Rating: 
Summary: I hope this would have made a better film...
Review: I was quite intrigued to see where Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich had intended to go had further Stargate films been made. They have said on several occasions that the series (SG-1) has gone in an entirely different direction than their planned sequels would have. As a big fan of both the original film and the series, I was curious to see what was lost. (It has been stated that McCay worked from Devlin and Emmerich's "sequel" ideas to create this series of books.) I can only hope that Devlin and Emmerich would have made a better film than this first book indicates. McCay seems to have little interest in character development, at least among those on Abydos. What he does do in that department results in some major changes to already established characters. O'Neil (and the rest of his men from the film) have changed from Air Force officers to Marines. Kawalsky has been demoted from Lieutenant Colonel to a mere Lieutenant, and poor Feretti has been bumped from Lieutenant all the way down to Corporal. Daniel Jackson, whose sense of wonder and awkward charm made him such a memorable character, has been reduced to little more than an interpreter and English teacher. And the values and motivations of almost everyone who travels to Abydos via the Stargate are picked out in stark black and white, without much personality or humanity. On the other hand, the goddess Hathor and her fellow would-be godlings are much more interesting. Their infighting and petty bickering in the face of Ra's mysterious disappearance are much more intriguing than the utterly predictable Earth-exploits-the-natives plot back on Abydos. On Tuat, McCay gives us a glimpse of Ra's empire, or at least the leadership thereof. We see some of it's former glory and the current decay, the result of centuries of apathy or decadence. (One must wonder what Ra and his underlings have been doing all these years, if not conquering new worlds to expand the empire.) McCay suffers from a very telling lack of military knowledge, which is most apparent during his description of the climatic battle. In many places, he glosses over entire engagements with a few words, leaving the reader begging for more. His lack of military terminology does not seem to be a problem when describing Ra's fictional technology; but when dealing with the Earth forces, it's a bit difficult for someone with some military background to take. All in all, this is not a bad story. If this is where Devlin and Emmerich were planning to take us with their sequels, it would have been an enjoyable journey. It's unfortunate that McCay seems just a bit lacking in his ability to translate that to print.
Rating:
Summary: I hope this would have made a better film...
Review: I was quite intrigued to see where Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich had intended to go had further Stargate films been made. They have said on several occasions that the series (SG-1) has gone in an entirely different direction than their planned sequels would have. As a big fan of both the original film and the series, I was curious to see what was lost. (It has been stated that McCay worked from Devlin and Emmerich's "sequel" ideas to create this series of books.) I can only hope that Devlin and Emmerich would have made a better film than this first book indicates. McCay seems to have little interest in character development, at least among those on Abydos. What he does do in that department results in some major changes to already established characters. O'Neil (and the rest of his men from the film) have changed from Air Force officers to Marines. Kawalsky has been demoted from Lieutenant Colonel to a mere Lieutenant, and poor Feretti has been bumped from Lieutenant all the way down to Corporal. Daniel Jackson, whose sense of wonder and awkward charm made him such a memorable character, has been reduced to little more than an interpreter and English teacher. And the values and motivations of almost everyone who travels to Abydos via the Stargate are picked out in stark black and white, without much personality or humanity. On the other hand, the goddess Hathor and her fellow would-be godlings are much more interesting. Their infighting and petty bickering in the face of Ra's mysterious disappearance are much more intriguing than the utterly predictable Earth-exploits-the-natives plot back on Abydos. On Tuat, McCay gives us a glimpse of Ra's empire, or at least the leadership thereof. We see some of it's former glory and the current decay, the result of centuries of apathy or decadence. (One must wonder what Ra and his underlings have been doing all these years, if not conquering new worlds to expand the empire.) McCay suffers from a very telling lack of military knowledge, which is most apparent during his description of the climatic battle. In many places, he glosses over entire engagements with a few words, leaving the reader begging for more. His lack of military terminology does not seem to be a problem when describing Ra's fictional technology; but when dealing with the Earth forces, it's a bit difficult for someone with some military background to take. All in all, this is not a bad story. If this is where Devlin and Emmerich were planning to take us with their sequels, it would have been an enjoyable journey. It's unfortunate that McCay seems just a bit lacking in his ability to translate that to print.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must If You Liked Stargate
Review: If you enjoyed the movie Stargate and wondered what happens next you should check out this book. All of your favorite characters plus more and a new villian are here and it retains the stargate feel. A great read.
Rating: 
Summary: You can always use it as a door jam
Review: Rebellion by Bill McCay is, in my opinion, a poorly written and poorly edited book. The book contains multiple errors in the names, ranks and descriptions of the major charactors in the movie. In addition, poor editing creates extreme frustration as it is obvious that whoever proof read this book lacks a basic grasp of English grammar and spelling. In addition. the fact that you need to have events happen in sequence seems to have eluded the author. The fact that Colonel Jack O'Neill's name is spelled O'Neil and the fact that the author has O'Neill, who is a career Air Force officer, portrayed as a Colonel in the US Marine Corps adds to the confusion as he or she reads this novel. There is one page which is interesting and well written. Unfortunately, it is the last page in this book. It is my understanding that the book is based on the original script for the movie but I fail to see why the author chose to use that script as the basis for this book when he could, and should, have used the script used when the movie was filmed. In my opinion, this is a poorly written and uninteresting book. Why is now in its' 10th printing is beyond my comprehension.
Rating:
Summary: I was sorry I spent the time...
Review: STORY: Colonel Jack O'Neil is sent back to Abydos as a liaison with a private corporation to harvest the rare crystal that gave the now dead Ra his technology. Little do they know but the newly freed people of Abydos aren't about to tolerate another dictatorship. Nor is Ra's vicious successor, Hathor, going to let someone else move in on her rightful territory as a god ruler. MY FEEDBACK: To be able to compress a full novel to two cassette tapes shows that there is very little meat or character development here.
Plot lines were telegraphed and thus provided zero surprises. Characters were cardboard and had little or no depth. You are better watching a rerun episode of the Sci-Fi channel series or watching the movie again than wasting your time on this one. The one redeeming factor that let me give this a 2 star instead of a 1 star rating: is the entire end battle goes on for a good portion of the story and thus kept me listening through the last audio tape. Yet, even this was anticlimactic as it set things up for the next book in the series. It is all more of a marketing ploy than a desire to write a good book. Highly disappointing and I'm not going to involve myself in the next book, Stargate: Retaliation.
Rating:
Summary: You can always use it as a door jam
Review: The planet of Abydos is free, free to have chaos, free to have gun smugglers and free to have infighting among the farmers, the city folk and the caravans. They also have the freedom to mistrust the men of Earth and right when you think things can't get worse Hathor renews her conquest with a weapon so powerful that the very planet's existance is in danger.
Will O'Neil be able to fight off her attacks? Will Jackson be able to fight off her advances? Will Skaara end up the new leader of his people?
This second book in the series is interesting but NOT a stand alone book. I suggest you read the first one before this one.
Rating: 
Summary: The return of Hathor...
Review: The planet of Abydos is free, free to have chaos, free to have gun smugglers and free to have infighting among the farmers, the city folk and the caravans. They also have the freedom to mistrust the men of Earth and right when you think things can't get worse Hathor renews her conquest with a weapon so powerful that the very planet's existance is in danger.
Will O'Neil be able to fight off her attacks? Will Jackson be able to fight off her advances? Will Skaara end up the new leader of his people?
This second book in the series is interesting but NOT a stand alone book. I suggest you read the first one before this one.
Rating:
Summary: Where did the story go?
Review: This author has taken what is a great series and totally gone somewhere else. Is this the same series I watch each Friday night? I don't think so. Characters are missing, Sam Carter, General Hammond, Teal'c, where are these people in all this. West is back, Kowalsky is suddenly alive. I didn't even finish this book completely, because what has become a very enjoyable series was mutilated by someone who doesn't apparently even watch it. I can forgive small errors, but this author just decided to change the story completely. I won't wait in anticipation for any other stories. I have read the flaps on the continuing novels, ie Retribution, Retalliation etc. and it appears that a new story is being written.
Rating:
Summary: Great Series
Review: This book continues where Retaliation left off and continues this series. If you liked the first book then you will like this one.
Rating:
Summary: If only Egypt were really this cool........
Review: This is a great book for those of you out there who, like myself, nearly died of curiosity at the end of Stargate. Questions like 'what about the other gods?' and even more importantly,(I thought, anyway)..'was Ra single?' ;) are answered. I was tempted to give this only 4 stars because of the absence of Ra,(an absolutely stunning villain embodied nicely by Jaye Davidson), but that wasn't really the author's fault (some jerk decided to vaporize him in the movie), so...heck, why not five? There are a few holes here and there, such as the Stargate suddenly becoming gold instead of grey, and Barbara Shore transforming from a shy, 45 year old disaster to a blunt, prime-aged Texan man-izer (actually, that's in the second book), but all this is made up for by the introduction of a very, very cool new villain, and frequent flashbacks about things that happened among the gods (mostly Ra) back at the beginning of Egyptian civilization. Also, if you've done any research on Ancient Egypt and have a lot of background knowledge on the gods and goddesses, you'll find this book(series) especially interesting. There are a lot of references to actual Egyptian legends, and lots of other things you might find amusing. (like the fact that Hathor was actually a cow-headed goddess.) I have to say this is one of the only series that has me sitting in the bad-guy's (or in this case, bad-girl's) cheering section. I know good always prevails over evil and everything, but I honestly hope that Hathor kicks all their heroic butts.
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