Paradis

Battlestar Galactica #5

by Richard Hatch

Drawn by Apollo's vision of mysterious spatial coordinates, the Galacticans journey to a planet called Gemon, a verdant world that could offer the fleet a permanent home, until the traitor Baltar begins to suffer from horrifying nightmares about an evil and powerful new race of Cylons. Reprint.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

Hardcover

First published July 1, 2003

About the author

Richard Lawrence Hatch was an American actor, writer, and producer best known for his role as Captain Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica
(1978-1979) television series, and also as Tom Zarek in the 2003 re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica. He passed away from Pancreatic Cancer on February 7, 2017.

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, the band of colonial ships led by the Battlestar Galactica fleeing the deadly Cylons encounters the planet Paradis. It has a climate very conducive to human habitation and is populated by a species called the Gamon. Their technical level is very primitive, yet they are willing to allow the colonial population to stay as guests while they refit their ships and replenish their stocks.
As has happened down through human history, the technologically advanced society quickly begins to dominate the primitive one. There is a split among the colonials, where Commander Apollo is in favor of honoring their guest status while the civilian side wants to take control of the planet by force if necessary. Since the military is subservient to the civilian the situation grows out of hand to the point where the civilians order the Galactica to target their most powerful weapons at the masses of Gamon protesting the massive colonial construction projects in their sacred areas. The argument put forward by the civilian side is one familiar to students of human history, their power to do so gives them the right to take total control of the planet. Even if it means coming close to wiping out the natives.
This situation is resolved, but it takes a very unusual event to do so. It turns out that there was a previous visitation by a large human spaceship, the residue of which is discovered by the colonials. This is accomplished with the help of a native woman that hints of human historical figures such as Pocahantas and Sacagawea. The colonial traitor Baltar is rehabilitated into the equivalent of a college professor, teaching of all things, ethics.
The story is good enough to keep your interest, provided you understand the basic premises of the original Battlestar Galactica story. However, the publisher should have hired a better proofreader, there are many errors such as words being duplicated or even being out of sequence.

[Brent Knorr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a huge improvement over the previous novel. The characters acted much more rationally while still having some emotional moments and were handled much more maturely all the way around. The story was reasonably interesting and leads nicely into the next novel.
I'm glad to see that Brad Linaweaver is the co-author on the remaining two books as well, it gives me hope that they will be decent reads.