The Eyes of the Beholders

Rating:
Summary: Insight into Data / Georgi makes it best TNG book I've read
Review: This is undoubtedly the best TNG book I have read. It combines a true adherence to the StarTrek word while providing its own original elements. Crispin has always been fascinated by first contacts, and she chooses here a vessel so alien it makes humans dizzy just looking at it. Data modifies his visual net to be able ot explore the artifact, and that lays the basis for an extraordinary insight into the unique. Data's quest and personality have never been better rendered or more beatifully honored. A first contact with a completely alien race brings the reader for the edge of his or her seat. Not only Trek fans but any science fiction reader should read this book

Rating:
Summary: Should be great but is not
Review: This should be a great book, considering the author and the basic premise, but it is not. The Enterprise is investigating a strange ship that emits a field that drives people lethally insane by forcing them to relive their most emotional moments, usually terrible ones, in their dreams. That is the main plot, but there are three different sub-plots: the Vulcan Dr. Selar and her Andorian patient, accounts of the dreams the main characters have, and Data's efforts writing. There are many short stories throughout the book, and I generally find them so depressing that I just skip them. The main tone of the book is really sombre and it is difficult to find areas that are really entertaining to read. Data's writing efforts, there to provide a little comic relief, don't help either. The example of his writing we are given is deliberately really bad, the amusement from people being unwilling to tell Data so is pretty small, and the conclusion of this sub-story is depressing too. The sections that deal with the actual investigation of the ship are quite entertaining and the away team mission is by far the best part of this book. Those sections are worth reading, but the book as a whole is not.