STARFIST: FORCE RECON - BOOK I - BACKSHOT

DEL REY

Written by David Sherman & Dan Cragg

Copyright 2005 by David Sherman and Dan Cragg

All rights reserved.



Backshot, written by David Sherman and Dan Cragg, is the first book about the men and women of Marine Force Recon who carry out the intelligence-gathering and small-unit raids behind enemy lines.

On the agricultural planet Atlas, the charismatic leader, as well as father, Jorge Lavager zealously guards an agricultural research facility. Fourth Force Recon's second platoon of Marines are dispatched to Atlas to find out what is really at the research facility.

What is scary is that a sniper team was also dispatched to Atlas with specific orders - depending on the news of what is found at the research facility, if the research facility is an agriculture facility or a military facility. I liked the fact that the sniper team's immediate superior tried to find out what their mission was because the sniper team were his people - but of course he could not find out about their mission because of operational security of the highest order. Having the "Queen of Killers" holed up with her male spotter in one of the planet's hotels was interesting. Too bad that everything concerning world of Atlas was politically motivated on Earth, instead of wanting to secure the safety of the Confederation. The Marines special forces, of course, are not aware of the politics - the Marines were just following the orders they were given. Of course, the Marines would follow their orders as the orders were lawfully given. They had no reason or suspicion as to question the morality of their orders. Although it was sad that the Marines had to kill an innocent to prevent the knowledge of their secret arrival on Atlas. This is a shame that they had to do that to the innocent by-stander - since Lavager as a leader was a pretty decent guy - but that is the fortunes of war for the innocent. My favorite scenes of Lavager were of him and his motherless daughter at home.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

STAR WARS - CLONE WARS GAMBIT - STEALTH

DEL REY

Written by Karen Miller

Copyright 2010 by Lucasfilm Ltd. and Registered or Trademarked where indicated. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt by Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast copyright 2009 by Lucasfilm Ltd. and Registered or Trademarked where indicated. All Rights Reserved.



In the first of the two-part series, Stealth - written by Karen Miller, and based on the animated TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are sent to the planet Lanteeb, a backwater planet which has suddenly drawn the attention of the Separatists during the Clone Wars.

After an investigation, Senator Padme Amidala, Kenobi, and Skywalker are convinced that the Separatists are developing a deadly bio weapon on Lanteeb. On Lanteeb, Separatist General Lok Durd is forcing Dr. Bent'ena Fhernan to develop this bio weapon for the Separatists - or he will kill all of her friends and family.

While the virus was decidedly vile and deadly, the fact that Fherman is being blackmailed into creating this virus was horrible for me to consider. The fact that Obi-Wan was willing to sacrifice Fherman's family for the big picture of saving the Galactic Republic made me feel for both Fhernan and Anakin. Anakin only wants to protect Fhernan and her family and made me feel as if Obi-Wan did not care about anybody. I felt for Fhernan in that, why should she sacrifice her family and friends - the people that she loves - for an entire galaxy that she does not know and of whom the galaxy does not know of or care of for Fhernan? What makes the galaxy more important than Fhernan's family and friends?

Back home, I liked that Ashoka - while undergoing medical treatment to get back to health after being injured from a mission - still cared for her clone troopers who were also injured with her under her command, especially after their communication systems were sabotaged during that mission.

Since the book was based on the cartoon series, instead of the movie, I kept picturing the characters from the cartoon series and their cartoon character voices instead of the real-life actors like Natalie Portman.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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.