STING: Gulliver's Fugitives (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Rating:
Summary: STNG #11 - Gulliver's Fugitives - A good early STNG novel!
Review: Given the complexity and thought provoking nature of this particular novel it is hard to believe that this is not only the only Star Trek novel written by this author is it the only novel one can find written by Keith Sharee. I found this novel to be in very good keeping with Gene Roddenberry's principals and ethos of Star Trek as it tells a well told tale that is capable of the "suspension of disbelief" within the Star Trek universe as it is a real future possibility and reminds one of Hitler's attempts to do the same.

The premise:

The Enterprise finds itself on the mission to find the USS Huxley, a starship that has been missing for over ten years, what they did not expect to find is a forgotten human colony named Rampart. Here is where the story takes an unexpected twist as this colony of humans has sought fit to ban fiction of any sort and it is considered to be the ultimate crime. As history proves proper, whenever there is a government that bans something harmless, or proves itself a dictatorship in any way, there is an underground movement and ultimately a civil war. It is that civil war in which Captain Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise suddenly find themselves inextricably in the middle of and must find an acceptable way of extricating themselves and solving this planet's problems...

What follows is certainly one of the better early Star Trek The Next Generation numbered novels that is well worth the time to locate and read for you will certainly not be disappointed. I highly recommend this early STNG novel to any and all Star Trek fans, casual or die hard alike! {ssintrepid}

Rating:
Summary: very good
Review: I really think "Gulliver's Fugitives" is one of the better novels of the lot. IMO it wipes the floor with about 95% of all ST novels.

Actually, it's one of the very few 'message' novels in the whole bunch. This is a book about the power of man's imagination and his right to dream. Imagination as one of the most powerful forces that man possesses. It's full of delightful references to mythology and literature. This author sure knows his classics.

And since Star Trek is often called a modern myth, I'm pretty sure the author actually intended this novel to be about Trek fans and their right to like the series without being ridiculed, as sadly often is the case.

These are the kind of messages that Star Trek has always stood for, and it's something that nearly all of the novels have forgotten. Really, there are only a few which have that kind of messages ("Spartacus" & "Metamorphosis" come to mind). I read this book when it first came out, nearly 10 years ago, and I don't remember much of the goings-on, but that powerful statement is still strong in my memory. Sure, it was not very easy to read and I do understand that it could be confusing if you don't recognise all the references. But some effort on the reader's part reveals lots of stuff that really is very interesting food for thought. So, have your "ABC of Mythology" and "Encyclopedia of Literature" near at hand and read this one...

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking in a different sense
Review: Think about your closest friends; are they real to you? If you didn't know them in the first place, would they still be real? Now think about your favorite fiction characters; are they real? Think of a world without them; would YOU be real?

After Troi makes an intriguing contact with an "alien" life form from another dimension, thinking that this may be related to the disappearance of USS Huxley a long time ago, Picard decides to investigate inside a nebulae cloud where all subspace communications are blocked by natural sources. They are more than surprised to find a planet named Rampart inhabited by humans inside the cloud. Although human, Rampartians do not like the Enterprise's intrusion because it represents everything they tried to keep away from their society. The fiction in Rampart is a crime and the punishment is death. Since they were departed from the earth, Rampartian science is only excelled in one area: To read and cleanse minds; thus, not only actively involving in creating or consuming fiction is crime, but even thinking of it is... However there is a group of rebels - Dissenters - fighting against the dictatorship with the single weapon they have: Fiction! And Enterprise crew find themselves in the middle of this fight.

While the basic promise of the book seems to tell a simple story of rebels fighting against a dictatorship, the author manages to create a compelling storyline by combining some action and nice characters into it, Trek style. Most importantly you are asked what happens if you're ripped off all fiction, and Troi's dreams and the presentation of Dissenters give you a memorable sensation of how actually valuable your fiction characters to you than you've thought. A nice touch is added with Wesley's revelation that "he" is a part of a bigger "It", and the books ends with a nice twist.

I am almost sorry that this is a Trek book, because otherwise this would lead to a very nice Saga; How and why the colonists left earth, why are they greedy about fiction, how did they developed the technology and so on.

By the way, if you read and like this book, I recommend Ray Bradburry's Fahrenheit 451 too.

Rating:
Summary: Another wacky adventure
Review: This story has many different moiving parts--a bit more than most STNG novels. The author attempts to tie everything together at the end but falls just short of being a really neat story. I wouldn't read it again but find myself no worse off for reading it once.