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johnnythejailbird's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
sidetracked's review against another edition
4.0
This series of books seems to be built like a collection of short stories, each of them set in a certain era and with the known characters from the Star Trek universe.
The first story of this book, Age of the Empress, picks up where the episode "In a mirror, darkly" ended, with newly self-appointed Empress Sato assuming control and reigning over the Terran Empire.
The story is centered on the struggle of the Empire to crush the resistance movement. Lots of space battles (though I didn't enjoy them a great deal due to the fact their description was extremely poor), lots of plotting, scheming and betraying. Pretty much anything you were not accustomed to while watching Star Trek.
All in all, a rather good first story to kick this mirror universe into gear.
The second story covers the Original Series timeline and it starts in a rather funny way, with Spock attempting to kill James Kirk. With the help of an extremely powerful device, The Tantalus device, he rises to power and forges a plan to change the Terran Empire forever. Once he assumes the title of emperor he kicks his plan into gear. The story itself seemed to me extremely familiar with Asimov's Foundation. Spock bases his changes on the fact that Vulcan scientists have calculated that, given its current path, the Terran Empire can only survive for 215 years and then crumble into chaos, taking the entire local space with it. This seemed extremely similar with psychohistory. The way he chose to do it was to accelerate the collapse, while constructing multiple secret repositories all over the local space that were to act as the foundation of the future Terran Republic.
The third story takes us in the late 24th century and has Jean-Luc Picard as the main character. The very interesting twist is that he captains the "starship" Stargazer, which is in reality just a runabout with a crew of one, and his main activity is that of recovering long-forgotten artifacts for his master, Gul Madred - basically he's a tomb raider. Through an ex-lover of his he gets introduced to a genius scientist working for the resistance, Noonien Soong who convinces Picard to help him find the Borg. That's right! They go on a journey to find the Borg and attempt to enlist their help against the Alliance. Finding the Borg does not end well, as expected, and Picard barely manages to escape their ship. What follows are the mirrored events of the battle from Wolf 359 from Star Trek TNG, this time around the main protagonists, the Klingons, Cardassians, Ferengi and Bajorans meeting the Borg in combat near the icy prison of Rura Penthe. Picard manages to acquire a piece of extremely advanced alien technology that provokes the Collective into destroying their own ship. What this seems to do is spark curiosity in the Collective and preparations for a full scale invasion begin immediately.
On the one hand I enjoyed these tales of a different universe, in all their brutality and treachery, but I couldn't help but notice that these stories have no relation with the Star Trek universe that I enjoyed, other than some characters. The extreme and mostly needless violence portrayed in these stories would certainly shock Gene Roddenberry, if he were alive today.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series.
The first story of this book, Age of the Empress, picks up where the episode "In a mirror, darkly" ended, with newly self-appointed Empress Sato assuming control and reigning over the Terran Empire.
The story is centered on the struggle of the Empire to crush the resistance movement. Lots of space battles (though I didn't enjoy them a great deal due to the fact their description was extremely poor), lots of plotting, scheming and betraying. Pretty much anything you were not accustomed to while watching Star Trek.
All in all, a rather good first story to kick this mirror universe into gear.
The second story covers the Original Series timeline and it starts in a rather funny way, with Spock attempting to kill James Kirk. With the help of an extremely powerful device, The Tantalus device, he rises to power and forges a plan to change the Terran Empire forever. Once he assumes the title of emperor he kicks his plan into gear. The story itself seemed to me extremely familiar with Asimov's Foundation. Spock bases his changes on the fact that Vulcan scientists have calculated that, given its current path, the Terran Empire can only survive for 215 years and then crumble into chaos, taking the entire local space with it. This seemed extremely similar with psychohistory. The way he chose to do it was to accelerate the collapse, while constructing multiple secret repositories all over the local space that were to act as the foundation of the future Terran Republic.
The third story takes us in the late 24th century and has Jean-Luc Picard as the main character. The very interesting twist is that he captains the "starship" Stargazer, which is in reality just a runabout with a crew of one, and his main activity is that of recovering long-forgotten artifacts for his master, Gul Madred - basically he's a tomb raider. Through an ex-lover of his he gets introduced to a genius scientist working for the resistance, Noonien Soong who convinces Picard to help him find the Borg. That's right! They go on a journey to find the Borg and attempt to enlist their help against the Alliance. Finding the Borg does not end well, as expected, and Picard barely manages to escape their ship. What follows are the mirrored events of the battle from Wolf 359 from Star Trek TNG, this time around the main protagonists, the Klingons, Cardassians, Ferengi and Bajorans meeting the Borg in combat near the icy prison of Rura Penthe. Picard manages to acquire a piece of extremely advanced alien technology that provokes the Collective into destroying their own ship. What this seems to do is spark curiosity in the Collective and preparations for a full scale invasion begin immediately.
On the one hand I enjoyed these tales of a different universe, in all their brutality and treachery, but I couldn't help but notice that these stories have no relation with the Star Trek universe that I enjoyed, other than some characters. The extreme and mostly needless violence portrayed in these stories would certainly shock Gene Roddenberry, if he were alive today.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series.
linklex7's review against another edition
4.0
Pretty good anthology book. All the short stories link up to form a mostly cohesive arc. Well worth a read if you enjoy the mirror universe episodes of Star Trek. Especially considering that TNG never had a mirror universe episode, it felt pretty cool to see the TNG crew’s doppelgängers
exlibris007's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
lefthandedmatt's review against another edition
3.0
Three novellas telling stories from the, quite insane, Star Trek "mirror" universe. A universe that has all of our favourite characters, but everything is very different. First introduced in the original Star Trek TV series (and giving us the classic image of evil Spock with a goatee), it was revisited several times in Deep Space Nine and then once in Enterprise.
These stories make attempts to fill in the gaps and create a larger history for that universe. The three tales take place across different eras in time: Enterprise, The Original Series and The Next Generation.
Age of the Empress: an Enterprise-era story that picks up immediately from the end of the related episodes and continues Hoshi's tale. It's very dramatic, as with most stuff set in the mirror universe and pretty good fun. I'm not the biggest fan of Enterprise and have very little love for these characters, but these "evil" versions of them have a lot more spirit. Lots of action and double-crosses, silly but I liked.
The Sorrows of Empire: this energetic and political story follows the actions of Spock after the episode 'Mirror, Mirror'. It's grandiose and covers several decades, incorporating characters and events from a number of episodes and films. A bit hard to follow at times due to how fast it moves and how abstract a number of the political ideas are. Spock himself seems more stoic than usual and hard to get a handle on.
The Worst of Both Worlds: probably the silliest, but it's also the most fun. Picard is an amateur archaeologist/adventurer under the thumb of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance when he gets caught up with the rebellion and ends up hunting down the Borg.
The mirror universe is an odd place, often pushed to the extreme. Life is cheap and nobody is trustworthy. That sounds fun at first, but it does get tiresome. All of these stories have a high entertainment factor, but none of them were really all that compelling to me. The Spock story in particular is well plotted and it is quite fun to understand how all the things we grew familiar with in the TV depictions happened.
These stories make attempts to fill in the gaps and create a larger history for that universe. The three tales take place across different eras in time: Enterprise, The Original Series and The Next Generation.
Age of the Empress: an Enterprise-era story that picks up immediately from the end of the related episodes and continues Hoshi's tale. It's very dramatic, as with most stuff set in the mirror universe and pretty good fun. I'm not the biggest fan of Enterprise and have very little love for these characters, but these "evil" versions of them have a lot more spirit. Lots of action and double-crosses, silly but I liked.
The Sorrows of Empire: this energetic and political story follows the actions of Spock after the episode 'Mirror, Mirror'. It's grandiose and covers several decades, incorporating characters and events from a number of episodes and films. A bit hard to follow at times due to how fast it moves and how abstract a number of the political ideas are. Spock himself seems more stoic than usual and hard to get a handle on.
The Worst of Both Worlds: probably the silliest, but it's also the most fun. Picard is an amateur archaeologist/adventurer under the thumb of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance when he gets caught up with the rebellion and ends up hunting down the Borg.
The mirror universe is an odd place, often pushed to the extreme. Life is cheap and nobody is trustworthy. That sounds fun at first, but it does get tiresome. All of these stories have a high entertainment factor, but none of them were really all that compelling to me. The Spock story in particular is well plotted and it is quite fun to understand how all the things we grew familiar with in the TV depictions happened.
midwinter's review against another edition
4.0
This series of books seems to be built like a collection of short stories, each of them set in a certain era and with the known characters from the Star Trek universe.
The first story of this book, Age of the Empress, picks up where the episode "In a mirror, darkly" ended, with newly self-appointed Empress Sato assuming control and reigning over the Terran Empire.
The story is centered on the struggle of the Empire to crush the resistance movement. Lots of space battles (though I didn't enjoy them a great deal due to the fact their description was extremely poor), lots of plotting, scheming and betraying. Pretty much anything you were not accustomed to while watching Star Trek.
All in all, a rather good first story to kick this mirror universe into gear.
The second story covers the Original Series timeline and it starts in a rather funny way, with Spock attempting to kill James Kirk. With the help of an extremely powerful device, The Tantalus device, he rises to power and forges a plan to change the Terran Empire forever. Once he assumes the title of emperor he kicks his plan into gear. The story itself seemed to me extremely familiar with Asimov's Foundation. Spock bases his changes on the fact that Vulcan scientists have calculated that, given its current path, the Terran Empire can only survive for 215 years and then crumble into chaos, taking the entire local space with it. This seemed extremely similar with psychohistory. The way he chose to do it was to accelerate the collapse, while constructing multiple secret repositories all over the local space that were to act as the foundation of the future Terran Republic.
The third story takes us in the late 24th century and has Jean-Luc Picard as the main character. The very interesting twist is that he captains the "starship" Stargazer, which is in reality just a runabout with a crew of one, and his main activity is that of recovering long-forgotten artifacts for his master, Gul Madred - basically he's a tomb raider. Through an ex-lover of his he gets introduced to a genius scientist working for the resistance, Noonien Soong who convinces Picard to help him find the Borg. That's right! They go on a journey to find the Borg and attempt to enlist their help against the Alliance. Finding the Borg does not end well, as expected, and Picard barely manages to escape their ship. What follows are the mirrored events of the battle from Wolf 359 from Star Trek TNG, this time around the main protagonists, the Klingons, Cardassians, Ferengi and Bajorans meeting the Borg in combat near the icy prison of Rura Penthe. Picard manages to acquire a piece of extremely advanced alien technology that provokes the Collective into destroying their own ship. What this seems to do is spark curiosity in the Collective and preparations for a full scale invasion begin immediately.
On the one hand I enjoyed these tales of a different universe, in all their brutality and treachery, but I couldn't help but notice that these stories have no relation with the Star Trek universe that I enjoyed, other than some characters. The extreme and mostly needless violence portrayed in these stories would certainly shock Gene Roddenberry, if he were alive today.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series.
The first story of this book, Age of the Empress, picks up where the episode "In a mirror, darkly" ended, with newly self-appointed Empress Sato assuming control and reigning over the Terran Empire.
The story is centered on the struggle of the Empire to crush the resistance movement. Lots of space battles (though I didn't enjoy them a great deal due to the fact their description was extremely poor), lots of plotting, scheming and betraying. Pretty much anything you were not accustomed to while watching Star Trek.
All in all, a rather good first story to kick this mirror universe into gear.
The second story covers the Original Series timeline and it starts in a rather funny way, with Spock attempting to kill James Kirk. With the help of an extremely powerful device, The Tantalus device, he rises to power and forges a plan to change the Terran Empire forever. Once he assumes the title of emperor he kicks his plan into gear. The story itself seemed to me extremely familiar with Asimov's Foundation. Spock bases his changes on the fact that Vulcan scientists have calculated that, given its current path, the Terran Empire can only survive for 215 years and then crumble into chaos, taking the entire local space with it. This seemed extremely similar with psychohistory. The way he chose to do it was to accelerate the collapse, while constructing multiple secret repositories all over the local space that were to act as the foundation of the future Terran Republic.
The third story takes us in the late 24th century and has Jean-Luc Picard as the main character. The very interesting twist is that he captains the "starship" Stargazer, which is in reality just a runabout with a crew of one, and his main activity is that of recovering long-forgotten artifacts for his master, Gul Madred - basically he's a tomb raider. Through an ex-lover of his he gets introduced to a genius scientist working for the resistance, Noonien Soong who convinces Picard to help him find the Borg. That's right! They go on a journey to find the Borg and attempt to enlist their help against the Alliance. Finding the Borg does not end well, as expected, and Picard barely manages to escape their ship. What follows are the mirrored events of the battle from Wolf 359 from Star Trek TNG, this time around the main protagonists, the Klingons, Cardassians, Ferengi and Bajorans meeting the Borg in combat near the icy prison of Rura Penthe. Picard manages to acquire a piece of extremely advanced alien technology that provokes the Collective into destroying their own ship. What this seems to do is spark curiosity in the Collective and preparations for a full scale invasion begin immediately.
On the one hand I enjoyed these tales of a different universe, in all their brutality and treachery, but I couldn't help but notice that these stories have no relation with the Star Trek universe that I enjoyed, other than some characters. The extreme and mostly needless violence portrayed in these stories would certainly shock Gene Roddenberry, if he were alive today.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series.
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