STARGATE SG-1 - DO NO HARM

Written by Karen Miller

STARGATE SG-1 © 1997-2008 MGM Television Entertainment Inc. and MGM Global Holding Inc. STARGATE: SG-1 is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER TM and © 2008 Metra-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Photography and cover art: Copyright © 2008 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.



In Stargate SG-1 - Do No Harm, a Pentagon strike team joins Stargate Command to supplement the losses that Stargate Command has recently suffered. The leader of the team, Colonel Dave Dixon has connections to a past that Colonel Jack O'Neill would rather forget. These two are forced to work together on a planet - that suddenly is exposed to a plague.

In a follow up to the TV epsiode of A Matter of Time, I was frustrated with both Dixon and O'Neill refusing to talk to each other about what had happened to their mutual comrade. Actually I wanted a bigger dustoff between the two of them because of their antagonism towards each other than what they had shown in the book. The cover of the book is misleading as it makes it appear that Dr. Frasier has a much larger role in the book than she really does because of the illness that happens on the planet. Frasier is a major influence on the book - but that influence is at the very end of the book, and she is still not that big of a driving force even at the end of the book.


Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

The Sorceress of Karres

A Baen Books Original

Written by Eric Flint and Dave Freer

Copyright 2010 by Eric Flint and Dave Freer



In The Sorceress of Karres by Eric Flint and Dave Freer, a sequel to James H. Schmitz's 1966 novel The Witches of Karres, a straight-laced Captain Pausert is given a new mision to investigate a series of unknown ships attacking other ships in the Chaladoor region of space. While the young witch The Leewit will be joining him, her sister Goth - who insists she will marry Pausert when Goth is older - will be sent on a special mission by going back in time to Pausert's home planet - to a time when Pausert was just a teenager.

Pausert has fond memories of a girl he had met when he was a teenager, unbeknowest to him - that the girl he had met was in reality Goth, who had traveled back in time to prevent some event from happening. When you consider that the adult Pausert feels a little uncomfortable with the young Goth, the relationship with teenaged Pausert and with the Goth in his past seems much more natural as she partners with Pausart and basically brings out the best of this young misfit.

Being pursued by a mysterious hairless woman in both the past and in the future shows that Pausert has something important in his possession - and the mysterious hairless woman turns out to be even more sinister than you may think.

I liked young Pausert's relationship with Goth when she travels back into his past as they work together to save Pausert's past. Goth is more mature at this point than in Schmitz's original story. She is more of a peer with the young Pausert, rather than of a young girl pining for a mature Pausert. You can see young Pausert's growing interest in Goth's confounding antics. The Leewit is also more mature in the story and taking on more responsibility in the novel.

Pancho
All people smile in the same langauge.

STAR WARS - THE NEW JEDI ORDER - DARK TIDE II: RUIN

LUCAS BOOKS
A Del Rey Book
Publishing by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Written by Michael A. Stackpole

Copyright 2000 by Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

In Michael A. Stackpole's  STAR WARS - THE NEW JEDI ORDER - DARK TIDE II: RUIN, the sequel to Onslaught, has Jedi Knights Corran Horn and Jacen Solo going on a scouting mission to the planet Garqi, a world occupied by the Yuuzhan Vong, "The Choosen Race" - a race that has no Force presence that the Jedi can sense. The Caamasi Senator, Elegos, is a political prisoner of the Yuuzhan Vong as they invade the galaxy, and Luke and Anakin go after a vengeful Jedi.

With the discovery of bafforr tree pollen as a biological defense against the Yuuzhan Vong living armor found on Gargi, the Jedi destroy the biological defense on Gargi before the Vong realizes what and where the bafforr tree pollen came from. Having a biological defense against the Yuuzhan Vong is most apropos as the Vong only use organic weapons, creatures that were born and bred for their tasks, since they fanatically abhor machines. Imperial Remnant Admiral Pellaeon joins forces with Republic Admiral Kre'fey in New Republic space for the global defense of Ithor, the the lush jungle planet that would help grow and develop the new biological defense against the Yuuzhan Vong. The fact that Ithor was also in the direct path of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion was also a factor in the Vong attack against Ithor.

As a result of Corran Horn's possession of the ancestor's bones of Shedao Shai, the leader of the Yuuzhan Vong forces, Elegos is returned home. Angered at what has happened to Elegos, Jedi Knight Corran Horn duels Shedao Shai - with the planet Ithor at stake. One wonders how all of this will eventually effect Horn with the high cost of victory against Shedao Shai.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.