STAR WARS - THE FORCE UNLEASHED

DEL REY

Written by Sean Williams
Based on a story by Haden Blackman

Copyright 2008 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & Registered or Trademarked where indicated. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt from Star Wars: Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber copyright 2009 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & Registered or Trademarked where indicated. All Rights Reserved.



In The Force Unleashed - written by Sean Williams - based on the video game from LucasArts for xbox 360, wii, ps3, Nintendo DS, and pc, based on a story by Haden Blackman - Darth Vader has a Sith apprentice and sends him to dispatch Vader's master's enemies.

With female pilot Juno Eclipse becoming the apprentice's pilot to fly them through Empire space, you would think that Juno would automatically relate to the apprentice named Starkiller since she was an empire subject herself and was against the rebellion. With the orphaned apprentice so mysterious, Juno was leery of him initially and even spied on the apprentice - and discovered that Starkiller is actually the apprentice of Darth Vader. Vader is secretly grooming his apprentice to help him overthrow the Emperor. With the apprentice sent by Darth Vader to search out and hunt down the Jedi who had escaped Order 66, it was hard for me to like Starkiller initially as he did so.

I felt the apprentice's journey from evil to good was not quite believable. It did not help in that I could never get into his character. There was no real characterization in the beginning of the book of the apprentice for me to relate to him in any way. In one sense, Starkiller's transformation was too abrupt, as for the most part he was pretending that he was good in order to get to his assigned victims. Although with Vader trying to kill his apprentice, it was quite appropriate that Starkiller starts to change. While Vader faked the apprentice's death to fool the Emperor at the cost of several clone troopers, there is still the weight of Starkiller being Vader's apprentice - with the stigma of The Sith always betraying each other. Having Starkiller's droid Proxy being his sparring partner and programmed to become holographic well-known enemies such as Jedi, was both quite appropriate and unpredictable as Proxy was secretly programmed to kill the apprentice. Juno was quite the obvious romantic partner for Starkiller, despite her fear and Starkiller's dismissal of Juno as his pilot.

While I have never played the game, I could never really relate as much to the characters as much as I wanted to, except for the Jedi. Probably because I knew of the Jedi characters that were used in the book from other books and media like The Clone Wars and not from the game. There is not as much initial characterization of the game characters as I would have liked - and by the time Williams really tried to start to develop the characters in the book, it was too late for me.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

STAR TREK - THE NEXT GENERATION - LOSING THE PEACE

POCKET BOOKS

Written by William Leisner

Copyright 2009 by Paramount Pictures Corporation.
All Rights Reserved.

TM, Registered and copyright 2009 by CBS Studios Inc. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.



In Losing the Peace, Captain Picard and the Enterprise are on disaster relief duties after the Borg War.

After the events of the Destiny trilogy, Picard is reluctantly put on disaster relief duties close to home space by the President of the Federation after the Borg war has devastated most of the Federation - as well as devastating the Klingon and Romulan Empires. Chief of Security Jasminder Choudhury has survivor's guilt from surviving the Borg war and wonders about the fate of her family after her home world of Deneva has been devastated by the Borg. Meanwhile, Dr. Crusher goes on a mission for refugees to the planet Pacifica.

Because the Federation has not known want, the government of Pacifica can not deal with the pressure of the semi-permanent refugee population from throughout the Federation being sent to Pacifica. The government of Pacifica then threatens basically to build a concentration camp for the refugees, instead of a real refugee camp - while an outbreak of contaminated water breaks out amongst the refugees. A pregnant Dr. Beverly Crusher arrives on Pacifica on a runabout and gets the outbreak under control with help from the resident doctors and a refugee who is on Pacifica. Meanwhile, Alpha Centauri considers withdrawing from the Federation because of Alpha Centauri's selfishness - until Picard kidnaps the Alpha Centaurus president and forces the president to confront the beleaguered planet of Pacifica.

It is interesting that half-Vulcan T'Ryssa Chen is contacted by her long-estrained Vulcan father when learning about her human mother's death during the Borg invasion. After meeting T'Ryssa's apparently uncaring father, I can understand now why half-Vulcan T'Ryssa embraces her human side instead of her non-emotional Vulcan side. Since she felt her mother was safe, I felt for T'Ryssa when she learns of the unexpected loss of her mother.

This book leads into Federation President Bacco announcing that the Federation enemies are forming the Typhon Pact.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

IRON MAN 2

GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING

A Novel by Alexander Irvine

Based on the Screenplay by Justin Theroux

Copyright 2010 Marvel Entertainment, Inc., and its subsidiaries. Iron Man2, the Movie copyright 2010 MVL Film Finance LLC. Marvel, Iron Man, all character names and their distinctive likeness: TM & copyright 2010 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

All rights reserved.

Book design by Giorgetta Bell McRee







In Iron Man 2, written by Alexander Irvine, is a novelization of the movie Iron Man 2. Now that Tony Stark has revealed his identity as Iron Man, the U.S. government and military wants control of Stark's weapons system - the Iron Man suit. Meanwhile, Stark is hunted by a Russian criminal  getting revenge for his father against Tony Stark's father because of the technology powering the Iron Man suit.

With Stark's best friend Rhodey being in the military, Rhodey's loyalties are painfully divided between the military and Stark. With Stark going into a drunken depression from all of the fame and pressure of the government, and of Stark's impending death from his fatal wound during the war, Rhodey's decision is forced upon him - although Rhodey is unaware of Stark's medical condition. Rhodey soon falls in bed with Stark's weapons system influential rival Justin Hammer. With the military's help, Hammer soon reverse engineer's the Iron Man suit and creates Rhodey's powerful new War Machine suit design.

I liked Ivan Vanko's determined motivation on getting his revenge against Stark, with having Vanko's father dying as a poor man - while Stark's father gets all of the fame for their technology after Vanko's father and Stark's father worked together to invent the arc technology. With Vanko being a Russian prisoner, Vanko had more characterization to me than of a typical Russian character. Of course, there is more focus on internal characterization in a novel than there is in a movie - so Vanko was more relatable to me in the book than he was in the movie, and Vanko was relatable to me in the movie with Mickey Rourke's acting as the evil villain character Whiplash.

It was great to see Pepper Potts being made into the CEO of Stark Enterprises, of which Pepper is quite capable of handling - especially as Stark becomes more and more drunk. As a replacement for Pepper, Stark gets a new beautiful assistant Natalie Rushman - who has a mysterious agenda.

Nick Fury and SHIELD make an appearance in this story, along with SHIELD's new agent - the Black Widow. SHIELD further links the Marvel comic books and movies into one shared universe.

Click here for the review of the movie Iron Man 2.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

STAR TREK - ENTERPRISE - THE ROMULAN WAR - BENEATH THE RAPTOR'S WING

POCKET BOOKS

Written by Michael A. Martin

Copyright 2009 by CBS Studios Inc.
STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc.
All Rights Reserved.




In Beneath the Raptor's Wing, the first novel of The Romulan War series written by Michael A. Martin, the Earth-Romulan War is in full swing. With the Romulan Star Empire's ability to remotely take control of other alien race's starships, the other races of the Coalition slowly pull out of their commitment to the Coalition of Planets - leaving Starfleet alone to deal with the Romulans as it turns out that the Starfleet ships resists the Romulan takeover programming better than the others ships in the Coalition. Captain Jonathan Archer was very upset at being abandoned by the Coalition, while the news media escalates both sides of the story.

I was disappointed that the Vulcans had refused to have an active part of the war. While I understand the Vulcans non-involvement in the war, especially with their racial connection to the Romulans, it was very disconcerting to me to watch the Vulcans just stand by and let Earth handle the war mostly by themselves and the Andorians. The Vulcans offer of a detection grid in Coalition space hardly makes up for the Vulcan's lack of support - especially when the detection grid seems to be ineffectual to any type of detection of the Romulan ships as the Romulans continue to get through the grid and launch sneak attacks on the various planets.

I was sad that Travis Mayweather was so pissed off with Archer over what had happened with the freighter the Kobayashi Maru - that Mayweather packs up and leaves the Enterprise. I can understand how Mayweather would feel - in that Archer would have treated his family's freighter the same way under the same circumstances, and that he can not work with Archer anymore. With Archer trying to form an alliance with the Klingon Empire in order to have the Klingons to join Starfleet against the Romulans - it shows how the reader of how desperate the situation is becoming for Earth in this first year of the Romulan war.

Having the Romulans undergoing a Machiavellian power struggle amongst themselves in the middle of the war was interesting. It was like a comeuppance to the Romulans for me. Meeting Captain Dunsel for the first time in the Star Trek series was anti-climatic for me as I expected a more incompetent person to be the infamous Captain Dunsel, and I did not feel that Dunsel had deserved his infamous reputation that he had amongst the midshipmen at Starfleet Academy.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING TREKKIES

QUIRK BOOKS

Written by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall

Copyright 2010 by Kevin David Anderson

Designed by Doogie Horner
Production management by John J. McGurk
Cover illustration by Glen Orbik



In Night of the Living Trekkies, written by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall, a Star Trek convention is held in a hotel in Houston, Texas - and gets invaded by zombies.

It should be duly noted that on both the front and back covers of the book, as well as a blurb on an inside page, are disclaimers that Night of the Living Trekkies is not officially sponsored or affiliated with the Star Trek brand and that this book is a parody.

A combination of Star Trek and Night of the Living Dead, this humorous book was actually much more fun to read than I thought it would be. Anderson and Stall are obvious science fiction fans and have captured the Star Trek fan experience with zombie lore and have made a very entertaining zombie fiction book. The chapter titles are actually titles from the Star Trek series episodes and I felt that the titles that were used for the chapters were quite appropriate for the subject of that particular chapter - with most of the chapter titles coming from the episode titles of Star Trek - The Original Series. The other chapter titles I had to look up as I am not as familiar with the other Star Trek series episode titles as I am with The Original Series.

Military Afghanistan veteran, and former Star Trek fan, Jim Pike is an assistant manager of a small hotel in Houston that is hosting a Star Trek convention. When mysterious prisoners escape from a secret military facility, the prisoners wind up at the convention - and start eating the Trekkies, turning the Trekkies into zombies. Now Jim must lead a group of fanboys and fangirls who have survived the zombies to get out of the hotel - to escape the Wrath of Con.

I liked the scientific explanations of how the zombies actually functioned, incorporating most - if not all - of the tropes of zombies to be explained scientifically with the zombie virus coming from space. As the city of Houston falls victim to the zombies, I get the claustrophobic feeling that this was a story of the apocalypse as the zombies gather around the hotel. I have always felt that there is a certain amount of bestiality about zombies. Having the Trekkies becoming zombies seemed like an appropriate comeuppance to most of these Trekkies who have gone overboard on the fandom. The Trekkies in the book have become graphic victims to the determined zombies, so the book would be rated at least a PG-13 book. So, as much as I like Star Trek, I am glad that I have not gone as overboard into the Trek fandom as these Trekkies have. Although I once was a Gopher at one of the first Star Trek conventions that was held, which was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, mainly so I could get a discount on the convention. Actually I think it was the first Star Trek convention at the LA Convention Center way back then since I was 17 at the time, but I am not sure if that convention was actually the first Trekkie convention. So I know the scenes written of the convention were fairly similar to what I had experienced at the Convention Center.

I would have liked to have seen an introduction from authors Anderson and Stall as to how the two of them came up with the idea of Night of the Living Trekkies, to make the book a little more personal. There was only just a little two sentence blurb on the back cover of the book about authors Anderson and Stall.


Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

STAR TREK - STRANGE NEW WORLDS

POCKET BOOKS

Edited by Dean Wesley Smith with John J. Ordover and Paula M. Block

Copyright 1998 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.



In Star Trek - Strange New Worlds, a competition of new Star Trek short stories that were written by Star Trek fans is collected in this anthology of eighteen stories. These fan stories are set during the series Star Trek, Star Trek - The Next Generation, Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek - Voyager.

This is the first of the annual Strange New Worlds anthologies composed of the best of the Star Trek contest fan written short stories that was conducted every year for ten years by Pocket Books, of which the anthology included the prize winners. Included in this anthology is a Because We Can section, where editors John J. Ordover and Paula M. Block added their own stories - which broke the contest rules, hence the title of the section: Because We Can. The anthology at the end of the book has the contest rules for the Trek fan written short stories that were to be submitted for the next volume of the Strange New Worlds anthologies. The anthology also at the end of the book has a biographical list of the fan fiction contributors.

I happened to have enjoyed these fan written stories created for this anthology, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the anthologies. Although, Paula Block's story definitely does not follow the contest rules. Block's story "The Girl Who Controlled Gene Kelly's Feet" actually could just have been set in any other space adventure - especially since it does not have any of the regular Star Trek characters in the story, but the story was rather cute.

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.