A Good Story, But....

A good story with a good plot, unfortunately spoiled by inconsistencies, flaws and ridiculous attempts to ‘explain away’ the differences between Discovery’s starships and the long established canon.

I also disliked the portrayal of Saru in this book, I find his on screen character to be vastly better and am disappointed I didnt get to experience it here.

If your a hard core Trekkie like me its worth the listen, but don’t say you weren’t warned.

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A neat episode with basic narration

This is a mostly satisfying episode from early in the unseen seven-year mission of the Shenzhou, that ties in effectively with the Enterprise crew from the era of 'The Cage.' The plot is obviously an excuse for Spock and Burnham to interact, in a way that they obviously couldn't on a live-action TV show, but their interactions are entertaining and insightful enough, and gave an early hint as to the directions the Discovery series would eventually go.
Burnham's interactions with the Shenzhou crew display perhaps a surprising amount of tension even at this early stage of her story (which I suspect has more to do with reproducing the tone of the series than actually attempting to paint a longer arc for her character). Specifically, her relationship with Saru borders uncomfortably on bullying, and her propensity for insubordination to Captain Georgiou is clearly signposted.
The weaker parts of the story IMO are the depictions of Vulcan reasoning. Too often I feel that Vulcans are written sort of lazily, as just guys who say buzzwords like "logical" and "rational" a lot, but whose reasoning is not actually all that sophisticated, valid, or sound (I think it would help if writers actually had a background in philosophy, but maybe this is asking too much). This is pretty much the case here, as a reader who stops to think for a second about the arguments Spock and Burnham make to each other would find it pretty easy to poke holes in them, particularly if the reader knows anything about deductive fallacies.
As regards narration, Eisenberg doesn't do any different voices for the characters (the closest she gets is one accent for one of the walk-on Starfleet officers), so one can't really say that she captures the essence of any of the colourful Trek characters in the story, though her narration is clear enough. One unforgivable error that yanked me right out of the story was when she said "casual relationship" instead of "causal relationship," the difference being only two swapped letters, but a VERY different meaning! I'm not sure if that error was original to the text, or if it arose from her misreading, but it was glaring nonetheless.
In summation, if you are interested in seeing more of the seven years that Discovery gave us only a glimpse of, and furthermore seeing some of the rougher edges between the canon of The Original Series and Discovery smoothed over somewhat, then this will probably satisfy. I'd recommend getting it in print over audio if you can, so that you can hear the voices of Leonard Nimoy, Majel Barrett, Michelle Yeoh, and Doug Jones, etc. in your head, instead of merely one narrator doing one voice.

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4 people found this helpful

Good story but

This was a good story in its own right. But the attempt to link discovery to cannon was pretty weak.

The narrator conveyed little emotion and was a bit bland.

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1 person found this helpful

Crap

I usually look forward to reading this author's work. I was disappointed this time.
*Spoilers*
I had many problems with the behaviors of this "Starfleet". The decisions of the Captains and tha Admiral were unbelievable and unrealistic. To have one threaten another with the destruction of their ship if they get in the way is just plain WRONG.
I was surprised by the level of profanity in this book. Considering what Kirk said of the 80's this is a major nonsequitor.
There was even an instance of a lowly Lieutenant questioning the orders of the Captain which is beyond insubordination!
The trope of having the intelligence and worthiness of a subject tested is tired and overused. Dr Who was doing that with the Daleks in the 70s!
The interaction between Burnham and Spock before their activities in Season 2 of Discovery clearly leaves this novel out of Canon - where it should be. As a book editor myself I would have rejected this tripe outright.
All I can say that this must have been a rush job. Too many things made little sense and were not well thought out. For a book I had to pay for I'm sorry I wasted my money. Lift your game!
One final thought. I noted that the reader mispronounced several words and read them as something else entirely. I'm surprised that got by the editor.

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Language Please!

Didn't finish, couldn't get past the use of the four letter word. :€ Might have to give up on discovery.

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1 person found this helpful