This is the story of Anra and her people, who have been given the ability to communicate telepathically by the Wanderer, a comet controlled by the cybernetic intelligence called Homesmind. When another comet/planet arrives it threatens to destroy them by seducing them with visions of dead loved ones and dreams that no one wants to awake from. I read this book many years ago as a young teenager and found it fascinating. It was one of the first science fiction books I had ever read and I've been hooked ever since.

This is the last volume of Pamela Sargent's stint as the Nebula anthology editor, which is unfortunate because she excels at editing these types of varied story collections (such as her Women of Wonder series). There's more work involved in editing a volume like this than you might think--given a limited amount of space, trying to cover an award that is for novels as well as short stories, one must carefully pick and choose. It will be interesting to see who SFWA finds to replace her.

Now as for the material itself:

"Solitude," Ursula K. Le Guin -- I am not a big Le Guin fan-in fact, you could say that I dislike most of her work excluding the Earthsea books. So, when I say that I enjoyed a Le Guin story then it must be special indeed. "Solitude" is a story of culture, one alien to our own. Le Guin posits a world in which past overpopulation has led present society to become the ultimate introverts. Not only do the women live apart from the men (as seen in many feminist SF stories in the past), but they live apart from each other. But it is the method of the story, putting a young child in the place of the observer, in which Le Guin achieves something new here.

"Death and the Librarian," Esther Friesner -- Except for the early part, in which the chameleon-like nature of Death is revealed, this story plods along. When it comes down to the talking heads at the end, I was ready to toss it across the room. Sure, Friesner can write welt enough, but this doesn't have anything Nebula-worthy to it. A disappointment.

"Alien Jane," Kelley Eskridge -- A nice SF tale, taken from the pages of Oliver Sacks, or at least, that is the way it reads to me. Well done, with a satisfying ending.

"Think Like A Dinosaur," James Patrick Kelly -- I haven't road a story this good in a long time! This is the kind of tale that can only be done in SF. Basically a study of what "true" matter transportation would be like, including what the hard choices would be. The result is the best short story I have read in two years.

"The Lincoln Train," Maureen F. McHugh -- An alternate history story with its jumping off point being the survival of Lincoln, except as a handicapped president. The concept is interesting, and the story has a nice moral center, but there was nothing that truly thrilled me here.

"The Resurrection Man's Legacy," Dale Bailey -- A baseball SF tale, reminiscent of Bradbury in its nostalgia and feeling. I was never a Bradbury fan, especially of his warmed over reminisce s of the 5O's, plus I dislike the reverence people give to sport (as opposed to games), so this one really didn't stand much of a chance with me.

"You See But You Do Not Observe," Robert J. Sawyer -- Physics and Sherlock Holmes? Okay, so it was a cute idea, but this is a best of the year. I trust that Sawyer's novel, which did win the Nebula, was much better.

"Enchanted Village," A.E. Van Vogt -- A story from the Grand Master, possibly a little long for the result, but at least it is a result worth reading for. A spaceship crashes on Mars, leaving one lone survivor, who finds a deserted Martian village. The Village may be able to provide for him, but only if he can somehow teach it his needs. Good ending.

"Old Legends," Gregory Benford -- A memoir and essay about SF's role in society, especially American government policy, this was entertaining and enlightening. Benford's goal in this essay is to justify the long held claim by SF fans that stories lead to science just as much as science leads to stories. While I have my doubts about SF's influence today (especially in these times of endless Star Trek novels), Benford shows that it was a very powerful force in the not-so-distant past.

"The Narcissus Plague," Lisa Goldstein -- Cute idea--what if there was a virus that, when you caught it, all you could do was talk about yourself? I liked the conceit, and the story showed promise, but the ending was disappointing.

"Last Summer at Mars Hill," Elizabeth Hand -- A nicely told tale of death and unknown beings. Its power comes not from the fantasy element, but from the portrayal of the characters, each well-drawn and believable. The writing and characterization was so well done that I really wanted to like this story more, but it lacked that sense of the fantastic that I expect from a fantasy story. Great mainstream work, I just want more in my fantasies.

Overall, this was a very rewarding volume. Of the stories, Kelly's "Think Like A Dinosaur" was such a gem, that I will likely be recommending it for years to come. The other highlight was Benford's essay.

I so enjoyed 'The Shore of Women' and had high hopes of a good read with 'Child of Venus'. No such luck. I did manage to finish it, although I found myself skipping and skimming much of it. Just plain boring. Never got into any real action at all, much of it was simple rambling and thoughts on paper. Maybe if I had read the first two in the trilogy, but even then I just don't think this book works well. I just can not recommend it. Try something by Sheri S. Tepper instead--or read 'The Shore of Women'.

As an original reader of the first two books, it'd been a long time since I'd walked the aisles of Venus. It's fairly amazing to me that I'd still, from time to time, search on 'Sargent' to see if she'd ever written the third book. The pleasant surprise at seeing she had can not be overstated.

What was also exhilarating to me was how-- prodded reflectively by the author-- I was able to recall the first two novels read nearly a decade and a half ago. That alone was worth the trip. However, to be frank, the book is a *good* read.

How to describe it? It is a character novel. Specifically, a novel on the entirety of the protagonist's Mahala's life-- her choices, the people with whom she interacts, etc. It's interweavon nicely with a science fiction thread dealing with the fate of Venus, the Habbers, Earth and, ultimately, all of humanity.

As such, it's a good thing that Sargent's strength in this novel is the fine, yet gentle literary tapestry of characters, future 'plausible' science, and, quite frankly, leveraged strength wrought from the legacy of the first two novels.

If anything, the weakness in the books-- borne out in the closing 50 or so pages-- seems to be the cause of the delay in writing the third book (12 years? 13 years?): namely, how to end it. After all, the trilogy, at least from a Sci Fi standpoint, is about terraforming venus. of course, I'm not going to divulge that here.

bottom line? It's a good read. If you haven't read the first two books, SHAME ON YOU. Get them. Read them all. Enjoy them.

Finally!! Years ago, a friend found "Venus of Dreams," at a bookstore and bought it for me. I enjoyed the story that unfolded about a girl named Iris. Her dream was to become a part of the terraforming of Venus and she see's this dream come true as an adult. Iris ultimately pays the price for her dream of transforming Venus, when the planet itself claims her life. The second book, "Venus of Shadows," is by far the best of the series. Sargent weaves an excellent story (as always) by using Iris's decendants (in particular, Risa, Iris's daughter) to tell of both their personal desires as well as the desire to breath life into Venus itself. Again, there are hard prices to pay for these desires. The last and final book, "Child of Venus" wraps up the entire tale. Again, Iris's decendants are still terraforming Venus, amid all the troubles and turmoil that existed from the previous books. Normally I would have given this book Four Stars. But, I gave the book "FIVE STARS" partly because - it was actually a very good and interesting book. But mainly because I read the first book when I was about 21 or so, and I'm now 36. I guess I'm just grateful that the last book was published during my lifetime. Pamela Sargent has been one of my favorite authors since I read "Venus of Dreams." I've read many of her other books and find them all extremly interesting and well written. I hope to read more of her work in the future.

I was extremely disappointed with the illustrations in this book. The artwork is amaturish at best. If you are interested in reading about heroines in sci-fi/fantasy then pick it up, but if you are looking for a good fantasy ART book then don't bother with this one.

This book is an interesting read on the changing roles of women in Sci Fi and fantasy, but the artwork really lets it down. It looks as though Ron Miller was in one hell of a hurry to produce enough pictures for the book and the quality really isn`t up to much. OK so I`m being critical and I freely admit I could`t do better, but that isn`t the point, there are those that can. Save your money get "Transluminal" or "Chiaroscuro" Jim Burns & Tim White show how it should have been done.

Having read so many positive reviews I gave the book another chance, was I wrong ? Sorry but no, it isn't that I was expecting Boris type archetypes of perfection. I just prefer paintings where perspective and proportion have not been sacrificed in order to achieve quantity. I stand by my original rating one star only.

While some of the other reviewers have trashed the art in this book, I simply found it uneven. It's certainly nowhere near as bad as some people have suggested. Some of the paintings are, I think, excellent--many are the best portrayals of the characters that I have ever seen. The artist has obviously made some considerable effort to make the characters seem more like real people than the idealized caricatures seen on most SF covers. Outstanding are the portraits of Jirel of Joiry, the Little Mermaid, Rima, Sharane and Susan Calvin, among others. It's true that some of the paintings were obviously rushed, but these are in the minority and the book is well worth getting for the art that is successful. It may be that Miller's efforts to make his women seem like real people may have backfired on him, since most readers will be expecting the kind of glitzy, over-the-top depictions found in books by Chris Achilleos or Boris, which these are not.

As with most modern Star Trek writers I always worry when they decide to write a sequel to one of the original stories. This is because they rarely capture the style or fun of the show that started the Star Trek legend. These two authors to my mind have an erratic history with Star Trek as their first novel together, "Heart of the Sun", was a boring go nowhere story with no action whereas their second, "Across the Universe", was an exciting fast paced little adventure. Unfortunately this book is an uneven mix of the two. While there is a bit of excitement in it, the plot is an absurdly constructed mess, full of situational and logical errors. The dialogue is painfully bad at times and the mistakes and disjointed nature of the dream sequence at the beginning of the novel makes you question just how closely the two authors were in contact when they wrote it. As others readers have pointed out the authors can't seem to figure out if the adversaries are Romulans or Klingons !!! Though as every real Star Trek fan knows for the timeline to be consistent (*not that modern writers seem to give a damn about that sort of thing these days !!!), it would have to be the Klingons engaged in the battle. The other big problem with this story is again the rather dubious idea that it was inspired by an original series character who was so interesting the authors felt we should hear more about him. Well I completely disagree with the statement that "Captain Garth was only rivalled by Khan Noonien Singh as Kirk's greatest adversary". In fact he was just one of a long line of interesting characters who Kirk met during his career, a number of which have featured in various other novels, and personally I don't think that Garth was anywhere near the top of the list. I suspect that these two authors sat down one day and said ... "Hmm, who can we write about to give us a link back to Star Trek that hasn't already been covered" ... and thus this novel was born. Certainly I don't believe they captured the feel of the character, or delivered a particularly credible adventure with this novel. However once again the most disturbing thing about this book, and indeed the current generation of writers, is the lack of credit they give to past writers. As with Greg Cox, who wrote the atrociously bad novels about "Khan Noonien Singh" in 2001 and 2002, these two authors are full of praise for the actor who breathed life into the central character of their novel, who they claim was their inspiration, but give absolutely no recognition what so ever to to his creator. For the record, while Steve Ihnat played the character of "Garth of Izar", it was Lee Erwin and Jerry Sohl who conceived him and without them he simply wouldn't exist. This lack of respect for the original series writers is both disappointing and I suspect indicative of why so much modern Star Trek is weaker than its' predecessor. Current writers don't understand the in and outs of how the original stories were constructed and subsequently often fail to reproduce the sense of style and entertainment that they had. As for this novel it is a barely adequate excuse for yet another mediocre adventure.

The beginning of this novel consists of a disjointed dream by James Kirk in which the villan switches between Romulans and Klingons in midstream, although I have to say in defense of the writers that dreams often do not make much sense, so this can be explained in that way. This novel is based on a character in the earlier original series, the authors state that this character rivals Khan in interest; I like at least one previous reviewer disagree. Overall, my impression of this novel was one of slight boredom as I read it, it just did'nt have that spark that the top Star Trek novels have, this is just pulp science fiction, average and run-of-the-mill. Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski are veteran Star Trek writers, and perhaps when two talented writers work together it kind of muddies the waters, with the result being a work that seems to be a result of tedious labor and not much inspiration. My favorite Star Trek novel is SPOCK'S WORLD, this novel is not nearly as good. However, if you are like me and partial to the original series it is nevertheless well worth reading.

Star Trek-The Original Series: Garth of Izar written by Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski is a novel that continues the television episode "Whom Gods Destroy."

The legend of Captain Garth is known Federation-wide and his exploites are taught at Starfleet Academy and read by Captain James T. Kirk. Garth sustained some rather extensive injuries while on Antos IV. Antos IV is a planet of shape-shifters and after Garth sustained his injuries the tried to bring Garth back to his former health, but now he has shape-shifting abilites and the cure has proved to be worse than his injuries driving Garth to insanity.

Captain Garth is sent to Elba II due to the madness that the Antosians inadvertinatly passed to Garth while being treated. Now, Captain Garth has been "returned" to service after being treated for mental illness... and Garth has returned to mediate a crisis on Antos IV as Captain James T. Kirk and the Enterprise crew come to Garth's aid.

The book was well-written and I found it to be better than this duo of writers did on "Heart of the Son" TOS #83 and "Across the Universe" TOS #88. I found the storyline to be captivating and the reintroduction of Garth to be a strong character to balance the character of Kirk.

I enjoyed the book as it was a very quick read at 263 pages with a larger print made this book easy to read. This book is, so far, the best work by this pair of authors as found in the genre of TREK. I have always wanted to know of what became of Captain Garth from the television series and this book fills in that gap. We get a good fleshing ourt of the character of Garth.

Ok, lets not kid ourselves. This is a good, solid Star Trek story, but it isn't brilliant, nor is it original. This book is just another Enterprise-saves-the-planet affair, only this time (wait for it...) the planet gets sent through a wormhole. That's right.

If this were possible, wouldn't it be mentioned before in Star Trek? As it is Data's 'revolutionary scientific experiment' seems a little farfetched and ridiculous. It does manage to keep your interest though, and it didn't take me too long to read. I think the best bits were the part where that piece of the planet breaks off and the actual crossing through the wormhole.

I will admit that once I managed to forget about the absurdity of the whole wormhole thing, I did enjoy this book, although I still think there are a lot of better save-a-planet books (Death of the Princes, Last Stand, Double Helix #1...)

I think people who like that kind of pioneering/scientific Star Trek book will probably go for this. I give it 'average' - three stars.

Star Trek-The Next Generation: A Fury Scorned written by Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski is a Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise save-the-planet book.

Faced with a population of twenty million and who and what to choose to evacuate Captain Picard and crew are facing steep odds. A dying sun, soon to go nova, threatens the planet Epictetus III and all that inhabits this planet. The U.S.S. Enterprise crew must come up with a solution or all will be lost.

Running out of time, Data proposes a revolutionary solution to this ever growning concern... a wormhole. But, not just any wormhole, no sir... a wormhole big enough for a whole planet. I know it sounds quite farfetched, but this is scifi and anything is possible. But will this novel experiment work? Can the U.S.S. Enterprise be saved? Only time will tell and the answers are in the ending of this book.

For action-adventure this is a good book as the narrative flows and it makes for a rather quick read. Captain Picard's trust in Lt. Commander Data and a solution that is highly experimental and weigh in the balance. But, this book will engage the reader till the end. This is not the best written book in the TREK universe, but it sure isn't the worst either.

This book is great for any Trek fan out there. What makes this such a great book is the fact that it places the lives of millions of people on the shoulders of one man. Just comprehending such an awesome idea is mind-boggling. It resurfaces a "worst-fear" scenario in the minds of many people, myself included. For an author to do that in a "typical" sci-fi novel is very bold. Quite a captivating read.

The major reason I didn't like this book is that there are too many characters.The plot was also confusing,so much so that I didn't even finish reading the book.

Though the idea of Souix and others rallying against the genocidal US, the creation of the book lacks in a good Point of Divergence from Our Time Line. In other words, Ms.Sargent uses fiction characters to push along the Souix to do one thing or another that will make them victorious. Then, after the US endures a cabalic despotism in Washington,that is put down by the Souix, the world reconverges with Our Time Line, which is very unlikey. The last passage makes a mockery of the Ghost Dance. Rent it from your library.

This book is excellent. It takes a creative approach to a part of history that is not usually the subject of Alternate History. On the whole it was vaery believable, if told from a perspective one is not use to seeing. Buy it, read it, and enjoy it.

Pamela Sargent's novel is definitely not "hard" science fiction, but instead, falls into the category of speculative fiction. It is set in a future world which bears strong resemblance to ours, but bad weather and a poor economy have strained the lives of the average person. Into the lives of the main characters comes an interesting figure who professes he is an alien, which starts the couple on a mystery and adventure that eventually leads them into space. The novel is enjoyable in the sense that it is competently written and a quick, absorbing read. The ideas contained in the book are not particularly shocking, or even that imaginative, but they are intriguing even as they are a bit cliched. In fact, the whole novel really reads as a set-up to an unwritten second part, and so many questions (truly, the more interesting questions Sargent asks) are left unanswered and unexplored. All in all, the book provides fans of speculative fiction with a "comfortable" read: nothing too challenging, too fantasy or sci-fi oriented, but capably and somewhat rewardingly utilizing the conventions of the speculative fiction genre.

This is a rather uninteresting story about colonists in a sleeper ship. Well, actually it's not. It's about The Giant Crawling Moss Thing That Eats People. The two stories really aren't related and neither are very good. They'd be much better rewritten as two short stories. It seems as if writers never know how to handle having people from our century in the Star Trek universe. Just get this book if you want a light and VERY goofy read.

Starfleet has discovered an early model ship from earth's past. The Enterprise is dispatched to intercept the ship and meet with its crew. Once Captain Kirk meets with the ships captain, he has some initial doubts. Despite his doubts, he finds himself liking the captain and his crew. The inhabitants of the ship were originally on course to a distant planet to start a new colony. Once they meet up with Captain Kirk and the Enterprise, they discover the planet they were heading to no longer exists. Left without a place to go, Starfleet finds them a colony world to go to. When they arrive at the colony world though, they find that they may have gone to a planet that is on the verge of destroying the colony and all of it's inhabitants.
At it's core, this story has an interesting premise, unfortunately, the author's do not in my opinion, bring it to fruition. "Across the Universe" is one of the few Star Trek books that I found to be hardly captivating. At only 217 pages, this is an extremely short trek book. Hopefully any future trek books I read by these authors will be a lot better than this one.

Star Trek - The Original Series: Across the Universe written by Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski is a ship from the past novel that is looking for a place to start a new colony book.

This book is a weak story and the planetary intellegence (a large green moss like substance) is ruthless or so it seems, in its protection of its nerve center. As this adventure unfolds, Kirk and the Enterprise crew try to solve the problem of finding a place for a group of 21st century colonists that time has left behind from the colony ship Hawking and dealing with a planetary intellegence that no one has previously seen.

The story plot is rather weak and the book is short, with those two things going for it makes for a quick short read. I wouldn't recommend reading this book as it is not that well-written and doesn't challenge the reader. I thought that this book was written more for the juvinile mindset not a sophisticated TREK fan.

This book can garner no more than 3 stars and that is generous under the circumstances.