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Gateways #7:  What Lay Beyond (Star Trek)

Gateways #7: What Lay Beyond (Star Trek)

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Alex's Book Review
Review: I must say that this was an acceptionally good ending to an awsome series that I have collected the entirety of. I recommend to all Star Trek fans, wether you read New Frontier or The Original Series, to read all these books. I own them all. The only thing that I would recommend to this Gateways finale is: Longer! Otherwise, good job to Peter David, Christie Golden, Diane Carey, and Susan Wright! Thanks for all your wonderful works of art!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Star Trek Gateways: What Lay Beyond
Review: I suppose that when you are trying to squeeze the final chapters of six previous titles into a single 318 page book something has to give. Unfortunately, in the case of "What Lay Beyond," what gave was plot and character development.

Each of the previous stand alone titles ran roughly 300 pages. Each was a cliff hanger that dropped the reader off with each of the captains of the assorted starships stepping through a different portal in space, setting up the premise for each chapter of "What Lay Beyond."

This truncating of the story lines reduced what should have been a series of "amazing journeys" to six "Let's wrap it up!" vignettes. Almost all the these short stories has a "then he did such and such" construction that wouldn't survive most freshman composition classes. In fact, the short stories in the various "Strange New Worlds" collections shine much brighter than these toss offs.

In a move that has a "what were they thinking?" quality, several characters and storylines developed in the previous stand alone titles are never mentioned or resolved. With no indication that they will be in the near future.

This is really a shame. The newer stories featuring the crews of "Challenger" and "New Frontier" are fun and interesting to read. They deserved better.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Extremley disapointed
Review: I was disapointed with this book. The writing was poor in many places. I have read better on free fanfiction sites. Most of the stories I could not even finish due to their poor quality. Very few of the stories were actually written at a halfway acceptable level. Buying this book was a waste of time and money.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Adequate conclusion to the Gateways Saga
Review: I was skeptical of this crossover from the beginning. Six Trek franchises and one building point, with each stand-alone tossing their respective captains (or colonel) into unknown dangers. Kirk's conclusion was probably the worst; yes, we learned a little about the Petraw, but who really cares?
Diane Carey's Challenger conclusion was alright; with the release of the next Challenger novel, we'll see some aftershocks of Keller's final decision.
Colonel Kira's story was much better; we learn something about Bajor's past (we're talking ancient past here) and Kira grows in her role as DS9's commanding officer. Plus, we first meet the Iconians in this story.
Then comes Janeway. From the you-know-it-was-going-to-happen department, she meets Q. Long story short, Hirogen get the murderer and prepare to torture him, ships get sent home, and Q snaps No Man's Land into nothing.
New Frontier: Xenexian Valhalla. Add Shelby & Calhoun. Sprinkle the usual Peter David flair and you have the stand-out story.
Next Generation: Picard meets the Iconians; he's the Federation's expert, so no surprise here. What is a surprise, however, is how the Gateways are shut down and who is responsible.
It was good, not great, but if you need to know what happens, pick it up.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A decent enough ending
Review: I'm not too fond of the Trek editors' current penchant for crossovers, but so far, they've managed to keep things from getting too irritating. This book ends the six stories started in the previous volumes of the series, but doesn't connect them; each adventure is a separate novella.
All of the stories were interesting enough to keep my attention, but the Kirk story dragged on for a while, and provided absolutely no backstory beyond the jacket type. Since this story opens the volume, it may cause readers who didn't pick up all the previous books (like myself; I only bought the TNG and New Frontier volumes) to turn away.
The other stories lacked both these faults, so the enjoyment you take from them is pretty much proportionate to your preference for each series. I knew nothing about Voyager, DS9, or Challenger but the basic concepts, but since each story followed only the captain (or Kira, in the DS9 case), it worked out. In fact, the Challenger story was interesting enough to convince me to pick up the original volume. A warning: the Voyager story involves a somewhat gratuitous cameo from a famous guest star, and the ending is irritating, as we watch Janeway say goodbye to every friggin' ship in the caravan. And, of course, there's the unconvincing explanation to why they didn't use the gateways to get home.
I worship Peter David as a god, so I'll leave the New Frontier review to someone less biased.
The TNG story comes last, and serves as an ending. I won't give away any details, but suffice it to say we do get a definite resolution to the crisis, as well as an explanation to just where the Iconians went, along with a really neat Picard story. One problem: there is a painful TMI moment between Troi and Riker in the last chapter; thankfully, it's brief.
I gave the book 4 stars because all the stories but one were above average, and Burgoyne's one-liner justified the hardback price (you'll now it when you see it).

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Janice's Disappointment
Review: I've read almost every book in the Star Trek series and seen most of the shows throughout the history of Trekkies. This book was a total disappointment. Plot lines were just left without continuity in each of the sections of the novel. I actually put down the book without finishing it!
I realize it becomes harder and harder to come up with plot lines, but the authors blew this one. The series leads the reader up to a climax in each of the books, but I feel empty since there is no ending in the final Gateways book.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: what lay beyond (star trek:new frontier--gateway, book 7)
Review: If you wanted to buy this book for only the ending of the stories concerning the new frontier and deep space nine series save your money. this book isn't worth it. But if you wanted to buy it for the ending of the next generation story then this is a book for you.

if you do buy this book make sure you read the next generation ending or else you will feel cheated.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disappointing and pointless
Review: Instead of one big novel involving characters from all six current Star Trek book series, this is a collection of six short stories, each one picking up from the cliffhanger ending of each of the Gateways novels from the individual series (if that makes sense). While this sounded like a cynical marketing ploy, I had hoped that the six stories would build on each other to present some sort of unified whole, bringing the whole adventure to one grand conclusion. How wrong I was!

The Star Trek (original series), Challenger, and Voyager stories could--and probably should--have easily been included as concluding chapters in their respective books. Each one is nothing more than an epilogue to the main story. The Deep Space Nine and New Frontier stories present somewhat separate adventures, but that doesn't make them much better. In both, characters get transported to significant locations (an important historical moment for Colonel Kira, a mythical afterlife for Calhoun and Shelby) where nothing of any real consequence seems to happen. Of course, since both series present ongoing adventures, it's possible that these tales plant seeds for upcoming stories. Even if that were the case, it doesn't make these stories any less inconsequential or any more satisfying.

The Next Generation tale, longer than the other five, does, indeed, wrap up the Gateways story. But, like the other five, there's no real reason (besides financial) that this story couldn't have been included at the end of Doors Into Chaos.

Because four of the stories are completely dependent upon what came before, there is a complete lack of tension or suspense. All the big events happened in the parent novels, and all the authors have left to do in What Lay Beyond is tie up the loose ends (even when there aren't really any loose ends that need tying up). Any opportunites for suspense that could have been sustained through the other two stories are completely ignored by their authors. Frustratingly, those two authors, Peter David and Keith RA DeCandidio, have done particularly good Star Trek work in the past, which makes their lackluster contributions here even more disappointing.

So, if you followed the Gateways saga so far and need to see what happens next, I recommend waiting for the paperback. Nothing of enough consequence happens to make this an immediate must-read.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Never again
Review: It's as if six paperback books were written and had their final chapters withheld and put in a hardback. Actually, that's precisely what happened. ....

Except for Picard's journey the previous stories are given the bum's rush as they are hurried to their respective conclusions. After reading Kirk's story I thought "that's it?". After a couple of months when the names of new characters from previous books were mentioned I couldn't remember who they were half the time. The writing is good and I would have no complaints if all six stories were published in their entirety with Picard's story last rather than first. ... I've been buying these books as they come out but I will never do so again. If I buy at all it will be when the stories are completely published.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: ST-Gateways: What Lay Beyond
Review: Star Trek-Gateways: What Lay Beyond written by Diane Carey et.al.is the culmination of a seven part series including all of the different genre of the Star Trek Universe.

Now, I'll be up front about this series... I'm not a fan of shelling out money for poor marketing and the way this series was presented to the reader was a downright travisty. I really do NOT understand the reasons why they (Paramount/Simon and Schuster) did this, save but one, to dig into the readers wallet.

Enough said, now, here is the contents:

Star Trek: One Giant Leap by Susan Wright
Star Trek Challenger: Exodus by Diane Carey
Star Trek DS-9: Horn and Ivory by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Star Trek Voyager: In the Queue by Christie Golden
Star Trek New Frontier Death After Life by Peter David
Star Trek TNG The Other Side by Robert Greenberger

Found in this volume are the conclusions to the above stories, but the hook is you have to buy the first six volume in order to make sense of these conclusions. This is why people believe they've been ripped off... and I can't blame them. I this was my idea, I'd expect a pink slip with my last pay check.

The only saving grace in this book is The Pocket Books STAR TREK Novels Timeline written by the Timeline Gang; Robert Bowling, Johan Ciamaglia, Ryan J. Cornelius, James R McCain, Alex Rosenzweig, Paul T.Semones, and Corey W. Tacker... with David Henderson and Lee Jamilkowski.

After you read the first six books you'll see what I mean, you really lose the flow of the story. But, now that all seven are available in paperback the contenuity should be easier to follow.


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