What Lay Beyond

Star Trek: Gateways #7

by Diane Carey, Peter David, Keith R.A. DeCandido

Created by the incalculably ancient Iconians, whose transcendent technology is quantum levels beyond that of the Federation and its allies, the Gateways offer instantaneous transport across unimaginable distances. Throughout the known galaxy, from Deep Space Nine(TM) to the New Frontier, from the Delta Quadrant to the bridge of the "Starship Enterprise(TM)," the sudden reactivation of the Gateways has destabilized interstellar relations between planets and cultures previously separated by countless light-years. Starfleet's finest have coped with the crisis as best they can, but circumstances have forced several valiant commanders to leap through separate Gateways into the unknown. Captain James T. Kirk of the original "Starship Enterprise"

Captain Jean-Luc Picard of "Star Trek: The Next Generation(R)"

Colonel Kira Nerys of "Deep Space Nine"

Captain Kathryn Janeway of the "U.S.S. Voyager(TM) "

Captains Calhoun and Shelby of "Star Trek: New Frontier"

Commander Nick Keller of the "U.S.S. Challenger"

All of these heroes, for their own reasons, have taken the ultimate gamble: hurling themselves personally through a Gateway without any knowledge or forewarning of what lay beyond. Each must face their own unique challenge, struggling to find a way back to the ships and homes they left behind.

And waiting behind at least one of the Gateways are the ageless Iconians themselves, the primordial architects of the mysterious portals causing chaos throughout the Milky Way galaxy.

Where did they disappear to, many long eons ago, and what do they want now? The answer lies on the other side....

"What Lay Beyond" brings the Gateways saga to aspectacular finish, in an all-star collaboration by six popular, bestselling "Star Trek" authors.

Among them, Diane Carey, Peter David, Keith R.A. Decandido, Christie Golden, Robert Greenberger, and Susan Wright have written dozens of "Star Trek" novels. This is their first mega-collaboration.

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Short Stories, Audiobook

384 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

Diane Carey also wrote the Distress Call 911 young adult series under the name D.L. Carey.

Diane Carey is primarily a science fiction author best known for her work in the Star Trek franchise. She has been the lead-off writer for two Star Trek spin-off book series: Star Trek The Next Generation with Star Trek: Ghost Ship, and the novelization of the Star Trek: Enterprise pilot, Broken Bow.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Carey

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good to get closure on the story threads, but the conclusions were not particularly well fleshed or satisfying, frequently relying on what felt like a deus ex machina.

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be honest: I only read the story "Death After Life," which was available as an e-book on a CD-ROM that came with a book I got from the library. That story wasn't listed by itself on Goodreads, so, I marked this as "read" to make it count.

[A.K. Johns · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you only want to read one part of the ‘Gateways’ series, you can skip the others and just read the ending to your favourite in this volume. The stories are not connected enough for it to be necessary to read them all. This will mean that you will have a book full of endings and only one that you can read of course, but trust me, they’re not worth it.

I hope I have covered all the necessary points below. If you have kept up to date with the Star Trek books as they have been released or have a better memory than I do, you can skip down to the bit where I actually review this one.

Otherwise, before you read this volume you may wish to look up other aspects of the Star Trek Universe.
Most obviously are the first 6 books of the Gateways series-

Star Trek (Gateways #1) - One Small Step (It literally follows on from The Original Series 3rd season episode (17) ‘That Which Survives’ and makes more sense if you watch that first).
———
Star Trek: Challenger (Gateways #2) - Chainmail (This is a new crew who feature only in one other book ‘Star Trek: New Earth - Challenger’ which you will need to read as well to even vaguely understand how they came to be. The first 6 books in the ‘New Earth’ series aren’t necessary to follow the ‘Gateways’ thread).
——-
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Gateways #3) Doors Into Chaos (The Series 2, episode #11 ‘Contagion’ introduces the Iconians, creators of the Gateways. The Deep Space Nine Series 4, episode #22 ‘To The Death’ introduces a second Gateway and The Voyager Series 3, episode #24 ‘Displaced’ gives us our first glimpse of the Nyrian, Taleen, who features heavily in this story. There are lots of other references to episodes, but these are the key ones to follow this tale).
———
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Gateways #4) - Demons Of Air And Darkness (This volume is also part of a series that follows on from the end of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV show itself, so it will help if you ensure you know what has happened in that too.
Especially the following-
Series 7
Episode 24 - The Dogs Of War (Rom becomes the Grand Nagus and leaves with Leeta).
Episode 25 - What You Leave Behind (Sisko leaves to be with the Prophets/Worf Is appointed Federation Ambassador to Qo’nos/Odo goes to live with the Founders/Chief O’Brien moves back to Earth to teach at the Academy/The end of the war with the Dominion and Nog’s promotion to Lieutenant, while Garak stays on Cardassia to help rebuild after the war).

As a result of all these changes a new crew is introduced in the following books that precede Gateways #4 -
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Avatar (1&2) (Commander Vaughan and Taran ‘atar are brought in and we meet Shar, an Andorian Ensign and find out that Ro Laren who previously served on the Enterprise D (TNG) has been brought in as Security Chief. Ezri also decides to transfer to command from sciences and Jake ventures to the Wormhole looking for his Dad. Kira becomes attainted by the Vedeks)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Section 31) Abyss (We learn that Jake is struggling in the Wormhole while Bashir takes a crew to expose Section 31)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Rising Son (This story runs alongside the Gateways story, but doesn’t affect it, however if you’ve read the others, you might want to find out what happens to Jake?)
These books in themselves reference lots of other happenings from the series, but I can’t list everything.

On top of these you may want to refresh yourself on these TV episodes -

Star Trek: The Next Generation -
Series 1
Episode 11- The Big Goodbye (The Jaradans feature in this episode establishing their xenophobia)

Series 4
Episode 12 - Wounded (Gul Macet, who looks suspiciously like Gul Dukat, works with Picard)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine -
Series 3
Episode 24 - Shakaar (We meet Lenaris Holem who features heavily in Volume #4).

Series 4
Episode 7 - Little Green Men (Cousin Gaila gives Quark a dodgy ship that sends him back to Roswell)

Series 5
Episode 18 - Business As Usual (Quark works with Gaila selling weapons)

Series 6
Episode 10 - The Magnificent Ferengi (Quark recruits Gaila and others to help him rescue his Mother from the Dominion)

Gaila is a recurring reference throughout the series, if you haven’t heard of him and his moon, I’m not sure why you would read this book?

Episode 15 - Honor Among Thieves (O’Brien goes undercover working for the Orion Syndicate. The Orions in this book are more like the one first seen in The Original Series Episode 1 (Pilot) The Cage).

Star Trek: Voyager
Series 4
Episode 15 - Hunters (We meet the Hirogen for the first time. The Hirogen are important in Gateways Volume #5 as well).
———
Star Trek: Voyager (Gateways) - No Man’s Land (#5). It is easier to follow than #4, but you may still want to catch up with the following-

Star Trek: Voyager
Series 6
Episode 10 - Pathfinder (It is established that the events that take place in books 3, 4, 5 & 6 of the ‘Gateways’ series take place after this episode featuring Reg Barclay).
Episode 14 - Memorial (It would appear that what happens in this volume follows on from this episode specifically).
——-
Star Trek: New Frontier (Gateways) - Cold Wars (#6)
In order to understand what is going on in this one I did have to do a small bit of digging and Wiki Fandom was helpful for that.

If you haven’t read any of the New Frontier books it won’t hurt as the history is quite well defined in this volume and it is easy to read as a stand alone from that series. But if you would like a bit of background then this is as much as I know and may help with reading this volume.

Star Trek: The Animated Series

Series 1
Episode 3 - One Of Our Planets Is Missing (Lieutenant Arex Na Eth appears as a security officer. He is somehow brought to the future and the timeline of New Frontier shortly after Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He then serves as Chief of Security on the Trident).
Episode 6 - Survivor (The first appearance of Shiboline M-Ress, who is, like Arex, also displaced into the future before serving on the Trident sometime after Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Series 2
Episode 6 - The Schizoid Man (Dr Selar is seen for the first and last time. She now serves as the Chief Medical Officer on the Excalibur).

Series 3 & 4
Episodes 24 & 1 (Respectively) - Best Of Both Worlds (Elizabeth Shelby is introduced as is her obsession with the Borg and her ambition to become a Captain.

Series 5
Episode 6 - The Game (We meet Robin Leffler. It is established in this book, at least, that her Mother is a woman named Morgan Primus, an immortal, who seems to be a way of explaining Majel Barrett’s repeated appearances in the Star Trek Universe. There is a much more information about her in the other New Frontier books and on Wiki (Memory Beta) Fandom.

Series 6
Episodes 10 & 11 - Chain Of Command (Captain Edward Jellico is brought to the Enterprise to cover in Picard’s absence. In the New Frontier series he has been promoted to Admiral).
—————
Star Trek (Gateways) - What Lay Beyond (#7) contains references to the following-

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Series 6
Episode 6 - True Q (We meet Amanda Rogers, the daughter of two former Q turned Human).

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Series 6
Episode 21 - The Reckoning (Kira is possessed by a prophet in order to fight Jake who has been taken over by a Pagh Wraith).

Star Trek: Voyager
Series 3
Episode 11 - The Q And The Grey (Q mates and the first fully Q baby is born)

Review:

I am actually quite livid that I suffered through all 7 of these books. I only wanted to follow the ‘DS9’ storyline that continues after the series end, so I was already annoyed when I found that I had to read this series just for one book. I was further frustrated then to find that I could have easily read just the ‘DS9’ element and the ending printed in this volume (#7). It was absolutely unbearable when I then found out that not only did the story bear no relevance to the storyline I had been reading (Avatar/Abyss/etc), but it was also terrible.

The publishers and writers have missed a real trick here by not uniting the crews and getting them to work together in a similar way to the ‘Marvel Universe’. Instead we have six below average books that have had their final chapters chopped off in order to make a seventh, thus milking the fans once again for every penny.
It seems to me that the strongest story, The Next Generation, was written and then everyone else decided to jump on the ‘Gateways’ bandwagon and write some tripe to go along with it. Most of the tales are pretty weak and the ‘Challenger’ and ‘New Frontier’ ones are just awful, especially the endings. I’m this close to putting the whole collection back on eBay, I’m certainly glad that I didn’t pay full price for them.

There isn’t even a recap at the beginning to help you recall the events as they were left, which would have made sense as I read book 1 months ago.
The writing throughout is also generally quite poor and badly edited/proof read.

I would actually suggest that with the exception of ‘TNG’ you read the endings after each of the first six books if you can stand to read all or any of them. It won’t effect anything in the other books if you do it this way.

I will break each ending down as a review of this volume, but don’t expect praise.

Star Trek - One Giant Leap.
Captain Kirk travels to the Petraw homeworld with Tasm and Luz, characters that I’d already forgotten. There is a fight to get Kirk home without leaving the Gateway technology in the hands of these obviously untrustworthy people. Generally the story is ok, but the Petraw here seem very different to those in the ‘TNG’ section later on. The rest of the crew don’t feature so don’t get excited for Spock or anyone else. It’s short and not really worth separating from its previous volume (#1 - One Small Step).

Star Trek: Challenger - Exodus.
I really don’t like this crew and this ending was so bad. It’s still unclear whether ‘The Living’ are Iconians or their descendants or what and if not, how did they get hold of the technology? ‘The Living’ are such a backwards race and not interesting at all.
I also refuse to believe that any Starfleet Captain would hand over a crew member like Keller does.
Another ending that didn’t need to be separated from its own volume (#2 - Chainmail) I can see why the ‘Challenger’ series was not continued.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Horn And Ivory.
It’s like they wanted to write a story from Bajor’s past, but didn’t have faith that it would be popular enough to sell so they took bits from an existing story and chucked it here to give Kira something to do in this last book.
It’s rushed, choppy and poorly edited. It bears similarities to ‘Outlander’ or ‘Game Of Thrones’ and has no real relevance to Star Trek at all.
If you want to delve in to the Bajoran past then this might interest you, but really there is so much missing that I wouldn’t bother. The ending is pathetic, is it a dream, a vision from the prophets or was she really there? And Taran ‘Atar suddenly being okay was almost as if they’d forgotten all about him, but remembered that he was needed in the next book so threw him back in again. This is a Kira focused book.
The ending isn’t even worthy of being attached to the volume it’s supposed to follow (#4 - Demons Of Air And Darkness).

Star Trek: Voyager - In The Queue.
Well I suppose they had to find something for Q to do, but again this didn’t need to be parted from the main Voyager book (#5 - No Man’s Land). The suggestion that Q started it all off is daft and so is the pet (Barkley/Fluffy). It’s all a bit easy and convenient and there are too many happy endings.

Star Trek: New Frontier - Death After Life.
Another completely irrelevant ending for a crew that I couldn’t care less about. It seems that the authors haven’t discussed with each other what the Gateways can do, as the two Captains find themselves in the afterlife? It is never explained how this is possible. We also never find out what Smyt was talking about with regards to the giants, although it is implied that they are the Iconians in the ‘TNG’ ending. We are also left without knowing if the Aeron and Markanian’s ever make peace. Maybe you find out in the next volume of ‘New Frontier’, but I really don’t care.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Other Side.
The best of the lot saved until the end, but there are still some issues with proof reading, Etc.
The author utilises the whole crew as well as Picard on his separate journey, although some of it does seem to be put in just to flesh the story out.
It’s not the Iconian Gateway ending I was expecting or hoping for and I feel that Jean-Luc was a bit disappointed too.
I might keep volume 7 instead of putting it on eBay purely because of the ‘TNG’ storyline.
I think that Captain Picard should have been the focus of all of the endings and helped out the other captains as he traced the Gateways back to the right place to shut them all down, instead of all of these useless throw away finishes. They could certainly have united the four series that run concurrently to create a better finale. He could have rescued Kira from the Delta Quadrant, helped Calhoun and Shelby discover what Smyt was talking about and made brief contact with Voyager as he sent Taleen back, but been unable to bring Voyager back because of a Hirogen attack. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Overall, what’s so frustrating is how the endings have no real connection with the book that had gone before with the exception of ‘Challenger’. As if the authors decided that the Gateways gave them an opportunity to go wild with their stories.

I am genuinely aggrieved that I suffered through New Frontier and Challenger when I didn’t need to and I could have easily skipped the others without losing anything, not to mention that I could have been reading DS9 - Mission Gamma instead of this DS9 story that has no bearing on what I actually wanted to read.
I am sick and tired of the publishers taking advantage of the fans by making these series’ of books and then not bothering to make it worthwhile with a decent crossover. When I have finished my DS9 reading I will be very selective about the books I choose to read from the Star Trek universe and might even try my hand at writing one that may just include the Gateways in a much more clever way than they have been used in this collection.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that I really enjoyed reading. Despite the fact that I've seen in several reviews that the whole idea of having this book, with all the different endings from the previous stories, wasn't very popular. I admit that for me it did have a somewhat negative effect when it came to how well I remembered the beginnings of each story, and had the ending been in each book it might have made it just a little bit easier. But I wouldn't say it was a problem as such. I read this series in a period that spanned a little over six months, and I could without problems read this book without having to re-read anything from the previous books. But if you were to read even slower than that you might feel the need to refresh your memory a bit more. I should mention that I'm also of the opinion that cliffhangers can be a good thing, at least if you're planning on reading the whole series to begin with.

So now let me tell you what made this book so great. First of all I either really liked or loved the endings. I would say that they, in large, were even better than the beginnings of the story. Even the story with the Challenger crew (that I did like, but not as much as the other ones) I thought had a really good ending that made me like that story even more. I would say that there were strong endings well worth the wait. And if you have questions like how the gateway technology came to be, if Picard and the others will actually get to meet the real Iconians or maybe just what happens on the other side of the gateways; this book will answer those questions for you. So all in all; a really good ending to an interesting series within our beloved Star Trek universe.

And before I end this review I just want to add that the Star Trek Novels Timeline at the end was a fun addition. It made me add two more books to my to-read-list (Spock's World from TOS and Imzadi from TNG for all of you curious people out there). :)

[Jonathan Koan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Gateways saga has been wildly uneven, and each book has ended on a cliffhanger that had to stick the landing here. The books have been standalone books with a very loose thread of an idea connecting them together. I'd hoped that this book might rescue the poorer entries in the series and boost the better ones. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

This book should have been a crossover, featuring all the captains working together to stop the Iconian/Petraw and save the day. Had that happened, it would have felt important. Unfortunately, each story not only continues to stand alone, but most of them do not pay off the series in a meaningful way. And the way the Gateways work in each story seems to contradict the others.

There was 1 story I enjoyed, and that was the Voyager story "In the Queue". This story had the most cohesion, felt the most like a story from the series, and (in my opinion) paid off the novel it corrosponds to the best. But, it also feels like it doesn't connect to the larger story of the Gateways, so it (and the novel together) should have just been a numbered Voyager book.

There were 2 stories in here that I thought were ok. The TOS story "One Giant Leap" and the final TNG story "The Other Side". The TOS one at least felt like it was paying off the preceeding novel, but it wasn't quite great, only ok. The TNG story tries to serve as the main big story in the book, the finale of the saga, but unfortunately, its only ok.

The DS9 story just made me so frustrated thoughout, and the New Frontier story was just forgettable. And I don't even know what the Challenger story was trying to be.

I enjoyed the Voyager story (and I guess the TOS and TNG stories to an extent) that I won't give the book a flat 1 star on goodreads, but man is this book (and series) a disappointment.

Overall, 3.5 out of 10. Just not a great entry here.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 1 out of 5]

(This is part of my ongoing look at the 850+ novels comprising the "Star Trek Non-Canon Expanded Universe." For more on what exactly non-canon novels are and why they can be tricky to review, see my very first Star Trek write-up, for SD Perry's Section 31: Cloak; or see here for the master list of all Star Trek novels I've now reviewed.)

2021 reads, #85 and 86. This book comes at the intersection of two different mini-series I'm currently tracking here at Goodreads in the universe of Star Trek non-canon novels. It's at once book #3 in the "Deep Space Nine Relaunch" series, in which Paramount gave these Simon & Schuster authors permission to pretend they were writing an eighth, ninth, tenth season and more of the official TV show, so that permanent deaths could happen within a persistent universe of events that's carried over from one book to another (but see my review of the first book in the series, S.D. Perry's Avatar, for more); and it's also book #6 of the seven-book "Gateways" series, one of the gimmicky "Special Summer Reading Event" publicity stunts Simon & Schuster held in the early '00s, in which a subject from the Star Trek universe was picked (like Section 31, for example, or in this case the Iconian Gateways), and a different story concerning this subject was published simultaneously in all the various Star Trek ongoing series of novels (both TV-based ones like The Next Generation and the original Kirk/Spock series, and series invented exclusively for the novels, like the "Challenger" and "New Voyages" books), usually in May so that fans could slowly make their way through all four or six or eight of the books over the summer at various pools, beaches and airports.

That's a lot of explanation for a beach read, so no wonder Simon & Schuster recently decided to bring an official end to this "Relaunch" storyline that's been persistently existing for the last twenty years, with the coming "Coda" trilogy at the end of this year that promises to wrap up every outstanding storyline in not only these 35-odd DS9 relaunch novels, but the dozen-plus relaunch books The Next Generation has been going through at the same time. After all, like I talked about in my last Star Trek review, the TNG and DS9 teams (both in the novels and the original TV shows) had a warmly collaborative relationship; the two storylines are supposed to be happening in the same fictional time period, in the same fictional part of the Milky Way galaxy, and there was even a fair amount of bleeding over between actors and staff writers of the two shows when they were first being produced. So it makes sense that, after Simon & Schuster lead editor Marco Palmieri got permission from Paramount to do this with their intellectual property rights for DS9 (already heavily serialized on television, which is why it made sense to do it in the books too), and it went well (i.e. fans were still willing to buy the books, even with the new rule that you must read them all and read them in order for them to make sense), it would be expanded to the TNG milieu as well. This "special relationship" became so strong, in fact, that even most of the book-exclusive brand-new series that were invented (like the popular "Corps of Engineers," for example) were set in the same time period and same section of the galaxy, so that they could ride the coattails of these two other series' bigger successes; and there were even attempts over these years to bring all the titles together "Avengers"-style into series-crossing mega-events, a good example being this exact "Iconian Gateways" seven-book series we're looking at today.

Eventually, though, these kinds of persistent universes get so loaded down with their own history and exposition that they end up imploding; and you can see a good example of these "Relaunch" titles heading in that direction with these very books, in which six of the novel division's ongoing series all tried to get together for a massive mega-story, but ended up having to keep up with so many different people's machinations throughout all seven books that it sometimes became almost unreadable. I talk about that some in my review of the TNG part of the "Gateway" series, and you can see it here too, especially in sections like the giant meeting with Starfleet brass that all the people in these various titles have together at a certain point, in order to get everyone up to speed and on the same page, and is essentially repeated in all the titles so that it has to get through literally six books' worth of characters giving expository dialogue before it can finally be declared over. Author Keith R.A. DeCandido, a well-loved non-canon regular contributor (he's also written books for Supernatural, World of Warcraft, Firefly, Resident Evil, and a lot more), does the best he can here, putting in an admirable amount of effort at trying to advance the "DS9 Relaunch" series of events regardless of being forced to shoehorn in this ongoing story about the galaxy-wide Gateway openings, with some characters getting "crisis of the week" situations to take care of (such as Kira helping out a race of people who are threatened with extinction by the reverberations of these energy-sucking interplanetary gateways), and others whose minimal plot developments are more in service of deep character-building (such as Ro Laren's decision to pose as an accompanying dabo girl when Quark is hired to be the Orion Syndicate's spokesman for the gateway bidding war, and the funny and interesting way they interact as they blast their way out of trouble by the end of all the shenanigans).

Then there's the last book of this series, What Lay Beyond, which is about as shameless a grab for money as I've ever seen a multinational corporation do; essentially, they withheld the last chapter of all six other novels from the rest of this series, making the last volume an anthology of all the other six last chapters, making it pointless as anything else but an excuse to pay Simon & Schuster another ten bucks to see how any of these other books actually end. That makes it rather useless to do a review of, which is why I'm just incorporating it into my review of the DS9 volume, and posting this at both the book pages; and here's hoping that S&S learned their lesson from what I bet was a big outcry when this first happened (at least if all the outraged reactions here at Goodreads are any indication), and that I won't have to deal with this regarding any of the other "special mega-series" I might wind up reading down the road. For next time, though, we go in the opposite direction -- another multi-book series regarding a special topic, but this time concerning only a small sliver of DS9's regular cast, as mysterious new character Elias Vaughn leads a bunch of regulars on the fighting ship USS Defiant through the Bajoran wormhole and into the largely unknown Gamma Quadrant for a four-book uber-arc of a story. I hope you'll have a chance to join me again here next month for the start of that.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very satisfying read, although I wish I had read all the previous books before this one. Each Star Trek story was written by a writer specializing in that series, and all the characters seemed true to their era and series. A nice way to combine the best characters from all the beloved Star Trek series. And the sequential story list at the back was exhaustive, extensive and impressive :)

[Jeffrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book includes the last chapter of each of the first 6 books. Kind of stupid in my opinion. I read book 3 only since I just like reading the TNG series so had to get this book so I could read the end of the story (about 100 pages). Sadly, this ending was fairly incoherent in some parts, and overall was a bit disappointing to me.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is really a half-witted way to finish off a big crossover event. I read just two of the stories before giving up, the Next Generation and New Frontiers stories, and found them both mediocre or worse.

[FortConspiracy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Piece of crap. It's the last few chapters of the 6 preceeding books, some of those being unreadable garbage. What was promised to be a big crossover, had nearly 0 crossover. Don't waste your time with any of this series.

[Kiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this is a series of short stories / novellas from each of one of the prior Gateway novels, and/or a direct tie-in from a main series. It finishes up the Gateways series and some loose ends from the main series themselves. Getting to "see" the Iconians during these stories was very interesting - especially their viewpoints and the "respect" they have for at least one other very ancient race.

One Giant Leap by Susan Wright (ST:TOS, Captain James T. Kirk)
       In One Small Step (Gateways #1) by Susan Wright, when Luz and Tasm, two of the Petraw (a race of scavengers that search out the technology of other races for their own use and advancement), steal the vital Gateway component and flees to their homeworld through the Gateway, Kirk follows. One Giant Leap covers what happens after they all arrive on the homeward of the Petraw.
       Kirk finds himself on the Petraw home world, seemingly stranded and a prisoner of the Petraw. Luz is unhappy when the credit for obtaining the Gateway technology is awarded to her Commander (Tasm), and not herself. Collaborating with Kirk, the two hide out until they finally have the chance to seemingly steal back the Gateway technology which the Petraw are laboring to unlock. In the ensuing struggle Kirk destroys the Gateway, but not before he and Luz use it to flee to Earth where Luz warns Kirk, "We haven't seen the last of my people yet."

Exodus by Diane Carey (ST:Challenger, Commander Nick Keller)
       Chainmail (Gateways #2) by Diane Carey is the precursor for this short story. In this Commander Keller succeeds in convincing the Living to travel through the Gateway back to where they originally came from and they all travel back to the Belle Terra sector. It establishes that the Gateways can be used to travel to other dimensions. Which is kind of redundant because we already knew that.

Horn and Ivory by Keith R.A. DeCandido (ST:DS9, Colonel Kira Nerys)
       Directly following on the heels of Demons of Air and Darkness (Gateways 6, DS9 46?) We discover what happens to Kira when she passes through the Gateway to escape a nasty Theta Radiation demise in the Gamma Quadrant while helping with the evacuation of Europa Nova.
       In Horn and Ivory, Kira finds herself stranded on Bajor, some thirty thousand years before her time. She gets engaged in a civil war, fighting alongside General Torrna Antosso on the Perikian Peninsula, and she later becomes his adjutant. It is the days when Bajor was still broken up into different factions, but already, the "Bajora" try to unite the planet - with the help of the Prophets. In the meantime, the Fire Caves have collided destroying the port and city of Agilva, it was the time when the Prophets captured the Pah-wraiths there.
       Kira and Torrna later become prisoners during the waves of the war, but they manage to escape. Back on the peninsula, Torrna is desperate - his wife Lyrra and his children were all killed during the war. Kira tries to pummels some sense into him and reminds him of his duties. Kira finally travels to the Fire Caves and finds another Iconian Gateway there. When she steps through it, she briefly meets an alien which apparently is truly an Iconian, and he sends her back to DS9.
       On the station, Kira memorizes over her experiences and finally realizes what she has to do: To accept that Benjamin Sisko is gone, to accept that the world is changing, and finally for her, to accept her being in charge of DS9.
       This story is also reprinted in the Deep Space Nine relaunch omnibus edition, Twist of Faith

In the Queue by Christie Golden (ST:VOY, Captain Kathryn Janeway)
       Completes the Voyager novel No Man's Land (Gateways #5) by Christie Golden, In the Queue details the origins of the gate system.

Death After Life by Peter David (ST: New Frontier, Captains Mackenzie Calhoun and Elizabeth Shelby)
       Follows Cold Wars where Calhoun and Shelby were left battered, bruised and near death.
       Calhoun and Shelby find themselves on the other side of the Gateway where they are forced to continuously relive a past event on Calhoun's homeworld of Xenex, dying over and over again . They have traveled to Kaz'hera, the Xenexian version of the Valhalla, the afterlife. While it does present the character of Calhoun with an opportunity to confront his own past, and Calhoun and Shelby as newly married characters to explore what they feel for each other. I am under the impression this takes place nearly immediately after they were married (the fact they are married is referenced in Section 31: Abyss ). Frankly this one could have been written anywhere - didn't have much to do with the overall context of the Iconian Gateways. It feels like they just needed to include *something* from this series.

The Other Side by Robert Greenberger (ST:TNG, Captain Jean-Luc Picard)
       Doors Into Chaos (Gateways #3) is the key to the entire series. Picard, having a background of sorts with the Iconians and their Gateways, is the logical leader of the cooperative effort to find a way to shut down the Gateways that have opened all over the galaxy. In Doors Into Chaos (Gateways #3) the story is used to illustrate the magnitude of the crisis facing the Galaxy, and to establish that it is indeed the race of the Petraw that we met in the first novel who are behind the awakening of the Iconian Gateways.        With the scam they are trying to pull off this time they realize that they have grossly miscalculated. When confronted, they admit that they did not know what all of the consequences of so many active Gateways would be and that they don't know how to turn them off.
       Picard's journey through a Gateway is a desperate attempt to locate the ancient Iconians and find a way of shutting down the entire Gateway network. Picard does indeed find the descendants of the Iconians and while they themselves cannot help him, they do provide him with the information to try to accomplish the deed himself. He must locate the Master Resonator, a device that, when located, should shut down the network of Gateways. After being sent on his way Picard finds himself on an alien world, once populated by the Iconians. With the aid of a local inhabitant discovers that instead of just one device there are 14. Thankfully there is also a map of sorts that tells Picard which Gateways the resonators must be inserted into.
       After returning to the Enterprise via a Gateway the race is on to get all the resonators into place before time runs out. This requires the cooperation of numerous ships and draws back into the story the Defiant, the Excalibur and the Trident. As well as several other familiar ships and characters. The joint effort is successful and the Petraw are sent on their way with the warning never to try to pull anything on the Federation again.

[Casey Pettitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the conclusion to the Gateways saga, What Lay Beyond should have brought everything together with a satisfying, cohesive finale. Instead, it felt like six disconnected short stories — some more engaging than others — cobbled together without a solid narrative through-line. The overarching problem with the Gateways series is even more apparent here: a strong concept poorly executed.

Each story picks up after the abrupt cliffhangers from the previous novels — TOS, Challenger, DS9, VOY, NF, and TNG, respectively — but few of them actually resolve anything in a meaningful way. Some even struggle to justify their inclusion in the larger Gateways arc.

While stories like Voyager's "In the Queue" and New Frontier's "Death After Life" had their moments — especially when focusing on character work or tying directly back to prior books — others felt confused, inconsequential, or just wildly off-tone (looking at you, Challenger). The TNG entry, "The Other Side," arguably carried the most responsibility, as it attempted to wrap up the Iconian/Petraw conflict — but even that was uneven. It wanted to be both a standalone Picard tale and a saga-ending piece, and didn't quite succeed at either.

The lack of coordination across the various authors really shows. Some stories felt like true continuations; others like awkward one-offs. Promising ideas — like the ability to shut down the Gateways — were abandoned. Key antagonists were forgotten or abruptly sidelined. And the overall vibe? Disjointed. Messy. Rushed. What could have been an epic sci-fi crossover was reduced to a loose collection of character vignettes that just happened to involve some ancient wormhole tech.

Honestly, the whole idea of concluding the saga in a hardcover shorty story collection (sold separately from the books that set it up) feels like a cash grab more than anything else. It's no surprise the Gateways model wasn't repeated in future Trek fiction.

While a few of the stories work well enough on their own — Voyager, New Frontier, and TNG have their moments — the collection as a whole is weighed down by confusion, inconsistency, and lack of narrative cohesion. It's not that every story was bad, but even the good ones couldn't overcome the sagging framework of the Gateways saga's overall conclusion. This wasn't just a weak ending — it undermined much of what came before it. My 2-star rating reflects the whole experience, not just the sum of its parts.

[Dustin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The gimmick of the Gateways series wasn't the Iconian gateways, it was that, no matter which one you read, you had to buy two books to get the entire story. What Lay Beyond was basically the last chapter of Gateways 1-6.

[Andrew Price · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book I had to read to get the series completed.

[Crystal Bensley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to skip the first couple of stories in the collection as I could not remember the books well enough!

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much like the series it concludes, the quality of these stories was mixed. Each novella provides the ending of one of the unfinished novels that made up books one through six.

The Kirk closer was not awful, but it felt lackluster and obvious compared to the first part of the story.

The Keller conclusion I actually liked, even if the ending came completely out of left field.

The DS9 exploration of Kira's journey was just as good as the preceding novel. Easily the strongest concluding story.

I can't really judge the Voyager novel since I didn't read it, but its conclusion was silly.

I also didn't read the Calhoun and Shelby book, for which the concluding novella makes me glad. Pretty sure M'k'n'z or whatever would have been laughed out of the room by the D&D players in Stranger Things. I basically skimmed this one to see if it had any impact on the larger story, and the only hint that it might was never picked up again. Apparently Chekhov didn't carry a phaser.

The TNG conclusion was about as shoddy as the TNG novel, if you could call it that. We see the return of Incompetent Riker and Badass Troi, though not the recurrence of Nervous Data. The reprised bad guys from a Voyager episode never actually turn on anybody. Yawn. And most of the "action" is Picard playing Space Jesus to a planet full of NPCs from Ocarina of Time. Completely lackluster.

So for the series as a whole.... The DS9 novel and novella were decent. The Kirk novel was fun and the Keller book was ok. I kind of regret wasting my time on the rest of it. I always liked TNG, which is why it hurts to see it done so badly.

And even if the writing had been up to snuff and the stories had been solid, this "buy the 7th book to read the endings to the first 6!" gimmick needs to die.

[Norman Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Demons of Air and Darkness (Book 4 of the "Gateways" mini-series) by Keith R.A. DeCandido ends with a huge cliffhanger, to be continued in the “Horn and Ivory” novella in What Lay Beyond, the seventh book of the “Gateways” crossover. What Lay Beyond contains the final 50 to 130 pages of each of the previous six “Gateways” books, a crass marketing attempt at getting readers to buy another book if they want to read the conclusion of the book they're interested in. I skipped the other sections in What Lay Beyond. “Horn and Ivory” sees Kira passing through one of the Gateways, going not only through space, but also 30,000 years into the past of Bajor, her home planet. Nowhere in the previous novel was there any hint that the Gateways were capable of time travel, but there you go. Kira lands in the middle of an ancient civil war, using her leadership and battle skills to help one of the sides. But the ending is virtually akin to the tired trope of “and then she woke up”, making the whole thing close to pointless. Maybe in subsequent books the experience will shade some of her thinking, but I won't hold my breath.
This volume also contains an extensive Star Trek chronology, covering all the TV episodes and novelizations up to its print date.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

The conclusion to all 6 books...and what a letdown. Each story felt so apart from what came before with the exception of the Next Generation one as these Gateways seemed to not also pass through space but time and even dimension... I don't know. I think not everyone got the memo about what these things actually did. And I was disappointed with pretty much all the endings.

TOS - Sneaking around the Petraw homeworld and then getting lucky and finding a way back quickly...meh

Challenger - Skipped it. Didn't read the book. Tired of Diane Carey's crap...I mean books.

DS9 - An adventure out of time where Kira doesn't care about consequences. Was really anticipating this one and then it just ended.

VOY - Q shows up and tells Janeway he's manipulated the Gateways to what he wanted them to do. Q is as lazy as saying "The Force willed it!" In Star Wars. If he's not central to the whole story, he's a crutch for lazy writing. Quite disappointing.

New Frontier - A little meat here but repetitive. Not sure if this was written as a passive rebellion to the main storyline.

TNG - Wraps up the main thread. At least it didn't have random irrelevant moments with other Gateways. Had a lot of padding irregardless.

Overall just disappointed in the Gateways series. Since everyone wrote their own stories it lacked cohesion and could have been bigger and much more epic but settled for...standard fare.

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had higher hopes for this final book in the Gateways crossover event since it felt like we were very likely going to have all these different captains of the different ships go on an adventure together as all the prior books ended with them crossing through a gateway. Instead, we got a largely anthology-style collection of short stories or practically just the last chapters of the other books in this series. Seriously.

This felt like such a big cash grab! Why didn't they just include those closing chapters in their original books? Of course, the main TNG book had the longest ending since Picard had to bring some final resolution to the greater Petraw/Iconian gateway problem, but I'm not sure if it was worth a whole other book.

Best moments including the resolution to Janeway's adventure across the gateway despite the cheesy ending. Admittedly, I also greatly enjoyed Troi's time in the captain's chair for the Marco Polo - command does suit her. Kira's was the most confusing given it's largely spiritual implications for her personally. I'm not sure why her gateway sort of sent her on a little vision quest.

[Kazzie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Considering what we discover about the gateways in the respective preceding books (Doors Into Chaos, Demons of Air & Darkness and No Man's Land being the ones that I exclusively read), 'What Lay Beyond' is the farthest thing from what I had expected to read. In some way, that probably overshadowed my expectations and tainted what I actually read. The gateways are essentially stargates or portals. What Colonel Kira, Captain Janeway and Captain Picard all experienced in their stories did not compute with me with what these portals were. It was bizarre and strange and not what I was expecting at all and I did not like it at all. Essentially, I DNF'd this book after reading the story for Voyager (without reading the story for TNG). It was such a disappointment after the build-up from the previous novels.

[Vic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kira’s journey is concluded in the Horn and Ivory novella from this anthology that concludes six different novels that each ended with a cliffhanger. It was once again tempting to read them all, but I stuck to just the one featuring a DS9 character. And whaddaya know, I loved it! It takes Kira into a completely different setting and provides a bit more historical info about Bajor in their middle ages. I guess this would have made for a weird ending to the novel but I still really wish it had been bundled together.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was confused at first, then when I went to rate this book I found that it was book 7 of a seven part series. In all fairness the ending was ok. but I think that I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the whole series. So I will just say that this is a good read and I love that like Generations it brought Capt Kirk into the same book with Captain Picard, not interactive but still fun. I will read the series in order and rate this book again after.

[Villain E · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been rereading the New Frontier series. I decided to read this whole book, even though I haven't read any of the other books in the Gateways series.

This was a mixed bag. Some of these were good, some not so much. Most were not written to stand alone.

[S.J. Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, the highs and lows of the series are on display, as the last chunk of each entry is compiled here. That was a choice. Overall, still a fun read, but the execution's been pretty uneven.

3.5/5 The Gateways outstayed their welcome, but at least some fun was had.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read the TOS and TNG chapters of this book and they were ok. TOS 2.5* TNG 3.5* I thought the concept was good and the TNG plot was interesting and enjoyable to read. TOS not so much. I didn't really believe the character was Kirk.

[Peter Rydén · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imponerande avslutning på en något splittrad serie. Med denna bok som knyter samman historierna blir helheten något mycket bättre än vad som tidigare var väntat.

[Tim]

Third and final time picking this book up. This time I read the 6th of 6 novellas, In the Queue by Christie Golden.

[Peter Strauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

#cancion #StarTrek800 #StarTrekVOY #psychology #TaiwanCanHelp

[kevin robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic

This has to be the best series of books I’ve read some more than others but great. The running storyline and the off shoots are brilliantly done bravo to all those involved and thank you very much.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a pretty good conclusion to the Gateways series. Each section was written by the author who wrote the corresponding book in the series, which unfortunately means that the quality varies widely between the sections.

Star Trek TOS: Purely meh. This one introduced the antagonists. There's really not much else to say.

Star Trek Challenger: Had nothing to do with the rest of the series and was the worst written one. Can be skipped without missing a single thing.

Star Trek DS9: Kind of a weird one, but not too bad.

Star Trek Voyager: Has a cameo by one of my favorite characters, so I'm happy.

Star Trek New Frontier: A decent book, but the section in What Lay Beyond does absolutely nothing for the overall story. I'm still wondering how or why the gateway would lead them to the freaking afterlife. C'mon, what the hell?

Star Trek TNG: Okay, this one makes up for the meh-ness of some of the others and put this book firmly in the 4-star territory. Picard's experience as a Young God was kind of odd, but his quest itself was intriguing.

So overall, this was a worthwhile series, if you skip the weird-ass Challenger book. I definitely wouldn't mind a book about the Iconians.