Rating: 
Summary: New series based on the original "Stargate"
Review: Bill McKay did a good job in carrying on the thread first engendered in the original "Stargate." Readers will note that more proofing could have been done, but that shouldn't detract from a fine story featuring most of the original characters and many new ones, including the stunning yet deadly Hathor.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly Disappointing
Review: I was anxious to read the sequel to Stargate...and was disappointed by it. McCay spends WAY too much time dealing with the technical aspects of the story, and not enough time building the characters. Unfortunately, this contiues through the rest of the series, and becomes worse in the last three books. I wouldn't recommend these books to someone who is hoping to read about the characters that we know and love from Stargate...but I'd recommend it to someone who wants to know how to build a blast cannon.
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: 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: Entertaining if not terribly intellectual.
Review: So we go back to Abydos after the overthrow of Ra. Abydan politics, Daniel's lovelife, and the interaction of the newly freed people with the military coincide with the emergence of a new threat. The entire thing seems designed for a movie sequel and I don't doubt that to be its intention. Entertaining, easy to read, and populist.
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: Too many Politics
Review: The book is very good, especially when the action is happening. The author did a very good job building the "picture" for the reader. Even though setting the stage is important, the use of politics of was over done. The other item that I found distracting was the lingo that the Natives used at time (It was 100% American born) The natives would have had thier own style and would not have unterstood or used some of the text use in thier speech. You saying, well there was english teachers on the planet. Well if anyone has lived overseas they will know that people even when they do know english, the lingo is not there. Nit picking, but I found it as a distraction in the book on many occasions, especially when you wrap it in with politics. The first half of the book is just a bit slow and sometimes not believable, the second portion was VERY good.
| 
