Rating: 
Summary: Wrapping up the Gateways Series
Review: STAR TREK
GATEWAYS
What Lay Beyond
AUTHORS: Diane Carey, Peter David, Keith R.A. DeCandidio,
Christie Golden, Robert Greenberger, & Susan Wright
PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster
REVIEWED BY: Barbara RhoadesBOOK REVIEW: The Gateways provide unimaginable distance travel in only a few seconds. Yet rather than just finding a new civilization, unwanted problems occur because people have gone through them. The builders of the Gateways, The Iconians, are back but do they come in peace or do they want something more. Read Gateways - What Lay Beyond to find the answer. My suggestion would be to read this ONLY after reading the previous six that sets up everything that happens in this, the seventh book. So order all of them- One Small Step (Star Trek: Gateways Book One)
Chainmail (Star Trek Challenger: Gateways Book Two)
Doors into Chaos (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Gateways Book Three)
Demons of Air and Darkness (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Gateways Book Four)
No Man's Land (Star Trek : Voyager : Gateways Book Five)
Cold Wars (Star Trek: New Frontier--Gateways, Book Six) --and settle in for a good reading session. The reader, David Kaye, is very good. The added sound effects detract from the stories to the point that sometimes you cannot hear what David is saying for sure. Notwithstanding, this is good ending book for the whole series. The only drawback I found to the whole series is that they did not interact with the others.
Rating:
Summary: Wrapping up the Gateways Series
Review: STAR TREK
GATEWAYS
What Lay Beyond
AUTHORS: Diane Carey, Peter David, Keith R.A. DeCandidio,
Christie Golden, Robert Greenberger, & Susan Wright
PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster
REVIEWED BY: Barbara Rhoades BOOK REVIEW: The Gateways provide unimaginable distance travel in only a few seconds. Yet rather than just finding a new civilization, unwanted problems occur because people have gone through them. The builders of the Gateways, The Iconians, are back but do they come in peace or do they want something more. Read Gateways - What Lay Beyond to find the answer. My suggestion would be to read this ONLY after reading the previous six that sets up everything that happens in this, the seventh book. So order all of them- One Small Step (Star Trek: Gateways Book One)
Chainmail (Star Trek Challenger: Gateways Book Two)
Doors into Chaos (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Gateways Book Three)
Demons of Air and Darkness (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Gateways Book Four)
No Man's Land (Star Trek : Voyager : Gateways Book Five)
Cold Wars (Star Trek: New Frontier--Gateways, Book Six) --and settle in for a good reading session. The reader, David Kaye, is very good. The added sound effects detract from the stories to the point that sometimes you cannot hear what David is saying for sure. Notwithstanding, this is good ending book for the whole series. The only drawback I found to the whole series is that they did not interact with the others.
Rating: 
Summary: could have been something more
Review: The book was a disappointment like many of the reviewers have stated here. I did enjoy the NF and DS9 stories. The DS9 in particular for me was excellent. I thought the weakest was the Challenger story and it seemed to be the one that had the least connection with the whole Gateway story. The other stories refer to each other a little but the Challenger one nothing at all. It's a separate universe bascially. I also felt that the ending really was lacking. Basically the book like the series had it's high point and low points.
Rating: 
Summary: Loud sucking noise
Review: The loud sucking noise is the $$ being sucked out of your wallet. Once upon a time, Star Trek hardcovers were saved for truly excellent ST stories (e.g., Spock's World, Sarek, Prime Directive, Pathways). Then they slipped a notch, but were still *decent* reads (e.g., Best Destiny, Imzadi, Shadows on the Sun, Kahless). Then the quality slipped another notch, but the books were still worth buying used ... or borrowing from the public library (e.g., Genesis Wave (Books I and II), Imzadi II, I,Q., Warped). And once upon a time, even the "series" books were pretty decent reads (e.g., Invasion, Millennium, Section 31). But, now...a whole new low! The editors really missed the mark with this finale to a rather interesting premise. They should have just added a few more pages to each of the other six books in the series (especially considering how much paperbacks cost these days!) and saved the hardcover (and my $$) for a really GOOD book, instead of engaging in this marketing ploy to part us from our hard-earned cash. Borrow this one from the library (just to read the TNG part)...don't even waste money on it from the used book store, unless you can find it for less than a buck. I used to just be disappointed in the way the novels are "slipping" in quality - but now, I'm really angry. Listen up, ST editors at PocketBooks: Here's one Star Trek fan who will be very wary of all of those "Book X of Y" series that seem to be all that you can publish lately. In fact, I will no longer buy a single one until after the whole "set" is released, so I can see what I'm getting first!
Rating:
Summary: Cute But No Cigar
Review: The publishers of Star Trek novels have, once again, come up with a gimmick to entice readers into buying an additional and superfluous book. This book is just a collection of endings to the first six books in the mini-series! Cute, but no cigar. Well, they conned me into buying the book. The other Gateways books were well enough written and I did want to read the endings, but I got the book from the library first and then decided to invest the extra money. Notice that this book came out in hardback whereas the others were only published as paperbacks. Apparently the endings of each book were worth saving more than the rest of each story. Of course, the mass market paperback version on this book was finally issued, but impatient souls such a myself just wouldn't wait. Remember when they published Star Trek Year One as a trailer to other Star Trek novels? And then finally brought it out as a separate novel. The current ploy of delaying the endings had the same feel of a serial novel, but compounded by waiting for SIX finales. This may be a radical idea, but why doesn't the publisher concentrate on putting out quality stories instead of cute gimmicks? Buy the paperback. Don't be like me and fork out the money for the hardback. Of course, if you really think it is worth the money, go ahead and buy the hardback. After all, that's what I did.
Rating: 
Summary: Spectacularly Disappointing!
Review: The series Book 1-6 was promising, if annoying for having a cliffhanger ending that forced you to buy the next book, or specificially the Book 7 which contains all the endings. Well after being built-up by books 1-6, wondering if the inconsistencies between those books would be tied together in ST Gateways Book 7, wondering if Book 7 "the grand conclusion of what lay beyond" would put forth a good explanation for the Iconian mystery, tie all the loose ends together and provide good conclusions for the cliffhanger endings of books 1-6...............it was most most most disappointing to see that this was not the case. Book 7 creates more inconsistencies and the endings are [bad]. Oh some of the endings were ok, but the final ending...for the TNG book in the series...which was SUPPOSED to tie everything together, totally messed it up and failed, completely failed to deliver! I mean...first in books 1-6 they established that once activated a gateway cannot be destroyed no matter what they threw at it because it will simply absorb the energy. THEN in Book 7...suddenly Gateways CAN be destroyed by explosive force...no explanation given!!! Just a lazy author who didn't even read the previous book he wrote and ignored all stuff he established in the previous book! Once again, this is a MAJOR LETDOWN!
Rating:
Summary: A big disappointment.
Review: The whole idea behind the Gateways series was that at the end of each book the commander stepped through the Gateway. Each book was to be concluded and the entire series resolved in this the final title. Well each story was concluded. But those conclusions were for the most part extremely stupid and played no role in the overall resolution of the series. The final story in the book, the TNG offering does conclude and resolve the crisis presented to the galaxy by the activation of the Gateways. But by that point who cares. If you've been reading this series, just read the last story at the bookstore and save your money on this useless hardcover.
Rating:
Summary: The multi part series books gimmick has run dry......
Review: This book presents six endings to the six paperback novels and it has driven me away from purchaseing a Star Trek novel ever again. The series editor should have a better motive than part the fans with their money. I have to truly say as one reviewer said ...never again.
Rating:
Summary: not worth the money
Review: This book was a serious disappointment. Previous reviewers have touched on many of the shortfalls but let me add that each of these stories is only around 40 pages long. We don't get a conclusion to the gateways series we get a summary ending. If you must read it, check the book out from the library or wait for the paperback.
Rating:
Summary: DS9: "Horn and Ivory": Kira's conclusion.
Review: To be fair this is a rating of only one of the stories in the book. It is "Horn and Ivory", the conclusion of the DS9 Season 8 Relaunch book "Demons of Air and Darkness" (also book 4 of the Gateways septuplet). I agree the marketing scheme of making dedicated readers buy the hardcover of this 7th book simply because it wraps up any (and every) one of the first 6 books is deceitful. Myself having read only the DS9 Gateway book as part of the relaunch, I was angered at the idea. Luckily, if you are reading this review, you no longer have to buy the hardcover, but can settle for the cheap paperback. Therefore, my review takes that into consideration. I'll say that reading Book 4 and its conclusion in this book raised a few questions that I wonder as to whether or not they are solved/explained in the others Gateway books. I deem they probably are, and for that reason, perhaps buying this book simply for one book's conclusion rather than 6, is an incentive to go read the other books. Many have said the DS9 story is one of the best, and indeed I found it was excellent, but in time I may go back to read the other Gateway books. As it is, this is a review for "Horn and Ivory" by the marvelous deCandido. At the conclusion of "Demons of Air and Darkness", Kira steps through a Gateway to be with what she believes are the Prophets. Where does it take her? Well of course it sends her back 30,000 years to a time of Bajor's past before the uniting of the world. At first, I did not realize that the entire sequel was only about Kira. By the time I had finished the short story, I was glad it was, because deCandido does the best job portraying Kira that I've read so far. You really start to understand her and feel what she feels. You get to understand Kira's nostalgia (of sorts) for the days of the Resistance, but more importantly you get to see her committed to being a good commander. The plot. At first I was worried why we were in the old days, but slowly I got heavily involved into it and realized that where Kira had ended up had ties to her real life.
The book is about Kira rediscovering herself and understanding where she is in her life and coming to terms with what she's lost. At its base, the book asks: do you give up, or go on. The author certainly knows Kira well enough to answer the question for her, and I was glad watching her grow. It was also wonderful getting to read about Bajor's fragile past before its unification and before the Prophets were worshipped by the majority of Bajor. Keith did an excellent job with this novel since to me it really didn't feel like a Trek novel or a DS9 novel, but more of a Medieval-type story with Kira thrust into it. Yet it works nicely somehow, and for that I give the book 4 stars. I couldn't give it 5 because though it does a good job, it deals only with Kira and none of the other DS9 crew. Only Garak's book, "A Stitch in Time" managed to pull off writing about one main DS9 character without becoming nostalgic for the other characters. So there you have my brief review for what I consider to be Episode 6 of the DS9 Season 8 Relaunch novels. I read "Demons of Air and Darkness" in under two days, and immediately wanted to read the conclusion in this book. Thus my review is only for the DS9 Kira story, "Horn and Ivory" and not as a conclusion to the Gateway septuplet. If you read "Demons of Air and Darkness" and tolerate or love Kira and want to know what happens to her at the end of that book, you'll want to read her conclusion. If you have not read "Demons of Air and Darkness", do not read "Horn and Ivory" as it does not stand well on its own (as it is not meant to!).
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