Star Trek: Transformations: A Captain Sulu Adventure

Star Trek: Captain Sulu Adventures

by Dave Stern, George Takei (Narrator), Dana Ivey (Narrator)

Starfleet diplomat Captain Hikaru Sulu is transported by powerful, frightening dreams to the desolate desert world of Sigma Cameron Four. It was there, as Commander of the U.S.S. Excelsior 20 years earlier, that he discovered traces of the ancient Shalakai—a ruthless culture who, legend held, had once uncovered the secret to eternal life. Driven to find that secret, Sulu's brilliant science officer, Commander Flynn Konner, launched a fateful mission whose outcome would forever haunt the Excelsior crew. Now, 20 years later, as the distinguished archeologist Dr. Constance Allenwood moves closer to uncovering the Shalakai's secrets on Sigma Cameron Four, Sulu must race to stop her before she unleashes a disastrous chain of events.

Genres: Star Trek, Audiobook, Science Fiction, Star Trek Original Series

Audio Cassette

First published February 1, 1994

About the author

Dave Stern has written/edited/collaborated on multiple previous works of fiction/non-fiction, including the New York Times-bestselling biography Crosley, the epistolary novel Shadows In The Asylum, and an unauthorized Adam Sandler biography composed with the help of the good people in the Smith College Library. His most recent work is Codename: Blackjack, the second thriller in the Sagas of the Cincinnati series.

His author photo is woefully out of date.

Reviews

[Billie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook through my local library. I will always like Star Trek.

[Angel Torres · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun, easygoing time.
Cool story with a decent premise, cool characters with good performances and a nice old fashioned ending. A nice time for any classic Star Trek fan.

[Todd Howell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best but it was entertaining and with Takei reading his own part it had a nice feel to it.

The story was OK, although I think it was a bit short and lacked depth and details. Narration was well done.

I have around 160+ Star Treks books on one of my hard drives, have had them for years (gift from a friend for birthday) and have been reading so much horror am just now getting into any of them. This isn't my first rodeo with a Trek book and while I didn't enjoy it as much as I did some of the others I read it felt great to get back into that universe in a quick way.

[Yvette · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great listen! A short little adventure. No pomp and no circumstance. George Takei plays himself = perfect.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Audio books, and I love Star Trek, and George Takei. "BUT", The audio control on this program was more than a little distracting. George, when you are reading a book into a mic, you have to keep reading into the mic, When you do stage acting and turn from the mic the readers can no longer hear you. Sound control person, If your readers are switching who reads for the lines you have to control the volume of the mics so that we can hear all of the people reading. The story that I could follow was not that bad, if the audio was better this would be a good read.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for an audio version of the Captain Sulu movie we never got. However, this was a slight adventure with an unfulfilling climax.

I'll try one more in this series, to see whether this was just a bad start. But I'm not hopeful.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Echoes of From the Mountains of Madness.

Also that ending was hilarious after hearing Takei say in his bio that fencing wasn't really his thing and he lied about knowing it before the episode so iconic with his fencing image.

[Patrick McWilliams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ending was a little cornball, but in a TOS kind of way, so I liked it.

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

These old TOS audio books are much too short to keep my interest. A shame....

[Steven Shinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably the best of the Captain Sulu Adventures audios, but not that big of a difference.

[John Barclay · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting little story. Not a lot there, but a well written story.

[D.M. Dutcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

A multiple-cast audiobook, done in pseudo-surround sound. They recommend headphones to listen to it, so it suffers in the car. The voice talent is top-notch, but the story is pretty bad.

Sulu is dealing with an old friend of his, Flynn, who is a vegetable after the events of a survey team on Sigma Cameron four. hey interacted with a strange orblike artifact from a race of shadowy immortals called the Shalakai, and Sulu starts having bad dreams about it. When he hears of an archaeologist's attempt to go there, he stows aboard a passenger shuttle to try and stop her, and understand what is happening there.

The story suffers because it is done in "Stardate:XXX" journal format. This makes action hard to impossible to portray, and leads to more internal conflict than external. In this case, a full cast dramatization would have been better, as it could add much needed life to the story. However the story is ridiculous, the villain is as well, and is dispatched summarily with little drama. To even get there involves a lot of idiot interactions from the cast, and there's a lot of padding to fill the story up-cut out the repeating dreams and you could easily make this a half-hour.

Performances are good, although Sulu is hammy, especially during the final conflict. They needed the villain to have a unique voice though, he looses a lot of luster being portrayed differently by each of the three. That's all that saves this from being one star, the technical aspects of the drama-it's pedestrian and bland otherwise.

[Marcelo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Star Trek fans are probably more used to remembering Capt. Sulu in more down-to-earth stories like Star Trek IV or the episode Flashback from ST: Voyager, so it can be both unsettling and refreshing to have a story such as Transformations, which is very reminiscent of old (or classic) Original Series.

I say that because the plot of this audio novella feels almost more Fantasy than Science Fiction: shining stones that guard the life-force of long-dead aliens who taunt you do their bidding. But you get your space ships, catatonic first officers and archaeological expeditions all right.

Voice work in this production is top-notch. George Takei is great — I want him narrating my biography — and the other actors are also very good, if a little over-the-top (it's a radio show, after all). The recording demands headphones or some good surround stereo to be really appreciated, though.

All in all, Transformations is an average, light sci-fi short story to be enjoyed while you do something else (I listened to it as I did some cleaning in my studio) — not the best of the three "Captain Sulu Adventures", but thoroughly enjoyable; not so much for the plot, but because of the cast.

[Mati · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was wave of nostalgia in our house and I went trough my ancient Star Trek books and decided to pick up A Captain Sulu Adventure. It was not the brightest idea, but still for the nostalgia reasons, right?
The plot is sketchy, the characters are forgettable, but the spirit of Star Trek is making the trick and you will finish it in no time.
Captain Sulu was contemplating with his newly appeared nightmares about incident, which happened 20 years ago which sent his science officer Flynn Konner in to the gaga vegetable land. Of course he smoked out that behind all misfortune was evil alien entity who was feeding on souls of others to gain immortality. Well it worked until that entity started to mess with Zohan no captain Sulu. It was game over for immortality.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

George Takei does a commendable job as Captain Hikaru Sulu in this Star Trek audio adventure. While the story would work nicely as an episode of the original 1960's TV series, I expected something more imaginative from a format unrestricted by a television budget.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok story, predictable. Like the Captain Sulu stories, always great to hear George Takei's voice.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good quality audio production values and voice work help to mask a rather pedestrian story. By no means the best of the Star Trek audio dramas, but worth the hour I spent listening to it.

[Ambrose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too short