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odin45mp's reviews
1062 reviews
A Fury Scorned by Pamela Sargent, George Zebrowski
2.0
The book starts off with a good premise - a sun going nova, and how to save the inhabitants of its 3rd planet - and then bogs itself down in inconsistent technology and pads its word count with repeated recognition of how concerned the crew is about whether or not the planet's inhabitants or the Enterprise will survive. These musings do nothing to add tension and drag the pace down. It is noted that there is concern about some sublight ships being unable to escape the nova, despite having 2+ days head start. How slow are these craft? There is also a brief mention of separating the saucer section to save some people, but this is discarded because the saucer section "can't escape in time". It would take minutes - as proven in "Encounter at Farpoint" - to warp outside the system, separate the saucer, and return. The countless times the crew worried about how history would perceive them if they failed, whether or not they would succeed, and what the planet's citizens would think of them and the Federation really took me out of the story, and the technical aspects didn't help. A moment's reflection is only natural, and would be in keeping with the show and the characters, but the authors return to these ruminations time and again. On top of the sublight dilemmas, the prospect of successfully opening up a temporary wormhole and using it to move a planet is farfetched even in Star Trek physics. I'll admit I haven't read much Star Trek since college, but these books are making me worried about what I will find if I go back and reread my collection from high school.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
5.0
A great foundation of work on how to communicate and effectively manage people. Worth the time and effort to read and practice. Not all of it was new to me, but the way it was presented here was effective and to the point.