![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defcons_treklitA very bad novel.
To start with the positive : there are worse novels, but they are few and far between. “Garth of Izar” presents almost nothing of everything a good story needs, namely suspense and/or humor, good characterizations, originality and almost everything of what a good story doesn’t need, namely boredom, predictability and pointlessness. Sadly the beginning of the book is an indicator for the quality of the whole story, the authors managed to switch the enemy from being Romulan to being Klingon not once, but twice in the opening chapter. If the following book would have been good that would just have been a (little) nitpick point, but with the book being what it is, you can take it as a bad omen. In their Afterword the authors say that it was their longtime wish to write a novel about Garth and Kirk, but judging by this book they only wanted to do that to totally destroy the character, because he is such a dull and forgettable character here. There are neither traces of the madman, nor the former great Starfleet hero to be found in this caricature of the man he is supposed to be. The story itself is equally forgettable as Garth, it’s just the hundredth version of the old “civil war is about to start on a non member world and Kirk (and in this case Garth) having to rescue the situation without bending the prime directive to much” – story. The big difference here obviously should have been that a ) It’s a planet full of shape shifters and b ) the planet Garth has gone mad on after he was rescued by being taught to shape shift himself. But the authors weren’t really able to build up anything even resembling being interesting over most parts of the book despite those starting points, actually they were able to write one of the most predictable books I’ve ever read. It was obvious from the start that Garth would be one of the good guys in the end and more or less be a buddy of his long time admirer of him, James Kirk. The novel gains some ground quality wise in the last third of the book, but that’s just enough to elevate it above such “pearls” like the Marshak/Culbreath “works” or “Warped”.
Another negative point is the characterization. Nearly none of the character seem to be right, especially the Spock depicted here has little to do with the man we know, but that’s true for many of them, the only really acceptable one is Kirk. The guest characters are equally uninteresting and dull as Garth himself, not one of them was really able to catch my interest.
Overall a really unnecessary, dull book and only interesting for collectors.
”Defcon’s TrekLit” Rating :
Story : ** of *****
Characterization / character development : * of *****
Originality : ** of *****
Writing style : * of *****
Cover : ** of *****
Overall : 22 %
To start with the positive : there are worse novels, but they are few and far between. “Garth of Izar” presents almost nothing of everything a good story needs, namely suspense and/or humor, good characterizations, originality and almost everything of what a good story doesn’t need, namely boredom, predictability and pointlessness. Sadly the beginning of the book is an indicator for the quality of the whole story, the authors managed to switch the enemy from being Romulan to being Klingon not once, but twice in the opening chapter. If the following book would have been good that would just have been a (little) nitpick point, but with the book being what it is, you can take it as a bad omen. In their Afterword the authors say that it was their longtime wish to write a novel about Garth and Kirk, but judging by this book they only wanted to do that to totally destroy the character, because he is such a dull and forgettable character here. There are neither traces of the madman, nor the former great Starfleet hero to be found in this caricature of the man he is supposed to be. The story itself is equally forgettable as Garth, it’s just the hundredth version of the old “civil war is about to start on a non member world and Kirk (and in this case Garth) having to rescue the situation without bending the prime directive to much” – story. The big difference here obviously should have been that a ) It’s a planet full of shape shifters and b ) the planet Garth has gone mad on after he was rescued by being taught to shape shift himself. But the authors weren’t really able to build up anything even resembling being interesting over most parts of the book despite those starting points, actually they were able to write one of the most predictable books I’ve ever read. It was obvious from the start that Garth would be one of the good guys in the end and more or less be a buddy of his long time admirer of him, James Kirk. The novel gains some ground quality wise in the last third of the book, but that’s just enough to elevate it above such “pearls” like the Marshak/Culbreath “works” or “Warped”.
Another negative point is the characterization. Nearly none of the character seem to be right, especially the Spock depicted here has little to do with the man we know, but that’s true for many of them, the only really acceptable one is Kirk. The guest characters are equally uninteresting and dull as Garth himself, not one of them was really able to catch my interest.
Overall a really unnecessary, dull book and only interesting for collectors.
”Defcon’s TrekLit” Rating :
Story : ** of *****
Characterization / character development : * of *****
Originality : ** of *****
Writing style : * of *****
Cover : ** of *****
Overall : 22 %
