Farscape: Ship of Ghosts

Farscape: Novels & Guides #3

by David Bischoff, Rockne S. O'Bannon (Creator)

Lost and alone in unknown territory, astronaut John Crichton has found a refuge of sorts aboard Moya, a vast living starship sheltering a fractious band of bizarre alien fugitives. Now Moya and her squabbling inhabitants have run afoul of a mysterious space vessel that only seems to be deserted. In truth, the ship belongs to a race of strange astral entities who lure the unlucky wayfarers into their clutches.

Desperate to fulfill an ancient prophecy, the crew of the "ghost ship" will stop at nothing to escape their limbo-like existence, forcing Crichton and the others to brave the mystic terrors of an alien realm in order to free the restless spirits-not to mention themselves!

Genres: Science Fiction

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 7, 2001

About the author

aka Mark Grant (with Bruce King), Brad Quentin (with Terry Bisson)

Born in Washington D.C. and now living in Eugene, Oregon, David Bischoff writes science fiction books, short stories, and scripts for television. Though he has been writing since the early 1970s, and has had over 80 books published, David is best known for novelizations of popular movies and TV series including the Aliens, Gremlins, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and WarGames.

Reviews

[Rosie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just when you think it starts getting better - it doesn't. ;-)

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

The events in this story take place right after the pilot episode. Crais is ultra-gun-ho to find and kill Crichton. Moya is fleeing with her crew and gets into an area of space not under Peacekeeper control. They don't know, though, that one of the other ships under Crais' command has managed to follow them.

They run into what seems to be an abandoned ship, but it turns out to have beings on it that are in a form of energy. They want to return to their regular bodies and most of all they want to go home. There's a viper in the nest, though, a powerful woman that does not want to return home; she wants to continue their journey through space.

She captures Crichton and it's up to the rest of the crew of Moya to rescue him. Rygel has a very fascinating role to play in this novel, starting out the fool but ending up the wise man.
So, they all need to stop the evil woman, get the beings back into their bodies, help them get their ship in shape to go home and, at the same time, avoid the other Peacekeeper vessel. Typical type of life they all have to lead and it leads to a very good book.

[Katharine (Ventureadlaxre) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of character, but it's still Farscape. Yay.

[Kris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I recently got back in to Farscape again and remembered my love for the series. As such I thought I would try one of the spin-off novels. Unfortunately, if this is a sign of the general quality, I can see why there were only 3 of them.
The prose is terrible, the characterization is off, the plot is slap-dash and it doesn't feel like he understood the show at all. Definitely won't be trying any others.

[Vincenzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining but a few too many outlandish moments. The "furze" was funny but a little immersion-breaking. I did love Rygel's story here, felt very appropriate. The peacekeepers felt unnecessary to the story, removing them would have changed nearly nothing. It took nearly 2/3rds of the book to explain what was going on which felt a bit much. Kind of middle of the road, probably my least favorite of the three farscape books, but not entirely bad.

[sologdin · Rating 1 out of 5]

we won't let multiple fatal continuity errors dick up an opportunity for a quick tie-in!

[Glen Hoos · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm fairly certain that Bischoff took what was going to be an absolutely terrible fantasy novel and turned it into an even worse Farscape novel.