Rating: 
Summary: Everything ENTERPRISE should have been
Review: As some reviewers are unaware, this book was written well before ENTERPRISE appeared on television.Starfleet: Year One is a truer Trek and would have been a better premise for a Trek prequel. I like ENTERPRISE, but I liked Starfleet: Year One even more. Very well done.
Rating: 
Summary: Faithful to the Trek Mythos
Review: Fans of Star Trek have been following the various shows now for over 30 years. For those who were fans prior to 1993, this book is a breath of fresh air. Michael Jan Friedman, like Peter David, understands the Trek universe and how to use its vast resources to weave a very enjoyable novel that is consistent with the estabished history of the "Trek" universe. Alas, the current TV series, Enterprise, does not. If you enjoy DS9, Voyager, or Enterpise more than The Original Series or NextGen, this book probably isn't for you. However, if you want a plausable prequel to the Trek of Kirk's time, check this out. You won't be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Beginning
Review: I did not think I would enjoy this book but I was wrong. Michael Jan Friedman breaks new ground by introducing a new cast of characters to the Star Trek universe. The interplay between the military and scientists was intriguing. The pacing was fast and for fans who like lots of space battles there were plenty to be had. The plot did not really contain any surprises however the story provides the reader with potential insight into the difficulties experienced by the first Captains to wear the Star Fleet uniform.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Beginning
Review: I did not think I would enjoy this book but I was wrong. Michael Jan Friedman breaks new ground by introducing a new cast of characters to the Star Trek universe. The interplay between the military and scientists was intriguing. The pacing was fast and for fans who like lots of space battles there were plenty to be had. The plot did not really contain any surprises however the story provides the reader with potential insight into the difficulties experienced by the first Captains to wear the Star Fleet uniform.
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Summary: This is what trek should be
Review: I love this book. If you like star trek and you thought enterprise was to be a Daedalus class starship then everything that you expected is in this book. I love the idea of going pre-trek and building the history, we have advanced as far as the writers can go and now trek is stale, but to go back to when the final frontier was just opening up to us and reading about men and women pioneering the stars, Gene would have loved it and to the naysayers, go watch tv I say and miss out on what has been very satisfying to the starving masses who want to enjoy trek for what it is...good science fiction.
Rating:
Summary: TRUE STAR TREK - michael jan friedman's done it again
Review: If you've never been able to get enough of the original Star Trek, check out this book by Michael Jan Friedman.
Replete with no less than six, count them, six of the original Starfleet captains, Friedman has managed to weave an intricate story around several new characters without losing sight of what made the original series a cult classic. (Sorry Trekkies.)
Friedman's characters are so alive, the reader feels as if he (or she) is actually a crewmate on their first mission for the newly organized Starfleet. A must read for all Star Trek affectionados!
Rating:
Summary: TRUE STAR TREK - michael jan friedman's done it again
Review: If you've never been able to get enough of the original Star Trek, check out this book by Michael Jan Friedman.
Replete with no less than six, count them, six of the original Starfleet captains, Friedman has managed to weave an intricate story around several new characters without losing sight of what made the original series a cult classic. (Sorry Trekkies.)
Friedman's characters are so alive, the reader feels as if he (or she) is actually a crewmate on their first mission for the newly organized Starfleet. A must read for all Star Trek affectionados!
Rating:
Summary: THIS BOOK RULES!!!!!
Review: ignore the naysayers. this book has a flawless storyline, influential characters, and an excellent plot. the whole book gets engineered toward the question-power of the guns or the mind? the whole book shows this numerous ways. this is an awesome book!!!!!!!!!!
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Summary: Star Trek Starfleet:
Review: It's a real shame that there isn't more communication between Paramount and Pocket Books; George Lucas would never allow this sort of thing to happen in his "Star Wars" universe. What sort of thing am I talking about? Books being commissioned and published that do not fit into the planned continuity of the series. Or worse, not HAVING a planned continuity, and having a right hand (the TV producers) which neither knows nor cares what the left hand (the book publishers) are doing. This is hardly the only published Star Trek book which has been made non-canonical by later developments in one or another of the series. And it isn't fair to blame Friedman for the fact that his book is defined as wrong less than 2 years after it's published. But it isn't fair to the Star Trek fan, either, to have a "prehistory" of the Star Trek universe that is simply incompatible with what the series "Enterprise" has established. I realize that, by definition, the books are considered non-canonical, and only what shows up onscreen is canonical. But it would be nice if the two were kept a bit more consistent. As such, this is a perfectly okay book for casual fans of Star Trek, who enjoy the concepts, but neither know nor care enough about the series to be annoyed by inconsistencies. The true fan will consider this to be, at best, an interesting "parallel universe" story, and at worst an interesting science fiction story which does not, in spite of similarities, have anything to do with Star Trek.
Rating: 
Summary: 'The Founding of the Federation' As It Can No Longer Be...
Review: The first page of "Starfleet: Year One" states that it is "unrelated to the events depicted in the television series Enterprise". If the reader wants to enjoy what little there is to enjoy in this book, it's important to remember that. "Starfleet: Year One" is the novelization of Michael Jan Friedman's twelve-part serial released by Pocket Books in all their Trek books between mid-1999 and mid-2000. Expanded here, but originally written before "Deep Space Nine" had left the airwaves and before anyone had a good idea what the fifth Trek series would be, "Starfleet: Year One" tells the story of Earth cobbling together a very small Starfleet in the wake of the Earth-Romulan wars. However, continuity already established in the fledgling "Enterprise" shows that much of what occurs in "Starfleet: Year One: could never happen. The basic plot line (not that the single sentence above doesn't sum up most of what you need to know) is that, given six ships from Earth Command and a mandate to fill them with a mixture of races, a very young Starfleet find itself torn between trying to establish itself as a military presence or a scientific/exploratory one. Half of the new starship captains fought at the final battle of the Earth-Romulan War and are very militaristic and half are scientists, merchants or loners who fit the 'explorer' category. Tensions build between the two factions to see which side will have a captain chosen to command the U.S.S. Daedalus, the first of a new fleet of vessels that can travel Warp 3 and hold over two hundred people. None of this is makes for bad writing necessarily, but Friedman fills his work with every possible continuity reference imaginable. While he primarily draws from the Original Series episode "Balance of Terror" and the Next Generation episode "Power Play", he draws even the most incidental plot points from so many other episodes that you begin to think that he fears that if even one continuity reference is missing, the narrative will completely fall apart. For example, he sets up a three-page dialogue just to make a continuity reference about the book responsible for the Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action". Likewise, not one of his characters (and there are many) has a personality that can't be summed up in one sentence. Most of them essentially end up as caricatures of one personality trait or another. Friedman's premise certainly isn't bad, and he definitely did his homework in compiling a backstory, but it ultimately falls flat on his annoying characters and Saturday-morning-cartoonesque storytelling. The ending, likewise, comes out as a bad mix of science and fictional anthropology with a trite moral tacked on to it for good measure. While the way is open for a sequel - or a series - I find myself oddly grateful that there will never be any more books in the series. Even though I like the universe he cobbles together, I'm grateful that the rather sad caricatures won't be back for more adventures. This is a book that, ultimately, I find myself recommending only to the die-hard "Star Trek" fan that won't let the continuity issues bother him too much (possibly an oxymoron, I know). Otherwise, if you're interested in the beginning of a much more well-realized "Star Trek" universe, go watch "Enterprise".
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