Star Trek

It is a very long book, and it would have done well to be in two volumes. I love the addition of Sela. She made a good book an excellent one. 

Why are more authors active there tather than here on the official site?  Do people discuss the books more there because it is nearly impossible to generate book discussions here since few who use this site read the books.

Well I haven't given up yet.  I do agree it would be better as 2 books.  I just hope Sela's role doesn't conflict with her part in Typhon 3.

I don't know.  I'm new to these boards and even newer to trekbbs so I don't know if there is a history at one site or the other.  Andy Mangels just posted in a Titan thread there yesterday.  Michael Martin is about the only regular author from whom I have not seen a post on that board. 

It doesn't. 

Tomalok's does though, I think.  Not that I mind conflict with Typhon 3.

In what way? I can't think of any conflicts. 

I would have thought he would have gone out of office with Tal'aura Since he threw his lot in with her.  I supose the new level headed preator could have retained him though.

David McGintee did say that he has a pitch (among many pitches) to S&S that includes bringing Scotty back, but he was not optomistic about the propects for it. 

My review of IFM:

On the whole, I have to say this is a true Trek tale and what the franchise is all about- exploring the unknown and causing you to think about your view of the universe.  That said, to me the story is divided up into three parts: establishing the mystery around the NX-07 Intrepid, the Rasmussen/Bok plot, and solving the mystery of the phenomenon behind what happened to the Intrepid.  Of these, I didn’t care too much about the R/B story but loved the other two.  I feel the author has a pleasant writing style and weaved a good story but I did feel there were some needless conversations that went nowhere, and there were times I felt the story jumped around too much during key happenings that should had been developed more instead of cutting to a different scene so quickly.  I also felt there were too many cameos to the point it seemed that the author just wanted to fit in all his favored characters and couldn’t limit his choices; that said, at first this annoyed me but later I appreciated the inclusion as it brought back so many memories from the shows.

The first part of the book set the stage for a great mystery and I enjoyed seeing the 24th century characters on the NX set as I did reading Destiny.  It reminded me of Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt novels when the tale of how a ship was lost is imagined and then the wreck is investigated later when the wreckage is key to the modern plot.

The second part of the book involving Rasmussen and Bok just plain bored me. Not that this part wasn’t well written or the characters not realistic but it just didn’t fit in with the first and third part of the book and the plot they were involved in wasn’t interesting nor were the antagonists.  I only stuck through at this point because the mystery at the beginning was so well laid that I wanted to know what happened.

Indistinguishable from Magic REALLY soared in the third part involving Sela and the pretzel-pocket universe. This was the best Sela story I have read and I felt McIntee did an excellent job not only making her a realistic Romulan antagonist but also exploring the inner conflict she must have being a “half-breed” in a xenophobic society.  The scientific concepts central to the plot, the living planet and spaceships as well as the torusal universe were the type of concepts Trek is all about and were quite “fascinating”.  They were the type of elements you typically only find in the Titan series anymore.  I enjoyed trying to grasp and explore these concepts even when I put the book down.  The moss-skeleton creatures were an equally interesting idea and were a creative spin on classical zombies.

Though the middle of the book was a chore to get through to me, unraveling the mystery was so incredibly done that I was glad I read it.  I went from intrigued, to bored, to excited.  I recommend the book despite the parts I didn’t like.  I see much potential for McIntee as a Trek writer and look forward to his future works.

Ty for your review. I currently am reading the new DTI novel, and am planning on posting a review soon. 

The IFM novel did suffer from a little too much "who is that random TNG character" but for me it was a nostalgic experience. TNG had such amazing stories, and so few were fleshed out, that is nice when authors expand them. 

By the way I thought the inclusion of Bok was an inspired choice. His obsession would never fade, and he needed to resolve his son issues in some final way. 

It was a little weird to tie him into the "intrepid" mystery, but the Knot or Pretzel or whatever did make sense as a plot device. I loved the idea of extra galactic lifeforms. It was like the Q had pets. 

Sela deserved her own novel - but the parts with her are amazing. I always wondered why more authors don't use her character.