The premise would make a fine end of season two parter , but a blockbuster movie I think not! A respected star-fleet captain goes renegade to protect a veritable Garden of Eden /Fountain of youth planet from exploitation from both the Federation and outside forces. Woahh! Excuse me didn't William Shatner already do this plot-line in his first Star Trek Novel: 'The Ashes of Eden'? Check it out; yes he did! And better too I might add. Lets stop beating around the bush First A Star Trek : Voyager: ; 'Mortal Coil' episode and now Star Trek 9 - Insurrection, pinching ideas and plotlines from the man who portrayed third Captain of the USS Enterprise. Anybody with half a 'Trek' brain can see it. In Voyager: The episode 'Mortal Coil' Neelix is revived from the dead by Borg nanite technology. A contrivance of William Shatner's to revive Captain Kirk in his book: 'The Return'. from his demise in the 7th Trek movie Generations. If they have any sense they'll adapt one of Kirk's books for the tenth film or do a crossover with some of the original Enterprise crew doing cameos.

I've read all the Star Trek movie books, and "Insurrection" is the one I like the best. The description of the Ba'ku and S'ona homeworld is breathtaking, and the action scenes are well described. Of all, I rate this book very highly and recommend it to everyone I can get my hands on.

J.M. Dillard has with, Star Trek: Insurrection done another great job of novelizing a movie! I always approach novelization's with a little skepticism as far as what's put on page between the scenes on screen. That said, I don't really do that with her work. She captures the spirit of the film perfectly and put's some really good scenes in that we don't see on film. Thank you to the author for another great novelization!

I typically don't care for sequels by different authors, but this book is definitely an exception. Dillard did a great job continuing this story some 35 years after the 1st one took place. If you liked the series this book will definitely bring back some memories, if not, you'll still enjoy it. It is well written with great character build-up and should have enough to please any sci-fi fan.

I agree with the previous review: this is a good read. I loved the show, and wish it had been given a real chance at survival. Anyway, I'm sure this book isn't that hard to acquire, and is definitely worth the time and money.

Although the T.V. show was not very popular, it had a loyal following. This book was one of the few media tie-ins done. J.M. Dillard is a capable writer, and does a good job of laying out the premise of the show and introducing the characters. It's a shame that the show has been largely forgotten. If you find a copy, it is worth a look.

Back 25 or so years ago when I bought this book, it was among the first Star Trek books I ever got. Perhaps the first one. As an adaptation of the original Star Trek episodes "Arena", "A Taste of Armageddon", "Tomorrow is Yesterday", "Errand of Mercy", "Court Martial", "Operation - Annihilate!", "The City on the Edge of Forever", and "Space Seed", it contains some of the most powerful Star Trek stories. Blish did a good job of adaptation. I must've read this and the rest of the series umpty zillion times before switching to something else. I ended up getting all twelve books plus "Mudd's Women". Good stuff.

This is far from the worst Star Trek novel I've ever read, but truly it isn't very good. Those who've read other novels by J.M. Dillard are likely to be seriously disappointed in this effort. The characters are handled competently enough, and there's plenty of action for those who read Star Trek purely for thrills. But the basic plot is rather weak, and were it not for the blatant intercession of a very active author-deity, the good guys would have lost this one.

I'm told that back in the days of the movie western serials, Hopalong Cassidy was once trapped in a box canyon, no way out, and hopelessly outnumbered by the approaching bad guys. Then the writers realized that they had written themselves into a corner, so when we "tuned in next week", the story began with "After Hoppy got out of the box canyon..." This story reminded me of that anecdote, notably in the segue from chapter six to chapter seven.

Sloppy.

"DEMONS" is a really great book. A Star Trek "ghost story"! I'm not giving it 5 stars, 'cause I have to admit; I was a tenybit disapointed. But just a teny weeny bit. You see, I read "POSESSIONS" (kind of a follow-up with the TNG crew) first, which wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. But don't let that scare you away from this book. "DEMONS" is absolutely worth the money, and a "must-read" for all of us who like J. M. Dillard's style!

Star Trek-The Original Series: Demons written by J.M. Dillard is a prequil to Star Trek-The Next Generation: Possession and if you like ghost stories with mystery and intrigue this is the book for you.

The book is about an ancient evil, long before the Federation a powerful force, a force that began with possession and later madness that finialized itself with murder, encroaches on the Enterprise crew. After an expedition, which accidentally unearthed one of the most bizarre forces in the galaxy, is now attacking the planet Vulcan. Spock must find a way to defeat the madness that is now affecting Vulcan or else the planet Vulcan will be plunged into total madness.

This is one of J.M. Dillard's most dark and intriguing books and I highly recommend reading this book first before reading ST-TNG Possession as Possession is a sequel. This book will keep you entertained as it starts out slowly but builds and you'll like Spock's novel solution to one of the galaxy's most destructive forces.

There is good character development with a plot that is like a good ghost story and the book is entertaining till the end with intrigue.

As far as I can recall, this is the first time Capt. Archer's Enterprise has hosted your standard, glowing Star Trek energy being, that proceeds to move about the ship and eventually reveal whether it is friendly or malevolent. So, for the record, we have an energy being aboard before we have a shapeshifter posing as a crewmember or the Captain (of course it's only a matter of time...).

The good news: this book is like an Enterprise TV episode, but better. The bad news: this book is like an Enterprise TV episode, if better. What that means is that Hoshi gets more airtime, and finds herself in a similar situation to her extended dream-sequence escapade on TV--ie. "Oh my, I'm the first person on board to discover the real trouble we're in!"--without it actually turning out to be a dream-sequence, thank goodness. Sadly, Mayweather is still an exercise in minimalism, his most important scene taking place on the bridge where he tries to pull rank on someone who points out "Hey, uh, you're the same rank as me.".

The other familiar faces--Archer, T'Pol, Trip, Reed, Phlox, and the little dog too--are, predictably, the major players. T'Pol decides she will never kill again, even to save Enterprise, after accidently bumping off the last of the Oani people, who were dying off anyway. Archer, in a surprise move, cuts her some amazing slack over this, but then he has other, bigger problems--Phlox goes into a coma, apparently succumbing to whatever affliction wiped out everyone on Oan (a landing party, as I indicated, had been present for the last sad deaths). Things become very confusing: while Hoshi holes up in the medlab, reviewing tapes of a dead Oani record-keeper, who insists a microbe has destroyed his people (and reveals that the Oani were such pacifists, they let it!), a strange energy being comes aboard, and will only speak with T'Pol, telling her the affliction is produced by radioactivity. Someone is wrong or a liar.

The plot rolls on, quick enough for my tastes, and the confusion is sorted out through action and frenzy, even though the book started out feeling it was going to be a somewhat quieter character piece. And I did not mind this shift, although there creeps in a bit of triteness when it comes to the handling of T'Pol's big crisis. However, better that the spacefarers reveal their true natures, and their priorities, in a tense, dangerous situation, then they bore me by sitting cross-legged, meditating, or arguing endlessly. Once the true menace becomes apparent, everyone springs into action--Archer is particularly brave--and okay, a little meditation on T'Pol's part does help save the day.

Too simple to be branded as a Trek classic, but if you are a fan of the show, you know the sort of stories we are being treated to every hour. This novel demosntrates how much more rewarding a fairly simple idea can be, if you have 218 pages to play with, instead of a mere 50 pages of script. I was entertained, and not just by reading bits of the dialogue aloud, trying to do Trip, T'Pol, Reed, Phlox, and Archer impersonations.

Star Trek-Enterprise: Surak's Soul written by J.M. Dillard is a well-written book about a first-contact with a humanoid race.

This book is written as a character driven book as each of the Enterprise crew tries to cope with who they are and the understanding who they can be. Written as an ensamble, this book delves into the the character of T'Pol and her teachings as she is pulled from the teachings of Surak to Captain Archers on-the-fly behavior and impulsive attempts to make first contact.

T'Pol is true to her heritiage and vows to foreswear violence, she tells Captain Archer that she will never kill... even if she is ordered... but will she endanger the Enterprise and her crew in the future? This book does some real soul searching and has an unusual plot, but in the end some serious questions get resolved, making this one of the better Enterprise books.

The series is very slow to develop... I'm suprized at how slowly this series is taking to develop as this is the fifth book in the Enterprise series and this is the best so far. What this series was lacking in the frist four was strong characters this book fleshes them out and makes the book tell a better story from the points of view within the ship.

Although this story is told well, I hope the books in the future will hold on to strong character development so this genre of TREK can fine its place.

The purpose of this review is to say whether or not "Surak's Soul" is worth shelling out ...hard-earned cash for. Yes, in this case, the entertainment was well worth the exchange.

Five stars, A+, a "good-job" sticker, and high praise for J.M. Dillard.

So far, I like Dillard's book better than all of the others written for the Enterprise series (with the exception of "Broken Bow" which is the novelization of the pilot TV episode. I found "Broken Bow" useful to get a grip on the "new" Star Trek crews' characters).

I unreservedly say that Dillard wrote the best Enterprise story so far. Her book reads like a good TV episode. At first, I was exceedingly apprehensive about spending the money on a book with rather larger print and only 218 pages, but I took the chance. I am glad I did. I read the story slowly to savor it and found that I really enjoyed the book.

Other reviews may give synopses of the storyline, so I'll make mine very brief since the purpose of my review is really only to say whether or not I think a book is worth the money it costs. I will take it for granted the you already know who the main characters are and what their relationships to each other are.

T'Pol accidently kills an alien and creates a severe philosophical trauma for herself. While she's working to resolve her inner conflict, the Enterprise crew, and ultimately Earth, are threatened by an alien entity. T'Pol must decide whether or not to aid the crew by using violence or not. The story is filled with philosophy (which I never enjoy, but it was essential to the story), emotion (Dillard did a very good job in this department), and action (again, she did a great job with the action scenes).

To sum up, I am very well pleased overall with "Surak's Soul" as a new edition to the Enterprise series. I haven't been tremendously happy with the other books in the series, but Dillard revived my hope that Pocket Books found a great voice for telling Enterprise stories. I hope Dillard will write many more books for this new fun group of Star Trek stars.

Also, I would like to praise the cover-designer as well. Good job.

Ever wondered what happened when the Enterprise returned home after its 5 year mission. Captain Kirk gets promoted to Admiral. Spock goes home to Vulcan. And McCoy haves some Medical Lectures. But All in all the crew reunites and this story has 2000 years in the making rather then 5. I enjoyed this tale. It keeps my attention span. A good edition to the star Trek Library.

"The Lost Years" starts 'The Lost Years' series, wich tells us the tale of the crew of the original Enterprise in the years between the original five year mission and "The Motion Picture".

"The Lost Yaers" the novel is very well written by Jean Mary Dillard and contains great characterization, but lacks seriously in terms of plot developement.

The book begins with the crew leaving the ship behind, an overly long phase with painfully uneventfull scenes, that contribute nothing important to the story, and offer frustratingly few character insights.

This phase is followed by the unsuccesfull introduction of some of the characters' (mostly Kirk's) new lives after Enterprise.

The story kicks in far too late, and is as predictable as expected from a plot that only covers the latter half of a book.

The biggest problem with this book is the fact that almost all characters involved in the story just happen to be the familiar characters of the Enterprise crew who are introduced to the story via ridiculously unbeliavable coincidences. Mix that with two-dimentional additional characters, magic, Tarod reading and prophesies, you get a slightly entertaining book with no credibility to back it off. A waste of a good premise.

this book. It was a good account of the period after the original 5 year mission. I enjoyed it so much I have bought the next 3 books in the Lost Years saga.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier arguably had the silliest of plot concepts, and the touches of buffoonish humor did not help the movie much either.

Sybok, a renegade Vulcan from Spock's past, has managed to seize Nimbus III, the 'Planet of Intergalatic Peace'. But it is a ruse, what he really needs is a starship to take him to the center of the galaxy. Once there, Sybok believes he will meet God.

Dillard attempts to fill in the many character gaps in Shatner's Kirk centered story, giving each brainwashed member of the crew a chance to have center stage and a moment to shine. Thus it is more of an ensemble piece than the film. Dillard also clarifies some of the fuzzy plot points, making the hijacking and trip to God a tad easier to believe. There is also an honorable attempt to fit the concept of Nimbus III into the Trek Mythos rather than having it just be a gimmick jumping off point for the story. But despite all this hard work this novel is worthwhile reading only for those who would like to see a silly story told in a more well thought out manner. Strictly for Trek buffs.

Yeah, so what they said. The movie was a bomb, and the book tells the story the way it should have been.

Trek books are a tricky thing. Novelizations are a tricky thing. This particular Trek novelization does everything it should, and more. The only problem is that an artist is only as her subject matter, and Find God in the Center of the Galaxy still remains a hokey premise.

But let's focus on the good things. Every major Trek player gets a focus in this novel, including Sulu, who had a big part in all of McIntyre's novelizations. I was glad to see Dillard continue his story in the same vein. We get to see his and Scotty's "secret pain", as well as several other characters in the movie who got left out.

All the characters have depth -- the three delegates, the Klingons, Sybok himself, even the funky-toothed guy drilling holes in the opening shot. Every one is three-dimensional. Example: Klaa (Klingon captain) is no longer a chip-shouldered upstart with delusions of grandeur. He's a Klingon worthy of Klingons, and his motives in pursuing Kirk are revealed as devious and calculating, rather than dumb and bumbling as they appeared in the film.

This novel ties the movie into the others. Star Trek II-V form one continuous tale, without a whole lot of break in between. Yet they still make very little reference one to another. In this novel, we see a Kirk who was re-rejected by a dear love only months before, who lost his son very recently, and who is still coping with Spock's death and resurrection.

I have nothing but praise for the work of J.M. Dillard thus far. And this is no exception. If you, like me, consider Star Trek V the red-headed stepchild of the Star Trek series (no offense to all you red-headed stepchildren), then please read this novelization. Give it a shot. You'll like it. Or I'll buy you a Twinkie. (not really though)

The movie version of "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" was an unutterable turkey, totally unconvincing on a number of levels. This book, while remaining true to the movie in most major plot points, varying only in minor detail, nonetheless manages to be a great deal more plausible and internally consistent, both with itself and with the established Star trek universe as a whole. The characterization is better, the plot flows more smoothly and makes more sense, and several details that were completely implausible in the movie are at least arguable here, if not completely acceptable. The book is quite enjoyable on a simple action-story level, and on deeper levels it is at least as good as most Star Trek stories, better than some if also not as good as others.

Definitely recommended for any "Trek" fans who would like to see the movie version turned into a viable story, and if you actually liked the movie, there's nothing here not to like.

Although in some parts it follows the movie closely in others it goes totally off the rails. The author changes Gerard's classic "I don't care" line to "not my problem" and then he twice repeats the original line from the movie, as if he didn't change it at all! It gives some insight into Gerard's team but it has lost the feel the movie has. If you loved the movie, forget the book.

There seems to be a bias against novels which are tie-ins to blockbuster movies, and "The Fugitive" is no exception. J.M. Dillard's novel has been largely ignored despite its merits.

The novel's plot follows the screenplay closely. Dr. Richard Kimble is an escaped prisoner who is trying to clear himself by finding the real killer while eluding Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard and his team.

Dillard departs from the movie in some of the characterizations. Her Gerard is more of a hardnose, especially in his dealings with the rookie Noah Newman ( the Gerard/Newman relationship is a key subplot ). All of the major characters are sensibly sketched, with strengths and weaknesses. Dillard spends much time with Gerard and his people, and this gives the book much of its appeal.

Evidently fans of the movie enjoyed Gerard's team, because they'll be back (played by the same actors who worked together in 1993) in "U.S. Marshals". Hopefully, this film will also be novelized by Ms. Dillard.

I thought I saw where this book was going long before the ending, and was severely unsatisfied with what I thought I saw coming. Dillard managed to put a surprise twist on the events of the story at the end that cleared up MOST of my objections, and was actually plausible as an explanation. What I'm left with as an objection is that I still can't accept that Kirk and McCoy were so dumb as not to suspect the newest addition to the crew when there was sabotage and espionage taking place; surely, that would have been the obvious response, even if said new crewmember WAS a very attractive and apparently pleasant person. Nor can I accept the concept that a medical doctor could become lovers with someone whose body temperature was significantly higher than normal without noticing that something ODD was involved. Or that scanners didn't detect anything odd when searching the ship for a missing Romulan, and there was a disguised Romulan aboard. Granted, the visual disguise was perfect, and her blood pressure was artificially normalized, but her body temperature was not, and I have real trouble believing that that wouldn't have showed up in a scan.

All in all, the book is well written, stylistically, but the characters, while mostly behaving believably, in a few very key areas are simply mishandled, and there are too many holes left in the plot for a high rating. But the story is too enjoyable for a low rating, either, so a middling three stars seems the only solution. Far from the best Star trek novel I've read, but certainly at LEAST as far from the worst.

Star Trek-The Original Series: Mindshadow written by J.M. Dillard is a book the explores Spock's mental prowess and what happens when its gone.

Yes, folk's this is a book that highlights Spock, but also there is an underlying story about a Romulan double agent roaming the Enterprise. After a fall, Spock's mind has been impaired and that possibility could last forever, but Kirk has his hands full as the peacefull planet of Aritani fall under attack by a ruthless enemy who at their arrival still is unknown.

The is a well-crafted book as the storyline develops and the twists and turns keep the reader engaged till the ending. As Spock's nightmare's continue, his mental power severly diminished and the Romulan evil plot begins to come to light, the reader is taken on a cunning adventure, with a bit of mystery sprinkled into the mix.

If you like a good storyline, double agents, and Spock in a pickle with Kirk left to slavage the situation, then you will not be disappointed in this book. This book grew on me as the more I read, the better I liked it. Doc McCoy was interesting and the new recruit was very likable.

All in all, this was a fast and entertaining read.

when the peaceful world of artiani is attacked, the enterpise runs to the rescue. they find that spock has been seriously injured, and that the side of the brain that controls logic is the one that is the most impaired. his struggle to remember what
happen and to get use of his formidable brain make this a very
good book for any true spock fan.