Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the money or time
Review: A good idea(Starfleet Academy) is populated by uninteresting characters and a boring story. What a let down.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for those tired of mainstream Trek
Review: Hey lets face it the same people get boring after awhile. This gives us a freash new look into Star Trek. The Academy is rarely explored in-depth but here it is. I like that we finally get the Lesbian charecter in here. Although I am not a gay right activist I support the lifestyle choices people I just don't agree with them and it is about time ST addressed the issue fully. It was a little disconnected but otherswise great story. Also trying to cover 4 years in one book not a great idea should have had a for part series or something similar.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: I have been reading Trek novels for a long time now from classic to the more current incarnations, and I enjoyed this book to no end. It is refreshing to see a new group of people in these situations rather than useing the same old characters in re-hashes of the same old stories. I can't wait to read more in this series.
Rating: 
Summary: Stop thumping the thesaurus!
Review: I have to agree with other reviewers who praised this book's heavy continuity usages and tying it all in with the current Star Trek universe as we know it, but my main beef is that the book was horribly overwritten. A classic example is when one character meets Guinan. The author keeps going on about the "smiling orange poppy faces mocked her again and again, with their grinning petals..." etc. Enough with the metaphors! If this is supposed to be military space opera, tone down the writing! We know you can use a thesaurus, prove to us that you can use it correctly.
Rating:
Summary: Sadly disappointed
Review: I own almost every star trek book written, but this one I took to the used book store as soon as I was done. The writing was ok, and the characters were mildly interesting. What turned me off was the rampant homosexuality. It's one thing to have gay characters, but to have a gay character seduce a straight one is pushing it for me. While Star Trek always comments on our society, it doesn't always get the message right. If it's ok in our society to be gay, then it also has to be ok to be straight. This is one book I won't read again, and I'm also not buying her two new books, Dark Passions with Seven and Kira. I don't trust the content. These aren't porn books, it's Star Trek, and I could do with out the sex scenes altogether. I know many won't agree with me, and that's ok. I just wanted to share my opnion. I'm deeply disturbed to see that this book is listed under Science Fiction AND children's books. This definitely isn't a children's book. I read Star Trek in Junior High, but the new books are getting to the point that I wouldn't want my children to read them.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book!
Review: I thought that this book was quite good. The characters are involving, and the plots interesting. I myself, like to learn more about the Star Fleet Academy, while giving the other characters somewhat of a rest. I especialy enjoyed the way that they involved the plot of the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine series in the book. I think that if you are a big Star Trek fan, as I myself am, that you definately read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A decent story, but somewhat confusing at times...
Review: If you're into a series of short (and barely connected) stories about cadets going through Starfleet Academy, you won't be dissapointed by this story. The only problem that I had in reading the book is that just about every story has one (or more) of the cadets pulling off some sort of scientific or diplomatic miracle (aka the "Westley Crusher syndrome") that somewhat suspended by belief as story after story went by. Granted, the first few stories deal with them screwing up and being repremended, but after that they individually pull off too many successes afterwards to be believable. One cadet is gifted with a memory that doesn't allow her to forget anything-- (very much like "Mr. Spock" or "Data"), allowing her to pull off some pretty heavy stuff. I personally get tired of miracle workers doing superhuman stuff all the time in the Trek universe, so I tired of this character rather quickly. However, one of the many stories dealt with a Cadet accidentally getting involved with an alien-based slave trade, and I felt it was particularily outstanding. Several characters didn't get developed enough (in my opinion) during the stories, and I thought that a greater examination of them would have made the stories more enjoyable-- specifically, a cadet who is a Bajoran ex-Vedek(sp?) and a female cadet that is biologically and socially at the level of a 10 year old (a normal characteristic of her race) are two characters that would have been interesting to see how they perceived their stay at Starfleet Academy from their unique perspectives. The author also takes a risk and breaks Trek writing style by exploring a (very tame) lesbian relationship between two of the cadets that is threaded throughout the book. It made the stories a bit more interesting; the relationship is viewed in the 23rd century as being so natural that there is no examination/introspection whatsoever of the character's genders. One could substitute a male cadet for one of the females, and the story would read exactly the same. It made for some refreshing reading.
Rating:
Summary: Academy Dropout
Review: It looked like fun, a book about Starfleet Cadets. Sadly, Susan Wright manages to impart interesting information in clunky dialogue and dull descriptions. There are vague moments of interest in the young characters, but unfortunately most of them succumb to the "Wesley Syndrome": any personality they might display is quickly sacrificed to the need for them to be annoying over-achievers. They just happen to find themselves in the right place at the right time to shine. The cast of characters reads as if Wright had loooked at a personality assessment test and assigned one characteristic to each character ("perky", "insecure", "shy", "merry") and none of them ever develop another dimension. The Quad concept (eight cadets of differing backgrounds and year levels live and work together) is carelessly discarded as two characters are almost immediately written out, and the rest of the plot is just as cursory. What a pity. What a wasted opportunity.
Rating:
Summary: A love or hate kind of book.
Review: It seems either people love this book, or they hate it. I'll admit some plotting problems (like what the heck happened to the Vulcan in the early chapters...) but it's merits and the unusual nature of the book outweigh it's flaws.At least one reviewer here has objected to a gay character pursuing a "straight" one. I'd like to know where in the book it says the other character is straight, they both seem to be in a consentual relationship, which is more than I can say for the [other book] tendency to make bisexuality a trait of sadists and psychopaths. I enjoyed the author (and the publisher) stepping outside the box of mainstream trek and I'd love to see a sequal to this.
Rating: 
Summary: Sweet Valley High in space
Review: Pocket Books attempt to cash in on the popularity of their Starfleet Acadamy line of novels with this cross-over of the more adult-oriented novels and the youth-oriented novels. What results is an unbalanced mess of a book that chooses to focus on the events that our young characters go through rather than really taking advantage of the change to showcase some new, interesting characters in the Trek universe. Unlike the extremely entertaining and succesful New Frontier line by Peter David, where character development is an absolute must, this book fails to deliver on the goods. Instead, we get lots of cliched storylines that play out in cliched ways. A group of mismatched cadets in stuck together and must find ways to work together with their own stregths and weaknesses. Along the way, some will fails, others will fall in love, and one will discover that she is gay. (Yes, you read that correctly). The main problem is stitled dialogue, a prose style that gets jarring after a few pages, and the need to throw every character from Next Gen or DS9 or Voyager in just to show you can do it. Not recommened.
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