Star Trek: Stargazer Gauntlet Review

TITLE: Star Trek Stargazer: Gauntlet

AUTHOR: Michael Jan Friedman

GENRE: Star Trek/ Science Fiction

PAGES: 191

FORMAT: Ebook

PRICE: $1.99 for a limited time, $11.99 regular price

Hey there book lovers! It is your old pal, Ninetoes, coming at you with a review of Michael Jan Friedman’s Star Trek: Stargazer: Gauntlet. I have coffee in my system, and my thinking cap on, so let’s do this!

Hello, my name is Ninetoes and I am a Trekkie! Wait, backtrack, I am a PROUD Trekkie. Now, I may not be of the level of knowing each and every episode word for word and know all of the teenie tiny bits of trivia, but I am getting there. I am going to go on record and say that I greatly appreciate Star Trek in all of its forms. I am not the type to hate a show because it is not “canon”, give it time, and it will be. Just look at what happened with Star Trek The Next Generation. Fans loathed it when it started, but they came around.

Speaking of The Next Generation, Michael Jan Friedman delved into Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s past in his book Star Trek Stargazer: Gauntlet.

Before he was captain of the Enterprise, Captain Jean-Luc Picard was the captain of the Stargazer. It was his first posting as captain, and he was the youngest captain in Starfleet history. Not everyone is accepting of his quick rise, and plans are put in place to take him down a peg or two and show he is not deserving of his promotion. First, he is given an impossible mission. Next, he is given seven new crew members who are handicapped in one way or another. One member has to wear a special suit to survive, another is in security and looks like a bald turkey. Surely, Picard is destined to fail. Right? Surely this mission will kill his future in Starfleet. Surely, Picard is NOT the stuff of legends.

This book moves fast and reads like a Star Trek episode. In a way that is good, but it is also not so good because there is no real surprise. Since it reads like an episode, you know there will be a positive outcome all around. It is refreshing to see Picard’s growing pains as a captain, but in the back of my mind I knew he was going to be successful.

One of the big problems I had was in the formatting of this book. Character perspectives changed with no break or notice. One moment you are reading about Picard, the next you are reading about the Binderian that wants to be a security officer with no warning or break to indicate a switch in who was who.

All in all I give this one 4 bookmarks out of 5!

Happy Reading!

The Ninetoes Book of the Week 04/29-05/04 2024; Ships of the Line Review

TITLE: Star Trek: Ships of the Line

AUTHORS: Doug Drexler, Margaret Clark, and Michael Okuda

GENRE: Star Trek Tie-in

PAGES: 352

FORMAT: Hard Cover

PRICE: $21.00

Hey there book lovers! It is your Star Trek-loving pal, Ninetoes, coming at you with your book of the week and a review of Star Trek: Ships of the Line. I have coffee in my system, and my thinking cap on, so let’s do this!

So, to start, a big Ninetoes Loves Books shout out to my sister, Janice, for surprising me with this one! Yesterday, I was sitting in my living room and heard a thump on my porch. There was a box there and in it was this splendid book.

Well, since I called this book splendid, the cat is out of the bag. I LOVED it with a capital “L” and a hefty Live Long and Prosper! The art in this book is stunning. It is a collection of many illustrations of the Star Trek Ships of the Line Calendars. Text with each ship is provided by Star Trek historian Michael Okuda. Needless to say, I loved this book!

I give Star Trek Ships of the Line 5 very enthusiastic bookmarks out of 5!

Happy reading!

Live long and prosper!

The Ninetoes Book of the Week 04/21-27/2024

Hey there book lovers! It is your old pal, Ninetoes, coming at you with the Book of the Week for the fourth week of April 2024. I have coffee in my system, and my thinking cap on, so let’s do this!

We all know that I love history. That will never change. This morning, I watched Franklin on Apple TV. As I watched the opening credits, I kept looking to see if there was a book this series is based on. Before I got to the book, I saw the name of one of the producers, and I immediately knew which book it was. The producer’s name? Stacy Schiff. The book that this series is based on? Her book, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. Naturally, I had to make it the book of the week.

“In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France.” So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin–seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French–convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America’s experiment in democracy.

When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin’s most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man.

In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin’s life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country’s bid for independence.“

If you are looking for a book about the birth of our nation, and why France mattered so much in it, this is a book not to be missed.

A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America can be found in paperback and ebook. It is $22.99 for the paperback and $1.99 for the e-book.

Happy Reading!

Your Weekend Fun Read 04/19/2024

Hey there book lovers! It is your old pal, Ninetoes, coming at you with Your Weekend Fun Read for the third weekend in April 2024. I have coffee in my system, and my thinking cap on, so let’s do this!

I have to admit, I am riding high on a wave of Star Trek right now. At any give moment, I will hear strands of music from the soundtrack of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, or Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (Let’s face it, the music for the segment where Kirk and crew steal the Enterprise is one of the best in any movie soundtrack). By the way, if you are reading a Star Trek novel, do it with a soundtrack to one of the movies running in the background.

Nineteen years ago a series was launched in the Star Trek universe that was unlike anything I have encountered; Star Trek Vanguard: Harbinger. This book featured the crew from the original series and is set in that timeline, BUT they are not central to the story. The crew has more of a supporting role. For tat fact alone, this book got my immediate attention.

“Returning from its historic first voyage to the edge of the galaxy, the damaged U.S.S. Enterprise™ journeys through the Taurus Reach, a vast and little-known region of space in which a new starbase has been unexpectedly established. Puzzled by the Federation’s interest in an area so far from its borders and so near the xenophobic Tholian Assembly, Captain James T. Kirk orders the Enterprise to put in for repairs at the new space station: Starbase 47, also known as Vanguard.

As Kirk ponders the mystery of the enormous base, he begins to suspect that there is much more to Vanguard than meets the eye. It’s a suspicion shared by the Tholians, the Orions, and the Klingon Empire, each of whom believes that there are less than benign motives behind the Federation’s sudden and unexplained desire to explore and colonize the Taurus Reach.

But when a calamity deep within the Reach threatens to compromise Starfleet’s continued presence in the region, Kirk, Spock, and several key specialists from the Enterprise must assist Vanguard’s crew in investigating the cause of the disaster and containing the damage. In the process, they learn the true purpose behind the creation of Vanguard, and what the outcome of its mission may mean for life throughout that part of the galaxy.

Inside: Bonus diagrams of Vanguard station!“

This is the first in a nine book series, and one that gives the reader an edgier Star Trek experience. This is a book any fan of the series should not miss!

Star Trek Vanguard: Harbinger is available ebook format for $2.99.

Happy Reading.