Tales From the Captain's Table: Star Trek All Series

Star Trek: The Captain's Table

by Keith R.A. DeCandido (Editor), Marco Palmieri

The Captain's Table was a bestselling 6-volume series from 1998 in which five Star Trek captains (one from each of the then television series, plus Captain Pike from the Star Trek pilot and Captain Calhoun from Star Trek New Frontier) each told their story. This new anthology unites top Star Trek authors with no less than nine starship captains, each of whom tells his or her tale in the unique setting of the Captain's Table bar - a watering hole reserved solely for captains throughout time and space. Among those whose company readers can share in Tales From the Captain's Table are Jonathan Archer from Star Trek: Enterprise; Captain William Riker of the USS Titan; Captain Kira Nerys, now commander of space station Deep Space Nine; Captain Chakotay, newly appointed captain of the USS Voyager; Captain Elizabeth Shelby from Star Trek: New Frontier; SCE's Captain Gold; the Klingon captain Klag of the IKS Gorkon and Demora Sulu from the Lost Era volume, Serpents Among the Ruins.

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Novels, Ebooks

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2005

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

VERY disappointed in this book. I was really looking forward to this compilation.

First of all, the setup is just cheesy and feels like a cop-out. And there is no consistency. A few stories include the storytelling framework within the story, e.g. the other bar patrons ask questions throughout. On the other extreme was Picard's story which wasn't even told in the first person. Someone edit this, please.

Also, would it kill them to explain at the beginning of each story who each captain is? It took me his whole story to figure out how Klag fit into the Star Trek universe (and I've seen that episode of TNG). I had to look up David Gold on Memory BETA (not memory Alpha-- so he was never featured in any cannonical Star Trek episode or movie). Where there not enough captains from the TV series to choose from? There was only one representative each from Voyager, Deep Space 9, and Enterprise. And unless you count Demora Sulu, NONE from the original series. And I wouldn't expect anyone who is not a TNG fan to know who Shelby is either.

I hated Riker's story the most I think. Too big of a stretch. Why would a planet reject technology up to an arbritrary point? Oh, but they make an exception for universal translators? And Riker and Troi have to be temporarily genetically altered to have blue skin? And then Picard's story was another one, I did not understand the insect aliens or whatever was supposed to be going on there. I almost put the book down after those two stories.

Better stories were those of Shelby and Sulu. And (in spite the fact that I had NO idea who he was), I actually liked Gold's story. Chakotay and Klag were okay.

[Ojan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the read. It was not outstanding when averaged out. With multiple short stories written in varying styles from multiple authors, it is difficult to judge the book as a whole. A couple stories were excellent, a couple were just okay. I very much liked the concept of "The Captain's Table" and will definitely look for others in this series.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

2023 Review 64. Tales from the Captain's Table, edited by Keith R.A. DeCandido, written by various authors.

Page Count : 337

This was not the kind of book I was expecting when I started reading it.

The previous book was 6 full size stories about space travel and exploration, but this one was 9 different short stories told by 9 different Captain's from Star Trek history :

Jonathan Archer of the Enterprise NX-01
Chakotay of the Voyager
David Gold of the da Vinci
Kira Nerys of Deep Space 9
Klag of the IKS Gorkon
William Riker of the Titan
Jean Luc Picard of the Stargazer / Enterprise
Elizabeth Shelby of the Trident
Demora Sulu of the Enterprise B

Most of these stories rather than being about an adventure on the ship or space station they command were about personal sacrifice or in the case of Captain Picard, remembering something that he had done years in the past while William Riker's story was about being captured by pirates on his honeymoon and the subterfuge that was used to get away and back to his honeymoon.

I was really hoping to like this book but it just wasn't for me. I liked the introduction of several new captains but found that even with that I didn't enjoy the stories.

I'm not sure if this will be a book I will read again in the future as I preferred the stories told in the previous six books which I own as an omnibus edition.

2*
**
🌟🌟

[Carol Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy these glimpses into characters that we know well and those we don't. It is an anthology written by different authors I am giving it four stars because it is Star Trek and some of the stories were great. As with a lot of anthologies there are often authors whose writing style you don't enjoy or the story itself falls flat.

I am behind in my Trek reading I have not read the New Frontier or the ISS Gorkon series so those two stories didn't have an impact on me especially the New Frontiers one which would have had a more emotional impact if I was more familiar with the series.

I hope they keep doing these series adding in the new captains from the new series but I won't hold my breath.

[Donavon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the Tales are quite entertaining:

Riker - 👎not a 'Titan' story at all, but a piriate story that reads like a Gold Key comic book
Picard - 👍'Stargazer' story and maybe only one that has a scene on a ship
Shelby -👍'New Frontiers' story was interesting
Klag - 👎hard to follow, perhaps better if familiar with Klag and ship Gorkon
Kira - 👍time in Resistance, sad and eye opening
Archer - 👍comedic tale about great Porthos
D. Sulu - 👍moving story about family
Chakotay - 👍enjoyed paying off reference to "Sulu" from random Voyager episode
David Gold - 👍liked seeing how modern religions are respected in future, plus future Starfleet references

[Mh430 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hit or Miss Trek anthology with more of the latter

The Picard short was probably the best of the lot with the (Ms.) Sulu and Chakotah pieces also being very good, while the Archer and Riker stories were my least favorites.

There were nine Captain's tales in this book and it would be unrealistic to expect every one of them to be exceptional. The trouble is that a majority of the stories here were disappointing to me.

3.5 stars.

[Irene Y Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Captain's Tales

I truly enjoy these tales some are a bit better than others but they are all enjoyable. There is one thing however that really disappoints me and also I don't understand and that is that Captain Sisko is missing from all of the Captain's Table books. Kira Nerys from DS9 does get a story but so should Sisko.

[Kei · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good compilation of stories, overall, though the Archer one threw me for a bit of a loop.

I've always enjoyed the concept of and the existence of - The Captain's Table.

[Melanie Guzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the short stories about each captain are very engaging. Some aren't as much. Very good for a devoted Trekkie.

[Kristýna Obrdlíková]

První půlka byla slabší, pak už jsem se bavila dobře.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got a good deal on this one.
It was ok. Tied together the second half of the stories, kept me more interested in who or why Cap was. A Q maybe?

[Steven Shinder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really hoping to enjoy this collection of Captain stories, but they all felt like they were kind of just there. Didn’t really add much to the characters.

[John Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you'd expect from an anthology, this is a bit of a mixed bag. I bought it to read Peter David's story about Captain Shelby, which was excellent. KRAD's Klag story and John Ordover's Gold story were decent too. The others were ok to pass the time, but I probably won't bother re-reading them.

Looking at David George's story about Demora Sulu, this demonstrated the problem with a 1st person narrative: it didn't really feel convincing as an off-the-cuff story, particularly with the vocabulary used. It's fine for a professional writer, but it sounded a bit odd coming from a starship captain.

One odd quirk is that the framing story mentioned Chakotay's previous visit to the Captain's Table (when he talked about his Maquis days), but as far as I know that story hasn't actually been told. Frankly, I'd have been more interested in that than the story we actually got (as written by Christie Golden), which was heavy handed to say the least. It's also odd that Sulu has changed ship, so it doesn't quite fit in with her story.

The Riker and Archer stories both had the same idea, namely an unreliable narrator. I think that putting both stories into the same book was poor editing, a bit like the first Tales of the Slayer anthology.

Picard's story was ok, but nothing special. That may just be me; I've never really been keen on Friedman's writing style.

Heather Jarman's Kira story had some interesting ideas, e.g. that she wasn't looking very glamorous after sleeping rough in the resistance, but I don't think the twists make sense. For instance, Kira Nerys used her real name at the club. Was her brother Reon also using his full name (Kira Reon)? If so, it should be pretty obvious that they were related, so Teara had no reason to be jealous. If he used a different name, why? It would have made more sense for Nerys to use a fake name for her infiltration, particularly if we assume that she had a criminal record as a resistance fighter. Also, if Teara was innocent, why did she go out of her way to warn the Cardassian and call him "father"? All these things only seem to be in the story to confuse the reader, not because they make sense for the characters.

[David Palazzolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only bought this book for the New Frontier story which I found riveting. I'll read the other stories after I finish the New Frontier novels. To that end:

Welcome to chapter 21 of the overall series of Star Trek: The New Frontier, or what I like to call Star Trek: The Prime Time Soap. This story picks up some time after Stone and Anvil. The tension between the Federation and the Selevian race left at the end of that novel has exploded into a full fledged war with the Tholians allying themselves with the Selevians and the Orion Pirates finding new opportunities to flourish by picking through the debris left behind after combat. The story focuses on Capt. Elizabeth Shelby and Lt Soleta who are en route to rendezvous with the USS Excalibur and run afoul of a band of Orion Pirates. The story does not end well for Soleta for reasons I will not go into here as it would spoil the end of the story but I will put it like this: If this was a true prime time soap, then this story could easily be the 2nd season cliffhanger.

Next is Star Trek: The New Frontier: After the Fall

[Trev · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag to say the least. I think part of the enjoyment of this book will come from which of these characters you have followed in the various book series. For example, I found the story told by Demora Sulu a real struggle to get into (this being my first brush with this character) but half way through I got into that particular story.

All of them are well written even if some of them will leave you scratching your head wondering what is going on or why the story is what it is, but that is perhaps a personal thing and some people will find these elements the better areas. If you are a fan of these captains then you will probably find this a good read, but if some of these people are new to you then you may want to read a few of their novels before attempting this.

The captains that I did know I found the stories to be in keeping with their characters and yes, one or two aspects may not seem right but this is science fiction!! Put simply, some of these stories are really good, others not so much.

[Curren · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 4 star review is sole based on judging this book for what it is: a Star Trek novel. There is a different author for each chapter, or "captain's story" so the writing quality varies. Most of the writing was okay, a few chapters were somewhat poorly written. Otherwise the idea behind the book is clever and I liked hearing stories about captains that I would not have seen on the tv shows. It helped me appreciate the characters more, and introduced me to new ones. If you are a Star Trek fan, this is a great book - especially if you have seen the shows but have not read a ST novel yet.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story collection featuring all eras of Star Trek. I really like the idea of 'The Captain's Table' bar and think they should do more books using this device. There's a variety of tales here, from the swashbuckling of Rikers honeymoon, to the seriousness of Kiras' brother, to the complete fantasy of Porthos the beagle spy. The fun of this book is that every story is vastly different. A good read.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This amusing collection of short stories is edited by Keith R. A. DeCandido who also contributes a story featuring Klag. Other featured captains are Riker, Picard, Elizabeth Shelby, Kira Nerys, Chakotay, Demora Sulu, David Gold, and Jonathan Archer. Of course, none of them can live up to the legend of Porthos, badass beagle and cheese connoisseur.

Published in trade paperback by Pocket Books.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of stories is uneven, but overall a good read. All the stories are character pieces that don't focus on action or science, but life lessons learned by the characters. The only story that I flat out didn't like was the one focused on Captain Archer. If you liked the format of the Captain's Table series of novels, than I think this collection will satisfy you.

[Jacque Hodges (Carter) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Star Trek. There were a couple of tales that I didn't care for in particular but I think it was more because I wasn't familiar with the captain telling the story than the story itself. At any rate, Yay! Star Trek!

[Fishsanwitt]

stamped

[Allisson Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, light reading. Mission accomplished. Belly up to the mystical bar, prepare to be entertained.

[Benjamin Plume · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well put together, and each tale is kind of nifty. Sort of the fiction of the fictional universe.

[Lindsey Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one. Some stories were better then others. I particularly enjoyed Chakotay's, Golds and Kira's. Archer's was kinda funny, b/c you knew it was all made up. An enjoyable read.

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of short stories by quite a few starship commanders.
Nice read, good for a quick fix of Star Trek literature.