Rating: 
Summary: A new perspective on Star Trek the original series
Review: This new set of books set in the original series era are centered around the crew of the Enterpise that does not make up the original crew. We get to see the original series episodes from the viewpoint of the real working people on board the big E.
I'd have to say these are the people that really made the ship work. The ordinary ones who struggle to get through the day. It's the unrecognized people who make the ship survive the five year missions.
Rating: 
Summary: Uninteresting
Review: What takes place between the pages of this novel bears little resemblence to the back cover description. Set within the original 5 year mission, immediately after the episode "The Naked Time" the story is uninteresting and the characters fall flat. Save your money on this trilogy, it's very disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: To Boldly Spelunk...
Review: While I was an avid "Star Trek" novel reader in junior high and high school, I've found that in the last seven or eight years, I've really drifted away from "Star Trek" in any nontelevised form. Once a year or so, I may pick up a novel that has a relatively interesting premise, but I find myself more often than not disappointed these days. Anyway, I picked up "Present Tense" needing something to tide me over in Honolulu until my furniture (and books) arrived from the mainland and found that it was, to my surprise, pretty decent.L.A. Graf's work has often been a cut about many of her "Star Trek" writer-colleagues'. This one proves no exception. While the plot isn't necessarily anything new - something's draining power from the ship and people are trapped on a planet below - she writes with enough heart and interest in the characters that it reads like a good, old-fashioned "Star Trek" plot. When you throw into the mix a brand-new Ensign Pavel Chekov, perspectives from oft-ignored Uhura and Sulu, an attention to detail surrounding the events of "The Naked Time" - which chronologically just precedes this, and a certain amount of creepy cave-crawling, you get a fun, if light, story. Being the first book of a three-book series, there's a lot of set-up here, but it does a good job of laying out mysteries that have a certain amount of thought to them - and can't be answered immediately. While it does, eventually, become a time-travel/alternate history story, it works fine as a mystery/adventure first. Even the set-up for the time-travel stuff is good, though, as Graf lays it out in little chunks rather than dropping it all at the end. My only real regret about the book is that, as a serial, it's the first of three books to buy. Pocket Books, the publishers of "Star Trek" novels, occaisionally release three-book sets, all penned by one author with two books released one month and one the next. Why they don't release it all as one trade paperback that costs the same as three mass-markets, I don't know, but the serialization does prove a minor nuisance as you have to keep going back for more books. Other than that, though, this is good, old "Star Trek". Not much is new, but that's not really necessary here. What's important is that it's moderately engaging and true to the series. If you're a "Star Trek" fan and you're looking for some very light summer reading, this is a good place to find it.
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