Rating: 
Summary: for juvenile trekkies only
Review: I hoped these books would be good, but Cox is just plain awful. Full of cute little references to every Trek series, plus inane pop culture references for every time period covered... I sighed many times, and often had to put the book down in disgust. If you are an insufferable trekkie nerd or just have very low expectations, maybe you can stomach this drivel. If you want intelligent sci-fi, look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: STAR TREK: THE EUGENICS WARS
Review: I REALLY ENJOYED THE BOOK. THE WAY THAT MR. COX INTERWOVE READ LIVED EVENTS, WITH THE EVER EVOLVING WORLD OF STAR TREK WAS EXCEPTIONAL. KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR CAMEOS AND INSIDE JOKES FROM THE SERIES, AS WELL AS RELATED MATTERS(REDJAC, GILLIAN TAYLOR, AND THE BIONIC WOMAN, JUST TO NAME A FEW).
JUST AS THE WORLD WE SEE IS NOT ALL IT APPEARS TO BE, THE BEHIND THE SCENES WORKINGS OF THE EUGENICS WAR, WHICH COULD HAVE CLANDESTINELY HAPPENED RIGHT UNDER OUR VERY NOSES, IS A FANCIFUL AND CREATIVE "WHAT IF" EXERCISE.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ANY TREK FAN TO PICK THIS BOOK UP. IT IS WELL WORTH THE READ!
Rating: 
Summary: OK read, but too conventional
Review: I really liked the first volume. It was steeped in lore and "fictional history" with enough real history folded in to set the stage. Unfortunately, I felt that volume 2 worked too hard to fit Trek history into real history. It's an OK read. Not terribly thought provoking. I was expecting to see events unfold as described in historical references to the past when mentioned in the Trek franchise, to see how real history differed from Trek history.
Rating:
Summary: As good -- or BETTER than Volume 1...exceptionally fun.
Review: I was really blown away by The Eugenics Wars volume 1...big time. I just wasn't expecting a Trek novel to be SO different, so creative, so GOOD. This was an exceptional example of creative juices on overload. Kirk and Spock take a backseat to a few characters from the past, that normally wouldn't command even a 2nd glance -- but Greg Cox's fertile imagination has brought new life to the Trek Universe in ways that brought many smiles to my face as I read through book's 1 & 2. Volume 2 picks up shortly after vol 1 left off, plus a few years.
Gary Seven failed to stop the Chrysalis Project from creating a few genetically engineered children before he was able to derail the Project from progressing further...but some damage had already been done. Gary & Roberta scattered the children all over the globe in hopes of keeping them from some supreme scheme to take over the world. Gary even attempts a valiant effort to recruit Khan to assist him and Roberta in helping us wayward earthlings from killing ourselves prematurely. A noble idea, but with Khan's impossibly overblown ego, a gesture which was destined to fail...miserably. Before we know it, Khan has himself an island near the equator and has regrouped the children of Chrysalis and has devised a plan to force the world under his iron rule, which he is convinced is the best way to save mankind. What I found most interesting aside from the clever way Mr. Cox managed to take existing history and mix it up with Trek Lore, was how he managed to give Khan's character depth. We have to remember that he isn't responsible for his own existence, we can thank the Chrysalis Project for that. I never would have thought that his character could be as deep as he was written in these two novels. We all know that eventually Khan and his minions end up aboard the SS Botany Bay, which The Enterprise will encounter a few hundred years in the future, and again in Star Trek II, The Wrath Of Khan (still one of the best movies). This book fills in the gaps of his life on earth and how the Eugenics Wars started, how they end, and how events we have come to know about have a connection to Star Trek that at times evokes outright laughter, not because they are silly, but mostly because of how clever they have been woven into the plot. Greg Cox has written an amazingly creative story that shows his obvious love of the series. Aside from Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens' who write on a level that just about nobody can reach, Cox has gone in another direction which has made this series fresh in a way I never would have thought possible. You have many choices in the world of Trek, and some would say most are not worth the price of a paperback, but The Rise And Fall of Khan Noonien Singh Volume's 1 & 2 are most definitely worth the price, even in hardback. Pick this one up and savor the incredible journey that Mr. Cox has pieced together for us. It is a journey well worth taking, and worth taking more than once.
Rating: 
Summary: Many pro's but also some Kahn's...
Review: I would actually give this a 3.5. I find the first audiobook to be better and I gave that a 4. The reason for this is primarily as follows: Pro's: Well, for starters we get a further look at everyones favorite Star Trek villian, the backstory, the scope of his making is done very well. Getting to see the creation (I see it in my mind!) of the DY-100 class starship that launched Kahn is truly a great moment. All the little interjections from the past truely spark some great memories(Gary 7, Roberta, etc). The sound on the audiobook is also done well, ie; effects, music, etc. I liked the reader from the first audiobook more but the "new" reader here, Rene Auberjonois does an good job. Kahns: Right away I wonder, why not get Ricardo Montalbon to read the Kahn parts? Or at least give cameos like Nimoy does in other Trek audiobooks? It adds TREMENDOUSLY to the feel of these books. And Ricardo has one of the best and most recogniseable voices around plus the fact that the voice of this particular character (Kahn) is practically a character in and of itself! Coupled with the fact that, while I think Rene does a good job overall, the ONE voice he never really hits is Kahns. I find it difficult to picture Kahn when he speaks, the voice is very un-Kahn. The story on this book also flounders MUCH more than the previous book. Zig-zagging between Amazon women and hill-billy generals with mirrored sunglasses I find it hard to keep track of whose-who and what precisely is going ON! And there are always many new people popping up that you have totally forgotten about or have no idea who they are, and after the story is over have difficulty remembering what happened to them... I would have preferred less characters and more character development. In "Shadows on the Sun" by Micheal Jan Friedman there was much more emphesis on a small number of characters (McCoy vs. Shrill Androcis? Great sparring), here it is the opposite. All tolled, this is a good story set to great artwork and far above average sound with a very endearing ending. Even though I feel there is a hole in the middle where a story could have been, I give them an A for effort but it's fairly rough around the edges at times. However, the question is: Was this worth my money? I say doubly so.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely the lesser of the series
Review: I'm a firm believer that the only real Star Trek is the original series, so I was really excited about this series and bought the first volume the day it was released. Due to some issues I had with the first book, I wasn't as keen on buying this one right away, but I did anyway. So much for voting with my wallet. <G> There is the same pointless bookending with Kirk and crew from the first volume that frankly could have been dropped all together. The setup for the Eugenics Wars by Greg Cox was well thought out and believable (within the context of Star Trek). The use of Gary Seven was a very good idea and Cox does a good job with his characterizations of both Mr. Seven and his agent Roberta. The major failing with the book is that, inexplicably, there are a number of references to characters that weren't created until TNG/DS9/Voyager, etc., are introduced. This was terribly distracting, though I expected it after the experience with the first book in the series. Even worse, the author decided that we couldn't possibly differentiate between reality and science fiction and tried to hide the events of the Eugenics Wars in our modern milieu. So everything just kind of peters out, leaving one to wonder how, if the Eugenics Wars (was there a war somewhere I missed) were as non-impacting as shown here, there was even a record left for Kirk's time period. Very disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Superman Vs. Supermen
Review: In his final installment of the adventures of genetically bred superman Khan Noonien Singh and extraterrestrial secret-agent nemeses Gary Seven and Isis (and human helpmeet Roberta Lincoln) in the late 20th Century, Greg Cox as brilliantly incorporates Trek storylines with contemporary headlines as in his previous volume, if to slightly more scattershot effect. Now in his twenties, Khan has become a successful dictator in India, with technological resources invented, bought or stolen that, if not the envy of world superpowers, are at least a rival to them. His dream of uniting the world under the leadership of his fellow genetically engineered superman brethren from the 1970's Chrysalis Project is dealt a fatal blow from the outset, by the simple fact that the fragmented ubermenschen refuse to cooperate with one another, and suffer from their own poisonous paranoias. One has become the leader of a Star Brothers doomsday cult; another has isolated herself on an island away from the world, with a few of the others; a third is a Bosnian ethnic-cleansing warlord; a fourth has left the United States military to head a white separatist homegrown terrorist organization. The rest are as badly disorganized, either as ruthless and dangerously effective as Khan himself, or chaotically destructive to themselves and others. Once the supermen have met and failed to come to any cooperative agreement, the next logical step follows: civil war among them. Each views his fellows as a rival, and assassination attempts and military skirmishes erupt between them behind the scenes. Their violence spills occasionally into public view, and claims increasing numbers of innocent civilian lives among the populaces in which they live. Gary Seven and his Intelligence operatives of the benign alien Aegis sometimes pit the supermen against one another simply to keep them from becoming too strong and deadly, their attempts at reasoning with the various factions failing. This book is much more an action-adventure saga than the preceding Intelligence game, focusing far more on Khan and the mad Supermen than on the operations of the Aegis. It is as involving, suspenseful and engaging as the first volume - and Cox's other Gary Seven/Roberta Lincoln novel, Assignment: Eternity - but suffers somewhat for the comparative lack of the Aegis operatives' presence as opposed to those other titles. Still, it's a great read, with a number of surprises, and Cox has wisely left the door open to continue further adventures about the Aegis - which I hope he gets to writing, sooner rather than later. Any story with Gary Seven and/or Roberta Lincoln is a welcome discovery, as you'll soon discover if you pick this one up. And if you like it, don't neglect the other titles, either.
Rating:
Summary: Always Mentioned But Never Explained
Review: In the classic episode "Space Seed", Khan mentions The Eugenics War and how he and his men were transformed into "Supermen" and at the same time were the only ones to survive it by being put into stasis. Centuries later, Kirk and crew find that "ship" and mistakenly awake Khan and his crew. Khan was a great foe to Kirk. Always could outsmart Kirk and never was able to be defeated until that is Kirk set a trap for him and left him and his men on a desolate planet to die (Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan happens because of this) Greg Cox, likes writing long long chapters but is nevertheless a wonderful writer. Although I'm quite curious as to how another seasoned writer (Peter David perhaps?) would have imagined this war.. All in all it is about time that it is being explained in Star Trek Land though it would have been better had it been explained on one of the Trek series. Why it wasn't is beyond me... Archer and crew are you listning?
Rating:
Summary: Excellent backhistory.
Review: In the original "Star Trek" series, one of the most famous and powerful episodes was "Space Seed", in which the crew of the Enterprise met and came into conflict with Khan Noonien Singh, a survivor from the "Eugenics Wars" of the "distant past" of the 1990s. Now that we have, in fact, bumbled our way through those 1990s without an apparent destructive struggle with Khan and his crowd of genetically engineered supermen, the standard wisdom says that the "backhistory" of the Star Trek universe has become dated; what seemed like a possible future in the late '60s has failed to come to pass. What this book (and its predecessor) attempt to do is to reconcile the facts given in that episode (and its movie sequel) with the actual history of the previous decade. This might seem impossible, but in fact is managed quite nicely; the machinations of the genetically enhanced would-be world conquerors mostly happened behind the scenes, and was kept out of the mainstream press, in a way that seems far more plausible than might be expected. Further, the characterizations were handled well, and the writing style is excellent. The only reason that I mark the book down a star is that the "frame story" format, in which the first chapter and the last detail a minor adventure of Kirk and the Enterprise, simply to provide a bit of "face time" for the major characters who some fans might feel cheated without, was basically irrelevant to the main story. I'd have preferred to see the main story told as a stand-alone, with the secondary story fleshed out and given its own book. As it stands, it was just a distraction.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the wait ?
Review: It's been a year since Cox's first installment of the epic Rise and Fall of Khan hit the shelves, but now Volume Two is here and it's been worth the wait.
Picking up from where the previous book left off, with the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, Volume Two skips ahead to 1992. Khan, using stolen data from Gary Seven's Beta 5 computer, has begun to track down his genetically engineered "siblings," scattered around the world in the aftermath of the ill-fated Chrysalis Project. But as the young superman and would-be world leader attempts to put together a global coalition of superhuman operatives, he finds that he has more to worry about than Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln interfering with his self-appointed destiny as savior of humankind. For starters, certain powerful individuals of his own genetically superior ilk refuse to submit to Khan's leadership, and even vow to fight against him: a Romanian dictator, an African warlord, an Asian "Amazon," even an American militia leader and a berobed cult figurehead of questionable sanity turn their backs on Khan's vision of a unified and enlightened planet Earth. A series of internecine power struggles results, as supermen face off in the dark margins of world affairs. Earthquakes are triggered, nerve gas is released, ethnic tensions are manipulated; the world's would-be savior finds himself embroiled in a game where ordinary humans are mere pawns whose lives are lost by the hundreds while the struggle for global domination (and resistance against it) roars onward. Meantime, Khan faces problems at home. After declaring a chunk of India to be his own fiefdom, Khan begins to wrestle with more mundane (but ever so much more complex) problems like unemployment, economics, and human discontent. With his destiny always in retreat and just beyond his fingertips, Khan's anger and disappointment begin to feed his sense of superiority until finally, by degrees, he's been transformed from idealist to boiling megalomaniac determined to save the world by unleashing a doomsday of his own engineering against it. To this end he has two options: an ozone-destroying satellite, which will serve as his last resort and vengeance if all else fails; and a fast-acting strain of streptococcus that will eat the flesh right off the bones of ordinary mortals, leaving the world an emptier and more agreeable place for beings like himself, with planet-sized ambitions and a built-in immunity to necrotizing fasciitis. Times are equally tough for Gary Seven and his "blonde amanuensis," as Khan likes to refer to Roberta Lincoln. Seven himself is an enhanced human being, the result of an alien program of training and selective breeding, but the years are catching up to him and the stewardship of planet Earth becoming an ever more complex and difficult assignment. Even as Seven finds ways to prevent Khan's ultimate rise to power, Khan arranges for catastrophes and crises around the world to keep Seven off balance and busy. The bulk of the heroic action thus falls to the sharp, sardonic Roberta, who undertakes covert actions as diverse as assaulting an Ariadne rocket set to deploy an orbital menace, infiltrating a private army, and slipping crucial scientific information to NASA engineer Shannon O'Donnell who is, respectively, part of a secret team at Area 51 to construct a spaceship, and Captain Janeway's centuries-distant ancestor. The ship, a "sleeper" vessel designated DY-100, is fated, of course, to become the S. S. Botany Bay, Khan's escape vehicle from a world that decisively rejects him and his ilk. That the Botany Bay is also part of Gary Seven's plan for humanity is a thrilling piece of secret history, and the task of bringing those discordant aspects of the ship's origins together forms the linchpin plotline of Cox's book. O'Donnell, familiar to viewers from the sixth-season Voyager episode "11:59," plays a small but distinctive role in Cox's novel, which, like its predecessor, is an ingenious blend of actual history and Trek mythology. Other notable references abound throughout the story, from all five of the show's incarnations (and even some of its adventures in print). Guinan, Jackson Roykirk, Shaun Christopher, Walter Nichols, Jeffrey Carlson, and Claire Raymond all make appearances; a bottle of Chateau Picard wine makes its way briefly to center stage; the Roswell contact between humanity and the Ferengi (from the fourth season DS9 episode "Little Green Men") is handily referenced at several points. It would all be a bit much if Cox hadn't done even more research into the real-world events he incorporates, with stunning equilibrium, into the fabric of his fantastical tale. Plus, of course, Cox doesn't simply limit his references to Star Trek: he manages to cite the eerie British sci-fi series The Prisoner, and even the movie The Wicker Man, in the course of the story. (One suspects that, if not for the impossibility of reconciling its central moon-be-gone motif with Star Trek, Cox would have found some way of incorporating Space: 1999 into his tale; or, perhaps if he had an even larger canvas with which to work, Cox might have cited The X Files more extensively than having one character reflect on how he never watches the show on television.) The author brings a generous sense of fun and humanity to his work, especially in the form of Roberta's off-center wisecracks and Khan's purple vilifications - to wit: "Fools! Peasants! Inferiors! ... Can they not see that I have the best interests of them all at heart?" Khan is a more than the garden variety superhuman out for world control; Cox shows us his horror at human suffering, cheek-by-jowl with his ineradicable sense of entitlement. From his anguished episodes of railing against a world too ignorant to treasure his benevolent and, he believes, inevitable rule, to his musings on quotations from Shakespeare and Milton, Cox's Khan adopts a voice that speaks from a great and tormented heart - in Ricardo Montalban's accent, to be sure, especially when Khan comes out with proclamations like, "Welcome ... to Chrysalis Island!" The framing device from the first novel - Kirk and his crew attend a meeting on Planet Sycorax to hear a petition from a group of genetically engineered human beings who are contemplating becoming part of the Federation - is in place here again, and Kirk's adventure on Sycorax is also brought to completion, though not without a fair amount of soul searching and words of counsel from a logical (if unexpected) source. Volume Two is an audacious, fast-moving conclusion to the Eugenics War duology, one-upping the considerable dramatic intensity and inventive accomplishment of the first volume, and bringing the story to a remarkably smooth, coherent conclusion, complete with an unequivocal (if surely controversial) morale. Even so, one cannot help but hope that Cox has plans, however rudimentary, to continue his saga past the era of the Eugenics Wars and to the Saturn mission of Shaun Christopher, perhaps even up to World War III and Zefram Cochrane's invention of the warp drive engine. There's plenty of history, real and Treknacious, left to explore, and Cox's electric, fun-loving style of storytelling is the perfect medium to take the reader into the twenty-first century and beyond, building bridges between our troublesome, struggling contemporary world and a hopeful future of heroes and galactic adventure. Jon Reid
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