Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Star Wars Fate of the Jedi #3: Abyss by Troy Denning, Marc Thompson (Read by)

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From Barnes & Noble

What caused Jacen Solo's downfall into the dark side? In the third installment of the Fate of the Jedi arc, the search for an answer takes Luke and Ben Skywalker to The Maw, a cacophonous part of space where would-be assassins and a mysterious, unseen evil lurk.
 It may look like I'm burning through lots of adventure fiction and SF - but mostly I'm just catching up on recent books - this audiobook had actually been lurking in my mp3 player for some time and I finally finished it off.

More of the labyrinthine Star Wars EU plotlines with the ups and downs of Jedi fortunes (particularly the tragic ups and downs of the Skywalker/Solo clans).  Hard to keep track of it all - thank the Maker for cuswe.org!   (And thanks be for libraries, so I can have the next installment queued up on my mp3 player.....)

 

Star Trek: Unspoken Truth by Margaret Wander Bonanno

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From the Publisher

A social experiment was conceived. Its goal was to breed the best, the brightest, the most malleable and most loyal soldiers to ever serve. To this end, the Romulan Empire used its own children, blinded by the belief that anything that would bring glory to the praetor was justified. And when the winds of politics changed, these children were abandoned, left to die on a world so horrifying that it was dubbed—by those who dared to cling to life—Hellguard.
One wild child, Saavik, was rescued by Spock. He took the half-Vulcan, half-Romulan child home to his parents, knowing that if anyone could reach and rescue Saavik, it was them.
Now a Starfleet officer, Saavik has striven to honor her mentor and her Vulcan heritage. But recent events have shaken her. Left behind on Vulcan while the rest of the Enterprise crew goes to face court-martial for stealing and destroying their ship, the young science officer is adrift when two men from her past confront her. Tolek, another Hellguard survivor, tells Saavik that the survivors are being killed one-by-one and only they can discover who and why. The other, a Romulan who claims to be her father, swears it is the Vulcans who are eliminating the Hellguard survivors because they are an embarrassment to all of Vulcan, but that she has the power to stop it, by bringing down the Vulcan ambassador, Sarek.
Not knowing where to turn, not knowing whom to trust, Saavik must find her own answers, and discover who she truly is.
Libraries!!  They're great!  Here's yet-another-summer-book, this one by Margaret Wander Bonanno, who's written some classic Trek novels.   This put me in enough of a Trek frame of mind that I reserved another recent Trek novel, this one about Captain Pike ...

 

The Ark by Boyd Morrison

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Library Journal

What is the recipe for an awesome artifact thriller? Take an important relic (preferably biblical), a megalomaniac with unlimited funds and plans for world domination, a handsome and masterful hero, and a beautiful scholar. Sprinkle liberally with painful pasts, opportunities for redemption, and burgeoning romance. Here, Morrison, a Ph.D. in industrial engineering, sends us on an action-packed adventure with Drs. Tyler Locke and Dilara Kenner as they fend off assassins, save the world from a madman, and find Noah's Ark. Accept the general premise, and both the action and the archaeology seem totally plausible. Technically, this is Morrison's first novel; however, he already has fans, having self-published this book through Amazon's Kindle program, where it ranked first in sales for its genre. VERDICT If you have ever watched any show about Noah's Ark and for a moment wished the ark were really there to be found, then this work is for you. A bonus: Locke is a kind, smart, consummate action hero. Let's hope he's in the sequel.—Laura A.B. Cifelli, Fort Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., FL
 Hey - this is an ultimate summer beach read!  Quick action, bad guys who are really bad, good guys who are really good, and an interesting twist on the Biblical account of Noah's ark.   And no, it's not terribly biblical in those twists - but it's a fun read!