but unfortunately the author overdoes it a bit. The result is that the reader just gets interested in what one character is up to, when 'chop!', and you're in a completely different location with a different character. You then have to remember what this particular character was up to three or four chapters ago (remembering of course that three or four chapters ago was only 'just now' in the character's time frame). This is annoying, and one begins to lose track of how time passes in the story because what happens in THIS chapter to THIS character is actually taking place at exactly the same time as that of the last four chapters. You almost feel a sense of relief when the away team meet up with each other again. I have to agree with Simon's review in that Captain Picard is shoved out of the way fairly early on and that although you know he's always there in the background, aboard the Enterprise, he doesn't get that much of a look in. However I don't think this is a bad thing and in fact makes a refreshing change. The book sacrifices depth to describe the quickly changing events on Beltaxiyan Minor, but despite its problems it makes up for it because of the book's rather interesting storyline which is quite fast paced, has a good share of excitement and makes you want to continue reading. If you think you might be interested after our two reviews then it is worth checking out. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION 24 - NIGHTSHADE by Laurell K Hamilton ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Colin Gunn ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ When reading this novel I was strongly remined of a previous book, Contamination by John Vornholt - the premise was similar, i.e. Worf and Troi must find a killer before a certain time elapses. This time before Picard is executed for murder! However what Laurell has done is borrow one of Team 17's ideas -- get an old idea and make it into a really good product. For her first outing that is exactly what she has done. At first I struggled getting into this book. Mainly because of its similarities to Contamination, but then the story progressed and I was hooked. The author focuses on three characters. Picard, Worf and Troi. The Enterprise and the rest of its crew play more of a supporting role as an emergency rescue message is received taking them away from the planet. Fans of Data may find this book disappointing as he is hardly featured. I think he could have been used better namely with Geordi and Crusher (Dr. not Wesley) when they are trying to communicate with the "living" engines. But don't let this stop you reading it. There's only really one problem I had with this story, albeit, it was an interesting idea and in places worked well. It is when Picard is arrested he names Worf as the Federation Ambassador to carry on with the peace talks. The obvious person to carry on would have been Troi (but is probably why Laurell did it). Not only is she higher in rank than Worf, but is also trained in diplomacy as part of her counselling job. But that aside naming Worf was brave and worked in places. Especially when he tries to control his temper everytime he wanted to leap into action or shout down the person he was talking to so as to get his point over and try to get at the truth. You could feel the conflict inside him as he was not used to dealing with problems in a diplomatic way. This fitted really well with the way the character is shown to have evolved over the seasons. This story would make a great episode, and that's how I view the novels. If they read like they would make good episodes then the author has done his/her job. I look forward to Laurell's next excursion into the Trek world. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION GIANT NOVEL 2 - VENDETTA by Peter David ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Alex Kerr ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ As might be expected, combining the talents of a veteran Star Trek novel writer with the potential of a Giant Novel leads to a book dealing with a giant Star Trek issue. It is therefore unsuprising to discover that this book is about the Borg. Following their leading role in "The Best Of Both Worlds", the Borg have returned. Once again they are reaching out through space to convert the rest of the universe to the "Way of the Borg". They strike first at the homeworld of the Penzatti race, who, like most other races, are simply going about their business as usual. Suddenly and without warning the Borg arrive and decimate the planet. Nothing is wasted. Everything is to be consumed. Until, suddenly and without warning, someone with a vendetta arrives. The person with the vendetta is unlike the Borg. She and the ship that carries her have emotion, have beauty, have a soul. Like the Borg, however, her voice is the voice of many, and like the Borg she has only one purpose. The Borg ship quickly ceases to exist. Unfortunately by this time, so do the Penzatti. As the back cover blurb states, Delcara is the person with the vendetta - "the lone survivor of an alien race the Borg obliterated". She's on a single minded mission to destroy the Borg, and the Enterprise becomes involved when she enters Federation space. The problem is, you see, that to power her Borg- destroying ship it must dismantle and consume entire planets. And along the path towards Borg space a good few of these planets happen to be inhabited (the home world of the Tholians for example). On one hand, the Federation is amazed to encounter a ship powerful enough to destroy the Borg, while on the other they have a duty to stop the ship (known as the planet-killer) from killing planets along the way. Like other novels, the plot focuses on several key characters and themes, but in this giant novel you get a stronger sense of purpose and a stronger portrayal of the characters that drives the story forward with more momentum. This is partly because one of the key players in the story, the Borg race, are such a threat in the Star Trek universe. It is also because of the author, Peter David. Characters are described accurately and the story has good depth, although a note on one the first pages of the book reminds you that it varies in some respects from the Star Trek universe as created by Gene Roddenberry. Vendetta is a Star Trek novel to be reckoned with. It equals (but does not surpass) "Metamorphosis"' status as probably the best ST: TNG book you can buy. If you have any interest in reading, rather than just watching, Star Trek: The Next Generation, then you could do a lot worse than to purchase it now. (9/10). STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - IMZADI by Peter David ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by John Kitts ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ They've given the second Next Generation hardback to the most known and probably the best Next Gen author. Peter David has been responsible for "Strike Zone", "A Rock And A Hard Place", "Doomsday World" (co-author), "Q In Law" and "Vendetta", so if you haven't read any of his, you're missing something special. However, if like me you think Troi comes through as a rather tedious character, seeing her slapped on the middle of the cover may put you off lashing out the big bucks. But if I was to tell you how the book opens, you might change your mind... 43 years into Riker's future, Troi is long dead (stop that cheering!), Riker is a grey-haired, washed-up Admiral in charge of a dead end starbase simply waiting to die. Commodore Data is Captain of the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-E no less, on a visit to the Guardian of Forever. Yes, you guessed it -- this is a time travel story that would have blown "Time's Arrow" off the screen. The book is split into roughly 3 sections. The first section is taken up with Riker's future and Data visit to the Guardian of Forever. Riker is taken to see Lwaxana Troi, on her death bed, by a much changed Captain Wesley Crusher. When Lwaxana finally dies, Riker starts to tell Crusher the story of how Deanna died 40 years previously. This section is really well written with great attention to detail (see what you think of the new green TNG uniforms that Riker is wearing on the cover). The middle third is Riker telling of how he and Troi first met on Betazed whilst he was a lieutenant stationed there. This bit is quite good, but with lots of waffly Troi dialogue (as usual!), it does tend to drag on a bit, although Lwaxana comes through well here. The last third is the most enjoyable section, with lots of time-travel paradoxes, some great humour with a certain diagnostic engineer! As well as this, you have Riker up against a deadline when he knows Troi dies. There are lots of special little in-jokes, such as a Star Trek VI Kameloid. If I had to pick some faults with it, it would be that in the first two- thirds only Riker and Data and an old Wesley Crusher are used from the regulars, but this is understandable as all their careers would have moved on (unlike the original cast who seem to be happy doing the same thing forever). The middle third is the weakest of the three but the last third more than makes up for that. The characters have all been well written, with Data having matured in a big way (even Troi is good in the middle), the Starfleet technology from the future has been suitably updated and yes, yes, I'm waffling, but this book has lots of little things you have to read for yourself. Overall, this is an excellent book and even though I've criticised the middle third, and it's about Troi, I'd still highly recommend it. Another success for Peter David, worth buying in the hardback version (paperback out soon). 9ฝ out of 10. STAR WRECK III: TIME WARPED by Leah Rewolinski ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Simon Plumbe ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ My reviews of the first two books in this series of Classic/TNG parodies were less than favourable, so would the third be an improvement or is it just material worthy of publication in FINAL FRONTIER? (See more of my less-than- generous reviews of this mag at the end of this file!) The story this time sees the two crews of the USS Endocrine travelling through time chasing a home video made by Westerly Flusher of the Endocrine's crews in their day-to-day activities. The video fell through a time portal and ended up 40 years in the future, and the video soon attracted a cult following of fans, who called themselves "Wrekkies", who attended conventions and dressed in silly costumes!! The two crews disagreed over whether this type of hero worship was a good idea and a group led by James T. Smirk heads off to try and encorage this fan movement and wallow in the adulation, while another group, commanded by Jean-Lucy Ricardo, tries to stop the video from ever being seen. While this goes on, a THIRD group, headed by the android, Dacron, stay behind and try to keep track of what Smirk and Ricardo are up to and keep them out of trouble! That's all well and good, but what do I think? Well, at long last the author has got it right! This is a VERY funny book, filled with in-jokes and poking fun at Trek-fandom in general. Without giving too much away, the book describes the conventions and explains that they were taken over by a professional organisation called "Getalife Conventions" (the name being taken from the famous "Get A Life" sketch that William Shatner took part in on "Saturday Night Live")! Other highlights include Smirk going back in time to meet Edith Keebler, and Ricardo's encounter with his old foe, the Bored! Also, as with the previous two, the book is littered with illustrations, and again these have been improved and there is no longer any blank pages on the reverse of them. Although the book is small (less than 120 pages) I can heartily recommend this to any Trekkers who enjoy a good laugh and who don't take Trek TOO seriously. FINAL FRONTIER Issue 3 ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Simon Plumbe ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Following my less than favourable comments for the first two issues of this Britsh Trek mag (see Issue 3), was I going to see an improvement for the third issue (dated Sept '92)? Unfortunately, the answer has to be a resounding NO! I was quite shocked to see that instead of improving on their previous efforts, Final Frontier #3 was actually worse than its predecessors. Again, the scope of the contents was VERY limited. There were six articles in total, one of which was their "episode guide" (the reprinted feature on all the classic episdoes from the Starlog 25th Anniversary special) and five articles devoted to Star Trek V. Now, I'm not one of the "Star Trek V Bashers", in fact, until Star Trek VI was released it was my favourite of all the movies, BUT do we really need an entire issue devoted to a movie that's three years old? As I've said before, I can't fault the QUALITY of the articles, but if they felt that they HAD to produce an issue focusing on ONE film, wouldn't it have been better to devote an issue to Trek VI which was due to be released on video to rent just three months later? What was annoying was the CHOICE of articles. Many were behind-the-scenes PREVIEWS of the movie and one even referred to the unknown plot of the film!! There was also no sign of their promised letters section. I know that people have written in to them, but are they just deciding to rely on old material? And to top it all off, in their "next issue" page they mentioned that their episode guide was drawing to a close but said that, "there are rumours that the real thing will be shown on our television screens in the near future!" - three weeks after the series had commenced a repeat showing!! Do the producers actually KNOW anything about Star Trek or do they just guess and make it all up? However, the real nail in the coffin for this issue was the appaling print quality. Most of the photos had a very grainy and washed-out look to them and they weren't a patch on the original Starlog copies. In fact, copies is what I think they actually are! Most of the text is also blurred or at best hard on the eyes. What really spoils the look is that there is now a small 5mm white border around all of the articles etc. in the mag. This technique is shown off to its fullest glory (!) when you see the episode guide. In the original print, the pages were coloured with tints of blues and yellows which were gradually shaded from top to bottom, getting lighter and you reached lower down the page. This rather nice look is completely destroyed by this annoying border. It appears that most of the articles have been taken from Starlog and reduced with a colour photocopier and then sent off to be printed. In fact, there were several pages, most notably in the pre-production art feature from the movie, that appeared to be photocopies of pages that had been literally torn out of Starlog. You can even see the tears of the pages at the edges! One final point I noticed is that the company producing the mag has now changed its name from Trident Magazines to Phoenix Press. It doesn't bode well for the future does it? Steer clear of this poor excuse for a magazine and stick to the myriad of magazines like Starlog or Starburst or any of the fan-produced titles. I hope this magazine is axed very soon. FINAL FRONTIER Issue 4 ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Simon Plumbe ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Okay, I may as well admit it before I start, you've probably managed to figure it out by now that I DON'T like this magazine! In all honesty though, can anyone really like a magazine with old articles, poor print quality and a limited range of contents? Looking at this issue individually, the print quality has been improved over the previous issue, especially in the "episode guide" with the colour spread filling the whole of the pages as was intended. In fact, none of the articles have that annoying white border present on the previous issue. However, the actually quality of the printing is still very rough with blurred text and grainy photographs. The contents don't really fare much better. The episode guide comes to a conclusion taking up 9 pages and the remainder of the issue is devoted to Star Trek IV! Now really, all of these articles are SIX years old and many of them, as with the Star Trek V feature in the previous issue, appear to have been written BEFORE the films release, resulting in very little information being given about the film itself. All I can say is that this magazine is constantly surprising me at how progressively worse it seems to be getting with each issue. I would suggest that the publishers axe the magazine now while they can. Still, they seem to be getting the idea in having RECENT articles by promising that their fifth issue will be devoted to Star Trek VI (only a YEAR after the film was released!). FINAL FRONTIER Issue 5 ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Simon Plumbe ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ This issue didn't get off to a good start when it was released on 19th November, almost 3 weeks late! In fact, I was close to believing (and hoping!) that my prediction from Issue 3 that the magazine had folded! This issue was heralded as being their "Star Trek VI" special and in fact it was with 21 pages out of 36 being devoted to the film including a vast amount of behind the scenes info and photos. As with all other articles in Final Frontier, they are all re-prints from Starlog Press, but I felt that this issue had taken the idea of re-printing material too far. All of the Star Trek VI material was re-printed from Starlog's Star Trek VI special. Not a bad thing, you might think, but the very same Trek VI special was also re-printed, IN FULL, by the publishers of Final Frontier earlier in the year. The only thing I can compliment them about this feature is that the print quality was excellent. The articles themselves are good, but I don't want to pay ฃ1.99 for a magazine full of material I've read in two other publications. As well as the Trek VI feature, the rest of the mag was devoted to their "episode guide" to the animated series, which reverted to their usual print quality, and their letters page. The letters page, in all honesty, was a joke. There were 5 letters, all of which praised the magazine (and said little else!) and their replies were noting short of patronising. One reader asked if the rumour about Trek VII being made was true and they replied that they had heard that it was due out in December '93. Well, that was news to me and I'd be interested to hear where they get their information from! Another reader then asked if the BBC had any plans to show Classic Trek again (which had been on-air for over 2 months at that time) and they told the reader to watch BBC2!! To make things worse, they invited letters from other readers and wanted views on Trek and TNG, although there is NO coverage of TNG to be found in the mag. One final fault with this issue lies with the included free "poster" - a small A3 listing of all the Classic episodes with brief details. The comments for each episode are insulting and it appears to have been written by someone who HATES Trek. These are some of the better descriptions (and these are the FULL descriptions!): THE DEADLY YEARS - "Kirk and crew get old fast." THE SQUIRE OF GOTHOS - "Trelane does not play well with others." THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER - "Kirk bluffs Balok." Now how can you take a magazine seriously that writes trash like this? Please do yourself a favour and DON'T buy this. FINAL FRONTIER Issue 6 ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Simon Plumbe ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ By now some of you may be wondering why I'm actually bothering to review this magazine as it's fairly obvious that I don't like it! Well even so, no-one else has reviewed it for TFF, so someone had to! Now this issue was something of a rarity for FINAL FRONTIER and it was off to a good start with its contents -- the mag comprised of ALL original material with not a re-printed article in sight!! As well as that, the magazine boasted four free posters inside! Sounds promsing? Well, it is until you actually looked inside. Instead of the usual 36 pages per issue, the mag had been reduced in size to a meagre 20 -- no doubt to allow for the "free" posters. While on the subject of the posters, the four posters are in fact 2 double-sided A2 posters of the original cast. That's fine if you only want to display one or two of them on your wall, but what if you want to use all 4? Obviously, the publishers expect you to go out and buy another copy of the mag. Now, onto the articles. This is where the initial promise of the home-grown material falls apart. In the entire issue, there are only TWO articles, plus their self-praising letters page, which take up a total of 11 pages. The remainder of the 20 pages are taken up with the cover, adverts and a few pointless full-page photos. Why use photos taking up a whole page when space is so limited? The articles themselves are reasonably well written although a little out-of- date in terms of what they offer. One is a look at the second Star Trek series that never happened (although many of the scripts have since been re- written and used for The Next Generation such as "The Child" and "Devil's Due") and the other is a detailed synopsis and behind the scenes look at Star Trek II. Again, it's not a bad article, but let's face it -- Star Trek II isn't the most topical of subjects, is it? It's an improvement on the previous issues, but until there is more variety in the contents and the magazine grows again to an acceptable size, giving good value for money, you should steer clear of FINAL FRONTIER. FINAL FRONTIER Issue 7 ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Simon Plumbe ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Well, how can I start about Final Frontier this time? I think I've already used up all of the harsh critical comments known to mankind! Seriously, did the seventh issue have anything new or original to offer over its predecessors? Well, in all honesty, no. Again, as with the previous edition, there were only 20 pages containing again, just 2 articles, the letters page plus four more "free" posters. The articles themselves are so out-dated, it's unbelievable. First is a look at how the series started in the 60's, and another looking at the success/ failure of the first movie. No matter how well written or how well researched these articles may be, there is no avoiding the fact that they are not exactly topical, to say the least. Also, in the Star Trek: The Motion Picture article, there were 8 photos to accompany it, of which only 2 were from ST:TMP, the others being taken from the other films. Finally, there was no sign of the article looking at DS9 that was promised in Issue 6. What really makes this issue awful is the interior layout. Whoever the art editor is should be made redundant! There appears to have been very little effort put into the magazine's presentation and layout and some of the articles are made very difficult to read because of poor use of colour. For example, in this issue one article featured black text on a blue background and another featured a red caption on a blue background which was very taxing on the eyes! Definately not worth the ฃ1.99 cover price. CONTAGION ONE ญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Simon Plumbe ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ This is an A4 zine produced by the organisers of Contagion '92 (see Disk 4 for a report and photos from the con), featuring all of the entries for the fiction/poetry competitions. It is a 64 page zine, with a card cover, featuring a rather nice illustration of the Classic and TNG Enterprises, along with the UFP emblem. The zine starts off with a single page introduction from one of the con's guests - writer Jean Lorrah (author of "Metamorphosis" and "The IDIC Epidemic" amongst others). Following this is a mixture of short stories featuring both Classic Trek (both film and TV eras) and TNG and short poems -- 27 pieces in all. The zine is well balanced with a good selection of pieces. Although short, some of the fiction is absolutely stunning such as "The Last Farewell" - a piece about the final voyage of NCC 1701-A, and my personal favourite, "The Artifact" - A TNG story featuring the Ferengi who approach Picard with an offer to sell the Federation a piece of history - a part of the original Enterprise! My only complaints about the contents would have to be that there are a few minor spelling mistakes and there is a glaring mistake in "The Artifact" - it's been stated on several occasions that Betazeds CAN'T read Ferengi, but in this Troi doesn't seem to have any difficult doing so! This doesn't spoil the story too much, though. Still, it's a good collection of fan fiction, the print quality and layout is superb and it makes for a nice collectors piece for any fan who attended the con. It's not cheap at ฃ3.80, but all the profit is donated to the convention's nominated charities and fanzines are rarely cheap anyway! It's not that easy to produce a zine of this size for under ฃ4! Good value for money. It is available from the con organisers at: Contagion, PO Box 867, Rutherglen, Glasgow, G73 4HR, SCOTLAND. MODALA IMPERATIVE TRADE PAPERBACK by DC Comics ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Reviewed by Colin Gunn ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ I originally read Modala Imperative in its first run form, i.e. 2 x 4 issue mini series, and really enjoyed it back then. Now with the release of the trade paperback version I found reading the story in its entirity more enjoyable than the first time I read it. This is one of DC's better Star Trek stories. The characters are handled well and the stories befit both shows. Basically the story is that in the classic Trek time frame the planet Modala is having trouble. Some weapons were mysteriously provided to certain of the inhabitants and what happens next is obvious. Civil wars and tyranny reign supreme. The crew of the Enterprise help to bring peace. 100 years later, Modala is celebrating 100 years of peace and invite the crew of the current Enterprise to join in with the festivities. Along for the ride are Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. It is soon discovered that the Ferengi were responsible for providing the weapons in the past and now want to claim their part of the deal, the ownership of the planet itself. I really liked Spock in this story (more than in the televised UNIFICATION) and McCoy was good as well. The scenes where the two are talking about Kirk were brilliant. And when asking Spock who he thought was the better of the two captains (Kirk or Picard) the author leaves it upto the reader to decide (I'll go for Kirk). These little touches make it a great read. The book also comes with an introduction by Walter Koenig - because Chekov is featured quite heavily in the classic part of the story. He goes on to say how much he didn't like Next Gen and then after some time beginning to see the show in a different light as it established itself and becoming to like it. (He'd have to say that if he wants a cameo!). Buy this book - it's brilliant, and at an affordable price from Titan.