War Stories 2

Star Trek SCE (ebooks) Novellas #22

by Keith R.A. DeCandido

CONCLUDING THE EXCITING UNTOLD TALE OF THE DOMINION WAR!
To prevent his being defeated by the S.C.E. crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci a third time, Overseer Biron of the Androssi has decided to learn about his enemies by studying their adventures during the conflict with the Dominion....
Following the battle at Chin'toka, the Federation captured a small ship inside a Jem'Hadar war vessel. The da Vinci's S.C.E. team -- led by Sonya Gomez's predecessor, Commander Salek of Vulcan -- must determine the nature of the small ship. But will the mysterious vessel prove to be beneficial to the war effort -- or deadly?

Genres: Star Trek, Fiction, Science Fiction, Technology, Adventure, Ebooks

65 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2002

Reviews

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problem with the Biron frame tale is that nothing ever comes of it. Best case scenario would have been to have the next book have him attack or foil (or be foiled by) the da Vinci, but even though DeCandido does pen several S.C.E.s down the line, they're not about that. He does all this research and never acts on it. Or more importantly, he wastes all our time with his frame tale. At least in this case, there's only one "log tale", so it has more space to breathe. Ignore Biron and you've got a slightly shorter S.C.E., one that goes a bit deeper into Fabien Stevens' character, and doing away with the three characters who starred in Book 1 (Lense, Bart and Sonya), shows us what the da Vinci was like before they came aboard. The characters in their posts are for the most part intriguing, especially the Vulcan XO, and the Bolian doctor was pegged to show up in a sequel that never came. These two do make brief appearances later - nice to know. As for the story, it's a repair mission under fire and an engineering puzzle that uses continuity as a solution (taking a page from Apollo 13) and then becomes a solution to the main mission. Pleasant enough, but it's largely thanks to efficiently drawn characters who feel like a beloved television cast. So very much like other S.C.E. books.

[Nicky2910 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Star Trek: S. C. E.: #22 War Stories, Book 2 by Keith R. A. DeCandido This story focuses on a mission of the daVinci back in the Dominion War. Gomez, Lense and Faulwell weren't yet on board, Stevens and P8 Blue were just transferred onto the ship.
 
And quite honestly, as much as the first part of "War Stories" appealed to me because it granted insight into the characters (aside from showing them as brilliant geniuses), this part falls short in the characterization part. What we get are wisecracks, ideas pulled out of their a**es, in short, business as usual. It's still an interesting story, but not what I was hoping for when book 1 finally showed some inkling of light at the end of the dark tunnel of technobabble, ingenuity (make no mistake, ingenuity isn't bad, as long as there's some kind of personality to back it up) and smartass remarks.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This immediately picks up from the first book. I completely fail to see why this was split into a second book, especially when they are so short to begin with, so a 150 page novella would have worked just as well. I can't even say the chapters were a nice length, because there was only one of them. Having said all that, the further insight to another situation during the Dominion War was enjoyable.

[De · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as good as Part 1, but a decent read. I was hoping for more individual stories instead of discovering that a majority of the da Vinci's crew were already serving together during the Dominion War. Great backstory on Fabian Stevens, particularly after the events in "The Ship" on the DS9 TV series.

[Craig Andrews]

War Stories were okay. They are little glimpses of what the SCE crew were doing during the Dominion War. Overall a bit rushed and could have easily been developed into something bigger, escpecially the bits with the Da Vinci crew members that aren't around any more.

[John Barclay · Rating 3 out of 5]

More fun backstories on our crew. I like it.