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: Legacies Trilogy (Book Review)

On September 8, 2016 the Star Trek fandom marked a significant milestone, the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Series, the groundbreaking show that changed television and science-fiction forever. In fact, all of last year was dedicated to this celebration in a number of ways, such as the release of multiple novels from Simon & Schuster as well as the release of the third movie in the rebooted franchise, Star Trek: Beyond. It is indeed a celebration like none other because what Gene Roddenberry and others created all those years ago still has huge ramifications for all of us.

The Legacies trilogy is part of this grand celebration, bringing together fan-favourite writers like Greg Cox, David Mack, Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore to present a riveting story that goes all the way back to the core history of the series itself and features none other than Number One. An away mission gone-wrong in hostile territory, a promise fulfilled after eighteen years, interstellar conflict, spies and espionage, Legacies has everything that has come to define Star Trek over the years and is a great series to read, even for any newcomers to the franchise.

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.

Star Trek: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow (Book Review)

Star Trek: The Fall has proven to be a most enjoyable event series from all that I’ve read. My interest was piqued because of the cover to Una McCormack’s Crimson Shadow, and diving into the four-part series with David R. George III’s Revelation and Dust proved to be a good place to get back into the status quo of Star Trek tie-in novel fiction. The nature of these books, taking a look at several major characters and crew and locations of this wonderful universe has been the major attraction for sure, and I really applaud the creators and the publisher for going this route.

The Poisoned Chalice is meant to be the cap-stone to this wonderful series, and it does fulfill that promise. James Swallow has been one of my favourite writers for a number of years, ever since 2006 when I started reading his Warhammer 40,000 novels. He has never really disappointed after an initial hurdle and his output in recent years has been top-notch. The Poisoned Chalice clearly is among his best works to date and it brings this series to a close in a spectacular fashion, with all that’s best about the Star Trek universe and none of the drawbacks.

Star Trek: New Visions #1 (Comics Review)

A few months ago IDW began a new series of Star Trek comics. These are quite different from normal comics in that they feature photo-realistic artwork, i.e., all the characters and scenes are as they appeared in Star Trek: The Original Series rather than an artist’s free inspiration. Called photonovels by IDW’s Star Trek team, the first issue was quite a fun little story that tied into the original show and gave a fun new story for readers and fans. And now IDW is going full-out with these, creating an entire line of such comics, and I think that it is a fantastic time for such an experiment.

Star Trek: New Visions #1 is the first of this new series and it ties into the episode where we saw the Enterprise of another reality, one where the Federation is a tyrannical conqueror rather than a multi-species alliance united in common cause. The issue picks up quite soon after the events of that episode and then it moves forward, charting new territory and bringing back some old characters in new forms. And the ending, well that’s a kicker all right. John Byrne’s photomontage/story is pretty excellent here and the experience is just as intense and entertaining as the original episode was.