STAR TREK _ DEPARTMENT OF TEMPORAL INVESTIGATIONS - WATCHING THE CLOCK

Pocket Books

Written by Christopher L. Bennett

Copyright © 2011 by CBS Studios Inc. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.



In Watching the Clock, written by Christopher L. Bennett - the first book of the Department of Temporal Investigations series - a series of temporal incursions threatens to open up a new front line from the Temporal Cold War. This has DTI agents Lucsly and Dulmur using their unimaginative government discipline in stopping the war.

This book makes reference to every time travel story that were ever written for Star Trek - from the books, the movies and all of the TV series, including stories from the animated TV series. You get to know DTI agents Lucsly and Dulmur, who were originally just minor characters from the Deep Space Nine TV episode Trials and Tribble-ations. Lucsly and Dulmur are now the major characters in both the book, and as well as in the Department of Temporal Investigations.

In the book you get to see the origin story of Dulmur, whose home life turns into ruins and eventually joins the Department of Temporal Investigations, that has it's origins on Earth, to effect temporal justice when Dulmur's efforts to catch a thief is thwarted by a temporal experiment which affected all of space by Dr. Paul Manheim.

As a fan of time travel stories, I happened to enjoy this book. While some of the science behind all the time travel theories may be over my head, I like the fact that Bennett involved all of the time travel stories - including the animated TV series which a lot of people do not really consider as really part of the Trek universe. While I find agent Lucsly rather rigid, his devotion to maintain a stable timeline is important in the temporal scheme of things. The villain at the very end of the book did not seem as strong as a villain as I would have expected the villain to be, but he seemed logical. The villain is definitely evil enough, especially when he targets a DTI agent.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.
 

WEAPONS OF CHOICE

BALLANTINE BOOKS

A NOVEL BY JOHN BIRMINGHAM

Copyright 2004 by John Birmingham
Excerpt from Designated Targets by John Birmingham copyright 2005 by John Birmingham

All rights reserved.



In John Birmingham's Weapons of Choice, the first book in the Axis of Time trilogy, a Multinational fleet of warships is escorting a Joint Research Vessel's sea trials in the 21st century. They soon become caught up in a wormhole from the Research Vessel's secret weapons and stealth system project that suddenly went wrong - and get thrown back into the middle of the Pacific Ocean during World War II.


While similar to the movie The Final Countdown, the book has more interaction with the world than The Final Countdown did during World War II. While interacting with the 1940's Allies, the 21st century Multinational force deals with a lot of prejudices from the Allies as well as the technological differences. Some of the prejudices become rather violent, such as a riot from a bar. In fact, most of the story in the book deals with the prejudices between the two time groups rather than with the actual war. It made me upset that the 1940's characters had these prejudices, but it made me realize that these prejudices were real back in those times and we have come a long way since then. Although, there is still quite a way to go with our prejudices here in the present day.

I kept thinking that they should have shown the movie Top Gun to the 1940's commanders as an introduction of the type of aircraft to expect from the Multinationals, even though the movie is set midway between the too eras. It was great that both groups eventually worked together to rescue some POW's in Singapore and Luzon. Having a woman doctor and woman reporter taking part in that military operation of rescuing the POW's was very inspiring. Although there were no more new services like CNN during the 1940's, the women reporters were determined to do their jobs and record these historical military actions with their high-tech media and maybe get jobs for the local news services - even if it means for them coming under fire. I also liked that some of the future military personnel had relatives living and fighting through the war now and became even more dedicated military personnel in order to preserve their relatives lives.

Since there was a fleet of Multinational vessels that were transported, some of the vessels got scattered from the fleet when they all went through the wormhole - with some of the vessels being captured by the Axis powers, like the Japanese. Now, of course, having the Axis powers - including Hitler  - in possession of 21st century technology and determined to change the course of the war after knowing their future history was very disturbing for me to read and disturbing to think about if this would ever happen.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

STAR TREK - COUNTDOWN

IDW PUBLISHING

Story by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman

Writers Mike Johnson & Tom Jones

Artist David Messina

Copyright 2009 by Paramount Pictures Corporation
Copyright 2009 by CBS Studios Inc.

In Countdown, the graphic novel collection of the four issue comic books, is the prequel to the movie Star Trek. The graphic novel shows the origin of Nero and why he was so determined to destroy Spock and Vulcan as an unstable star becomes a supernova that threatens Romulan space and soon Federation space.

It is great to see The Next Generation crew after Star Trek: Nemesis try and stop Nero. The crew has grown as characters and is basically the last you will see of them as Star Trek moves onto a different direction in the reimagining of the franchise. The developement of Red Matter to stop the supernova turns the nova into a singularity as Nero gets pulled into the singularity by it's gravitational field and winds up in the updated Star Trek movie universe. The art by David Messina captures the likenesses of the actors. There is also a gallery of several of the characters that were depicted at the end of the graphic novel.

See movie review:

Star Trek

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Mission to Minerva

 

A Baen Book

Written by James P. Hogan

Copyright 2005 by James P. Hogan

The fifth novel in the "Giants" series - Mission to Minerva, written by James P. Hogan,  is about UNSA scientists, Victor Hunt and Chris Danchekker, as well as the alien giant Ganymeans conducting experiments into open communication - and travel into alternate realities. Their ultimate goal is to go 50,000 years into the past - to prevent the destruction of the planet Minerva, the giant's original home, whose debris is now the asteroid belt in our solar system.

While the scientists try to figure out how to achieve stabilization and connection between the alternate worlds, and how to travel back in time, the scientists never consider the consequences of actually changing history aside from saving Minerva. I felt that not considering the consequences of their actions to history was very irresponsible for the scientists as they try to go back in time. They forget that present day mankind originally came from the planet Minerva, so the Earth as we know it would not exist if the Minervan survivors never came to Earth. They don't even considered if they would even exist after changing the past.

It is only in the last quarter of the book that they actually all travel back in time to Minerva to search for the ancient Terrans who were responsible for the destruction of Minerva, that the adventure begins.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Doctor Who - Delta and the Bannermen

A TARGET BOOK

Written by Malcolm Kohll
based on the BBC television series by Malcolm Kohll
by arrangement with BBC Books, a division of BBC Enterprises Ltd

Novelisation copyright Malcolm Kohll, 1989
Original script copyright Malcom Kohll, 1987

The BBC producers of Delta and the Bannermen was
John Nathan-Turner.
The Director was Michael Ferguson
The role of the Doctor was played by Sylvester McCoy

At a space toll port, the Doctor and Mel win the Grand Prize from the toll port - which is being part of a Fifties tour to Disneyland on the Planet Earth. Delta, the last of the Chimeron, sneaks on board the tour trying to get away from the aggressive Bannermen who are chasing her. On the tour's way to Disneyland, they hit America's first space satellite and crash land at a resort in the middle of England as the Bannermen follow the tour group back to Earth.

I always felt it was just a little too unbelievable that Billy, the camp mechanic trying to fix the tour's disabled bus, would fall in love with Delta - and suddenly decide to turn himself into a Chimeron, especially with no thought that the process may kill him. It was very selfish of Billy taking the food of Delta's daughter from the little baby and eating it for himself. Despite Billy taking her food, Delta's daughter grows rapidly, which shows how alien her physiology is - and what a radical change Billy must be going through. Searching for Delta, the Bannermen are supposed to be deadly soldiers - but the Bannermen are hard for me to take too seriously with a staff of banners strapped to their backs. It is rare having Americans in the Doctor Who series, which was great to see for once, but the American agents tracking the missing satellite of course have no clue as to what is going on around them.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Star Trek: Titan - Sword of Damocles

Pocket Books, A Division of Simon & Shuster, Inc.

Written by Geoffrey Thorne

Copyright 2007

In Sword of Damocles, the starship Titan is stranded in space by a planet that sent out a massive warp pulse that disabled the Titan's engines. The pulse is in response by the inhabitants to a celestial body that the inhabitants are in fear of. While sending a shuttlecraft down to the planet, another pulse sends some of the shuttlecraft's crew to the surface - and the rest of the crew into the planet's past.

With some of the crew stuck in the past, the issues of fate and predestination come into play with one of the Titan crew's religious beliefs. Religion is rarely dealt with in the Star Trek universe, unless the religion is part of an alien race. It is difficult to believe all the major religions of Earth have been disbanded in only a couple of centuries, which makes Starfleet and the Federation a little sterile, so the issues brought up by one of the Bajoran crew member adds more texture to the Star Trek universe.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.