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Azrael & Phoebe's Kitty Critics' Corner Book Reviews

Science Fiction:

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Series is witty, insightful, biting, fun, fascinating, intelligent, utterly delightful.

Neil Gaiman, perhaps best known for his popular graphic novel series The Sandman, has created a spectacular first solo novel, Neverwhere, which is our Boo Award for Literary Excellence Winner for the month of April as well as best book of 1998! The narrative style of this fascinating novel reminds us somewhat of Douglas Adams' work and the characterizations and themes are reminiscent of Michael Ende's Momo.  The life of the novel's hero  Richard Mayhew, an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancée, suddenly changes one  night when he chooses to help a girl he has found bleeding on the sidewalk.   By the folowing morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world.  Friends and coworkers no longer recognize him.  His landlord rents his apratment out to strangers.  He has become invisble, like the many others who have fallen through the cracks of reality he is inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness.  Thus begins his quest to find the girl he helped and regain his life.

Order Neil Gaiman'sNeverwhere Today!

Azrael's "Boo-Award" winner for February, To Say Nothing of the Dog is a masterful work by Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. Like her Doomsday Book we are here dealing with 21st century time traveling historians. This time, however, we have a light witty adventure through the mysteries of love, time, Victorian etiquette. Poor Ned Henry is suffering a severe case of time lag after too many drops and jumble sales at the orders of Lady Schrapnel who insists that the Victorian atrocity called the bishop's bird stump be found in time for the dedication of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral. In order to get some badly needed rest, Ned must escape to the Victorian era and return something that another historian had inadvertently brought back from the past. Only thing is, in his muddled state Ned is unsure of what this thing is and the fate of the time line is at stake! If you'd enjoy a mystery, romance, time travel, hilarity, a feline princess not to mention a bull dog with respiratory problems, this is the book for you! Order Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog today!!

Star Trek Novels: There are so many of these, we'll just mention a few of our favorites. From the Original Series: In Yesterday's Son by A. C. Crispin the Romulan's attack the planet Gateway where Federation scientists are studying the Guardian of Forever (remember the TV episode City on the Edge of Forever with Joan Collins?). The problem is that Spock has ventured through the portal to see his son, born 5,000 years ago on the planet Sarpedion (remember when he was stuck in the ice with Mariette Hartley?). Will he get back before the guardian is destroyed by the Romulans? Well, you can guess the answer....The sequel to this book, #39 Time For Yesterday also by A. C. Crispin also features Spock, his son and the Guardian. The Guardian is malfunctioning and Kirk, Spock and McCoy must go back in time to find Spock's son and bring him back to telepathically communicate with the Guardian.

#20 The Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah - While Kirk, McCoy and Spock seek experimental treatment for an injured crew member at the Vulcan Academy Hospital, where Spock's mother also happens to be a patient, patients suddenly begin being murdered!

#24 Killing Time by Della Van Hise - A Romulan time-tampering project has transported the Enterprise and the galaxy into an alternate dimension of reality in which Kirk is an embittered young ensign and Spock the Starship commander.

In #25 Dwellers in the Crucible by Margaret Wander Bonanno, Romulans have kidnapped six warranters of peace (hostages to prevent war among the members of the Federation).

#38 The IDIC Epidemic by Jean Lorrah - Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations - the cornerstone of Vulcan philosophy is put to the test by a plague whose origins are somehow rooted in the concept of IDIC itself.

#47 The Kobayashi Maru by Julia Ecklar reveals how Starfleet cadets Kirk, Chekov, Scotty and Sulu each faced the Kobayashi Maru - the test of character in face of a no-win scenario.

The Next Generation:

We would just like to feature the works of the mega-talented Peter David:

Q-in-Law --Imagine Q and Lwaxana Troi together!

Vandetta - the Enterprise crew meets an old friend of Guinan's who is the lone survivor of an alien race obliterated by the Borg and whose ultimate revenge against the Borg will mean the deaths of countless innocents as well.

Imzadi --Troi mysteriously falls ill and dies and Riker tracks across time and is forced to choose between the Prime Directive and saving the life of the one he calls Imzadi.

Q-in-Law --Imagine Q and Lwaxana Troi together!

Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski -- Star Trek The Next Generation: A Fury Scorned -- When a population of twenty million risks extinction as their sun, which is about to go nova, leaves no time for evacuation, Captain Picard must decide who to save. The Enterprise can rescue only a few thousand....children? great leaders? great thinkers? Or, Picard can risk the entire population and his crew in the hope of saving the planet. Not the most exciting or creative of the series, but pretty good.

We would also like to recommend The Nitpickers' Guide for Next Generation Trekkers: Six Seasons of Bloopers, Flubs, Technical Screwups, and Picayune Plot Discrepencies by Phil Farrad as a definite aid in adding fun to viewing re-runs.

Deep Space Nine:

The Big Game by Sandy Schofield - murder occurs during a poker tournament held by Quark - a high stakes game for which representatives of nearly every sentient race are present. Sisko and Odo must hunt down the killer who is the only one who can save them from the invisible enemy they do not even know they face.
 

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