Star Trek: Prey by John Jackson Miller (Book Review)

The period from 2016-2017 has been a banner year for the Star Trek franchise. A new Kelvin-verse (aka Abramsverse) movie, a new Star Trek show, new comics, and even two new book trilogies that celebrated fifty years of the franchise. The first of the latter, the Legacies trilogy that charted some of the adventures of Commander Una of Starfleet, was an enjoyable series that went to some of the roots of the franchise and delivered a great outing for one of the best female characters of the franchise. The trilogy wasn’t as great as I’d hoped, but it was a good read nonetheless, especially if one wanted to “get back” into the swing of things as I did.

Which is where John Jackson Miller’s Prey trilogy comes in. Written as a bridge between the movie The Search For Spock and the second TV seriesThe Next Generation while bringing it all into the modern era, it is a grand adventure of that typifies the franchise, a grand tale spanning dozens of characters across many different eras and ships as they all come together for a greater whole. It was a blast to read this one, an excellent political thriller and military adventure that you don’t get to read often enough in the franchise.

Star Trek: Discovery Ep 3 (TV Show Review)

The great grand premiere of the first Star Trek series in some fifteen odd years fell rather flat last week when Discovery premiered its first two episodes, The Vulcan Hello and Battle at the Binary Stars. In what was a mess of characterization and plot, closely matched by some intentional technological leaps that should not exist, the premiere was deeply unsatisfying. It was doing too much of the unconventional without justification, presenting too much history without justification. None of which set a good tone for episode 2.

However, some of my hopes did pan out and episode 3, Context Is For Kings proved to be a much better episode in many ways although some of the core concepts behind the show are still flawed. With some better acting, a return to some of the roots of Star Trek and an interesting mystery and mission for the USS Discovery, I think that this episode can be a vital pivot for the show to survive and improve in what it should be.

Note: This review contains major spoilers for the first two episodes.

Star Trek: Discovery Eps 1 & 2 (TV Show Review)

It has been some fifteen odd years since last we had a Star Trek series on-air. While often looked down as a weak successor to the legacies of the Star Trek legacy in the 80s and 90s, Star Trek: Enterprise nevertheless covered one of the most interesting periods of human history in the franchise, the years before the Federation existed and when humans were still finding their way in a complex Alpha Quadrant. As such, Star Trek: Discovery aims to capture a similar feeling since it starts some ten years before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series and is thus another prequel in an ever-expanding universe.

Debuting last night on CBS’s premier streaming service, CBS All-Access, Star Trek: Discovery posits itself as a hard-hitting action series set in the Star Trek universe. Covering as it does the years of a Federation-Klingon war that, to my knowledge, has not been mentioned before in the lore, this was perhaps inevitable and is also exciting because it carries on a theme from ST:E that being mere explorers is not enough. You need some big guns too. With a brand-new crew and a new ship, it is a ripe time to dive back down into the franchise, given the parallel lines of the rebooted movies, but unfortunately much of the series opener falls flat, either due to the writing or production choices.

Note: This review contains major spoilers for the two episodes.

Comics Picks For 21.01.2015

Another week of a “Magic 40”, though no graphic novels.

This week’s surprise hits were Ivar, Timewalker #1 from Valiant, Mortal Kombat X #4 from DC, and Twilight Zone: Shadow And Substance #1 from Dynamite. The disappointments of the week were Spider-Woman #3 from Dynamite and Spider-Verse #2 and The Amazing Spider-Man #13 from Marvel and Vampirella: Feary Tales #4 from Dynamite. Ongoing greats were Wonder Woman ’77 #3 , The Flash: Season Zero #11 and Supergirl #38 from DC, Black Widow #14 and Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #4 from Marvel, and, Grimm Fairy Tales: Realm War #6 from Zenescope among others.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Fast-Shot Comics Reviews 21.01.2015

I skipped another FSCR last week, largely because I kind of felt… tired about the whole thing and just wasn’t in the mood I suppose. But, to make up, I’m definitely back in it for this week!

The picks for this week are: Ivar, Timewalker #1, Scarlet Spiders #3, Spider-Woman #3, Wonder Woman #38, Samurai Jack #16 and Star Trek/Planet Of The Apes #2.

Comics Picks For 31.12.2014

The first Comics Picks of the new year, and while I of course wished for a Magic 40 to kick off 2015, I’m happy with the fact that I didn’t go overboard much and read only a few measly 10 comics, two of which were graphic novels.

For the first week of 2015, the top hits were SHIELD #1 from Marvel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes from Boom Studios, Legends of Red Sonja Volume 1 from Dynamite, and Star Trek/Planet of the Apes from IDW/Boom Studios. The disappointing reads of the week were both from Zenescope unfortunate, Dark Shaman #3 and Quest: Age of Darkness Volume 1. The others… they were decent, nothing major.

As mentioned above, the graphic novels for the week were Legends of Red Sonja Volume 1 from Dynamite and Quest: Age of Darkness Volume 1 from Zenescope. The former was a fun book where Gail Simone brought together several different female prose writers, paired them with different artists, and wrote a grand, sweeping Red Sonja story. The latter was part of the publisher’s Age of Darkness event and was more a prequel story.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Star Trek/Planet of the Apes #1 (Comics Review)

One of the many ways that IDW Publishing’s Star Trek franchise has thrived in recent years is with crossovers with other popular franchises, whether in comics or otherwise. I got back into comics in 2012 with Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes, which was a fun story in itself. Crossovers like that can often be quite fun indeed, bringing two very different properties together. There’s also the fact that crossover events have become a done thing these days, with every publisher getting on the bandwagon, especially the Big 2. Of course, in the midst of all that, IDW wouldn’t want to be left behind, especially coming after crossovers like G.I. Joe vs Transformers.

On the final day of last year, which happened to be a Wednesday and thus a New Comic Books Day, IDW and Boom Studios have released a new crossover, Star Trek/Planet of the Apes. The possibilities here are endless really, and when the crossover was announced, I was quite excited since I love both franchises, though I haven’t checked out Boom Studios’ various Apes comics, which do appear to be excellent. But we have this new crossover now, and the writers do a good job of setting up the main conflict and bringing the two wildly different settings together in a great way, which is where the artists come in and do their job.

Best of 2014 Part 2a: Novels

Doing one of these posts often takes a lot out of me because of all the linking and checking and verification and formatting and everything, but lists like this also help me crystalize my year in reading, so I value them quite highly. Thankfully, I’m able to get this list out in time and most of the books on the list have already been reviewed as well, so that’s something too.

With the year 2014 now done and over, it is time to do the first of my “Best of the Year” posts, for the period 1st July to December 31st. I didn’t read as many books this time as I wanted to, primarily because I got married in the first week of July itself, and things have changed a fair bit. But life remains exciting and interesting in equal measure, and my reading also happens to match that rather closely, so I’ll take that in full indeed!

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!

12 Days of Best Covers of 2014: Day #7

The seventh book cover I pick for the 2014 edition of “12 Days of Best Covers of…” is for Star Trek: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow, which is the fourth novel in last year’s The Fall quintology, itself a series that is a part of the larger Typhon Pact mega-arc in the setting. James carried on from David Mack’s excellent A Ceremony of Losses in this novel, and the story he told, focusing on William Riker and Tuvok, among other characters, totally pulled me in. There’s a larger story at work here of course, and I’d certainly recommend reading from the first novel in this series, Revelation and Dust by David R. George III, which is a bit of a rough start, but builds up towards the end and the other two novels after that, The Crimson Shadow by Una McCormack and David Mack’s A Ceremony of Losses are all damn good reads.

The seventh set of comic covers I pick this year are for Death Vigil #1 by Stjepan Sejic, with cover by him as well, and the second of the set is for Grimm Fairy Tales #99 by Joe Brusha, Joel Ojeda, Stephen Schaffer, Eric Arciniega and Jim Campbell with the cover by Artgerm. Death Vigil is Stjepan’s first full work in that he is the writer and artist both, and he has been absolutely fantastic on this series. Month after month he’s delivered a great story and even better art, and the title is definitely among the best of the debuts this year. Grimm Fairy Tales #99 is basically one of the keystone moments of Zenescope’s massive Age of Darkness crossover event that has been going on for more than a year already, and it sets in motion some of the biggest events of the crossover, and is a prelude to the big… defeat of the Realm Knights themselves, the guardians of all the different Realms that connect to Earth in Zenescope’s reimagining of various fairy tales and folk tales and other myths and legends.

So without further ado, hit the break to see both the covers in all their glory! The full list of all these covers is available here.

Upcoming: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Missing by Una McCormack

This year I got back into Star Trek full-time with last year’s latest release, the 5-part The Fall series which tells a crossover story about the murder of the Federation President and the ripple effects that this has on the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, and touches on across all the major Star Trek characters still alive, and also the Cardassians, the Bajorans, the Andorians, and others. One of the best novels in this new series was Una McCormack’s The Crimson Shadow (review), the second novel in the series, which dealt with the Cardassians in a post-Borg invasion galaxy as they deal with their crumbling society and culture.

I credit Una for really getting me back into Star Trek this year, and in a few short weeks (December actually!) we will see the release of Deep Space Nine: The Missing, which follows on from the events of The Fall, specifically Dayton Ward’s final novel in the series, Peaceable Kingdoms. I’m very excited about this one actually, given all the changes that happened in Peaceable Kingdoms, and also because Una McCormack has become one of my favourite new authors this year.

Comics Picks For 23.07.2014

As per my plans, I didn’t do one of these posts in the past 2 weeks since I was on a holiday. And a great holiday it was indeed. I didn’t get to do more than a very small handful of reviews, more like just two or three in all, but I managed to read a fair bit and kept myself on target for my comics reading.

The surprise hits of this week were Storm #1 from Marvel and Star Spangled War Stories #1 from DC Comics. The surprise flop of the week would be Batman #33 from DC Comics. Not exactly a bad comic but just a disappointing one. All the other comics were pretty much good, excepting Flash #33, where I still can’t really connect with what the new creative team is doing there. I wanted to read a trade paperback comic as well during this week, but the first few days of the vacation were very busy and all these comics were pretty much read in the last 2-3 days of the week so that didn’t happen.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Comics Picks For 16.07.2014

In what is probably my last “Comics Picks For…” post since I am going on vacation for the next two weeks, what I like is that despite not hitting my usual goal of 26 comics read, I did manage to read the same as last week, 21 in all. All in all it is a good number I think since I got most of my usual titles out of the way and even read a few different things, some of which were really good.

The surprise hits of this week were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Micro-Seres #5: Splinter from IDW Publishing and Harley Quinn Invades Comic Con #1 from DC Comics. The surprise flop of the week would be Robin Rises: Omega #1 from DC Comics. Expectedly great comics such as Secret Avengers #5 from Marvel Comics and Unity #9 from Valiant Comics were pretty damn good. I’m quite happy with the fact that I’m managing to read as many comics as I have for the past two weeks, given everything else. I expected the number to be much lower after all.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.