Rating: 
Summary: crispin does it again
Review: A good moral and some nice descriptions make up this wonderful book. I like this book better than the ones about Spock's son.
Rating: 
Summary: Ratings are in the eyes of the beholders
Review: Eyes of the Beholders is not even close to being a four- or five-star book, although it had the potential to be. It is, rather, a typically enjoyable Trek read, interesting and amusing at times but not terribly moving or powerful.Crispin is certainly capable of better. Yesterday's Son is a well-deserved classic, and her Han Solo trilogy was very well done. Here, however, she lowered her sights too far. We get an alien artifact that traps the Enterprise and will eventually drive the crew mad (yet none of the major characters except Troi are affected without actually going on board the artifact. Apparently, senior officers are exempt from the effects). And there is a twee sub-plot involving a blind Andorian orphan girl, which is interesting only because it involves the Vulcan Dr. Selar. Where the novel could have excelled is with Geordi LaForge. Crispin makes token references to LaForge's blindness, and early on it seems there will be a tie-in between Geordi and the Andorian girl, Thala. When Geordi ends up being the only one on board who can handle the visual impact of the artifact, one thinks there will be still more insight offered. I don't mean a "blind people are people too" kind of revelation as that would be both cheesy and condescending. Rather, there could have been a situation where Geordi is truly forced to deal with wearing his VISOR or (as he ultimately did) receiving some kind of neural implant to allow him to "see," and Thala's own handling of a similar choice would have provided a perfect foil. Alas, Crispin presents the dilemma in the first dozen pages then largely ignores it. In the end, it is Data, not Geordi who has the revelation. On a side note, I first read this one over a decade ago and, for some reason, it had left a sour taste. It ended up being much, much better than I remembered.
Rating:
Summary: Ratings are in the eyes of the beholders
Review: Eyes of the Beholders is not even close to being a four- or five-star book, although it had the potential to be. It is, rather, a typically enjoyable Trek read, interesting and amusing at times but not terribly moving or powerful. Crispin is certainly capable of better. Yesterday's Son is a well-deserved classic, and her Han Solo trilogy was very well done. Here, however, she lowered her sights too far. We get an alien artifact that traps the Enterprise and will eventually drive the crew mad (yet none of the major characters except Troi are affected without actually going on board the artifact. Apparently, senior officers are exempt from the effects). And there is a twee sub-plot involving a blind Andorian orphan girl, which is interesting only because it involves the Vulcan Dr. Selar. Where the novel could have excelled is with Geordi LaForge. Crispin makes token references to LaForge's blindness, and early on it seems there will be a tie-in between Geordi and the Andorian girl, Thala. When Geordi ends up being the only one on board who can handle the visual impact of the artifact, one thinks there will be still more insight offered. I don't mean a "blind people are people too" kind of revelation as that would be both cheesy and condescending. Rather, there could have been a situation where Geordi is truly forced to deal with wearing his VISOR or (as he ultimately did) receiving some kind of neural implant to allow him to "see," and Thala's own handling of a similar choice would have provided a perfect foil. Alas, Crispin presents the dilemma in the first dozen pages then largely ignores it. In the end, it is Data, not Geordi who has the revelation. On a side note, I first read this one over a decade ago and, for some reason, it had left a sour taste. It ended up being much, much better than I remembered.
Rating:
Summary: Yes, it's a good book but let's not kid our selves
Review: I enjoyed reading this book. filled with mysterios things but lets not kid ourselves it's not 5 star material here. It's neet though what it ends up being (I cant give it away.) but the stary is neet. however it is one of those plots that's always there, one that you can be expecting. something threatens the enterprize and everyone thats on it.
Rating: 
Summary: STNG #13 - The Eyes of the Beholders - Interesting premise!
Review: I found the premise and the setting of this novel to be in good keeping with A. C. Crispin's style of writing and well on par with a Star Trek The Next Generation novel of this timeframe. It's unfortunate that this novel was A. C. Crispin's first and last adventure in the STNG arena. Given this and her past Star Trek novels, it would be nice to see her make a return to Star Trek, in any of its variants, in the full novel format. The premise: The Enterprise is called into a recently opened trade route to investigate the disappearance of several Federation and Klingon vessels. Once there, they uncover a graveyard full of ships. They find an extremely large and powerful artifact constructed by an ancient species. Upon studying this ancient artifact, they trigger it and they then find themselves in the positions of having to disable or destroy it before it destroys them. I would definitely recommend this early STNG novel to any and all fans of Star Trek The Next Generation, casual or die hard alike. {ssintrepid}
Rating:
Summary: STNG #13 - The Eyes of the Beholders - Interesting premise!
Review: I found the premise and the setting of this novel to be in good keeping with A. C. Crispin's style of writing and well on par with a Star Trek The Next Generation novel of this timeframe. It's unfortunate that this novel was A. C. Crispin's first and last adventure in the STNG arena. Given this and her past Star Trek novels, it would be nice to see her make a return to Star Trek, in any of its variants, in the full novel format. The premise: The Enterprise is called into a recently opened trade route to investigate the disappearance of several Federation and Klingon vessels. Once there, they uncover a graveyard full of ships. They find an extremely large and powerful artifact constructed by an ancient species. Upon studying this ancient artifact, they trigger it and they then find themselves in the positions of having to disable or destroy it before it destroys them. I would definitely recommend this early STNG novel to any and all fans of Star Trek The Next Generation, casual or die hard alike. {ssintrepid}
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing.
Review: I've read and enjoyed both of A.C. Crispin's previous Star Trek novels, "Yesterday's Son" and "Time For Yesterday", and given that the second of those was significantly better than the first (although the first was good) I expected that she was growing as an author, and expected great things from this one. I got some good things, but far from great, and some very BAD things as well. I expected much better. There are basically three parts to this book; there is the main plot and two subplots of note. The main plot is a variation on a common concept, one that was done in one of the original series animated episodes: a spacegoing "Devil's Triangle", an area of space that is a "roach motel" for spaceships. The concept is hackneyed, but it is handled well enough and originally enough that I found myself at least partially willing to overlook the unoriginality of the basic idea. Still, it is a bad sign when the basic idea behind the primary plot needs overcoming. One of the two subplots involved the relationship between an orphaned Andorian girl and a Vulcan physician on the Enterprise; this subplot was handled quite well, and was quite moving. The other subplot, unfortunately, involved Data approaching various members of the bridge crew for their opinions on an (appallingly bad) adventure/romance novel he was writing. In spite of the fact that this particular plotline ended with a serious message, and was tied up rather nicely all things considered, still it is apparent that it was supposed to provide the comic relief for the story; as such, it was not unlike many similar concepts used during various episodes of the series, so at least I have to give Crispin credit for being true to the characters as established for the show. But just as was true in MANY of the similar "Data makes a fool of himself trying to be human" stories that aired, not only was this one NOT funny, it was downright PAINFUL to watch. I fail to understand how any author (who has no doubt experienced the insecurity of asking for the opinion of friends about her writing, as well as being asked for her opinion about the writing of others, and the extreme difficulty of treading the line between being dishonest or downright cruel) could POSSIBLY think that there was ANYTHING funny in this scenerio. On the other hand, if it WASN'T intended to be funny, then we run into the same problem that Troi ran into in critiquing Data's work: if something that was meant to be serious is percieved as being comedy (even failed comedy) then there's something seriously wrong with it. Much of this book was well worth reading; if you're a fan of the subplots in which Data strives futilely (and painfully) to mimic human creativity, you'll no doubt love this one. I don't.
Rating:
Summary: Enterprise D versus the powerful ancient Artifact.
Review: Powerful Artifacts threatening a Strek Trek crew is a typical scenario. This is the first STTNG novel that deals with the scenario, not entirely successfully.
Not one of the stand-out novels in the series.
Rating:
Summary: The Eyes of the Beholders
Review: The Eyes of the Beholders by A.C. Crispin is a first contact novel something the author is good at and you will not be disappointed here. She writes with a refreshing suspensful style that keeps the reader on the edge of the seat. As a new trade route opens, there are ships missing, both Federation and Klingon seem to disappear, now the Enterprise and crew are sent to investigate these disappearences and find something rather unique. It seems that a graveyard of ships, of all shapes and sizes, are here and some of them are quite old. This is a Geordi LaForge and Data book mainly as the Enterprise trys to figure out the mystery of this graveyard and an Artifact that seems to weld immensely awesome power. The Enterprise crew are affected by this power and are threatened by insanity. The author keeps you involved with the story and has good character development throughout the book and gives a lot of information about Data. This story is intriguingly captivating as your intrest is piqued with the first contact. This is a well told story written true to the TNG characters. Those wanting good action adventure with excellent science fiction should buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Eyes of the Beholders
Review: The Eyes of the Beholders by A.C. Crispin is a first contact novel something the author is good at and you will not be disappointed here. She writes with a refreshing suspensful style that keeps the reader on the edge of the seat. As a new trade route opens, there are ships missing, both Federation and Klingon seem to disappear, now the Enterprise and crew are sent to investigate these disappearences and find something rather unique. It seems that a graveyard of ships, of all shapes and sizes, are here and some of them are quite old. This is a Geordi LaForge and Data book mainly as the Enterprise trys to figure out the mystery of this graveyard and an Artifact that seems to weld immensely awesome power. The Enterprise crew are affected by this power and are threatened by insanity. The author keeps you involved with the story and has good character development throughout the book and gives a lot of information about Data. This story is intriguingly captivating as your intrest is piqued with the first contact. This is a well told story written true to the TNG characters. Those wanting good action adventure with excellent science fiction should buy this book.
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