By the Book

Star Trek: Enterprise #2

by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Draft Writer)

An original adventure starring Captain Jonathan Archer and the crew of the very first USS Enterprise: Chief Engineer 'Trip' Tucker III, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Phlox, Science Officer T'Pol, Communications Officer Hoshi Sato, Tactical Officer Malcolm Reed and Helmsman Travis Mayweather.
In their first few weeks in space, Captain Archer and his crew have already discovered several new species and explored strange new worlds. Each new planet brings new discoveries and new dangers: none more so than the curious planet half of which is inhabited by the Fazi, with their highly regulated culture in which strict protocols govern everything from their conversation to the design of their buildings. After a disastrous first contact with the Fazi, Archer must depend on the diplomatic skills of Vulcan science officer T'Pol and the linguistic talents of communications officer Ensign Hoshi Sato to help him mend relations with the people of this planet and unravel the mystery of the other beings with which they share their world.

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Star Trek Enterprise, Fiction, Ebooks, American, Media Tie In

252 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Pen Names
Edward Taft
Dee W. Schofield
Sandy Schofield
Kathryn Wesley

Dean Wesley Smith is the bestselling author of over ninety novels under many names and well over 100 published short stories. He has over eight million copies of his books in print and has books published in nine different countries. He has written many original novels in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and romance as well as books for television, movies, games, and comics. He is also known for writing quality work very quickly and has written a large number of novels as a ghost writer or under house names.

With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. The following is a list of novels under the Dean Wesley Smith name, plus a number of pen names that are open knowledge. Many ghost and pen name books are not on this list because he is under contractual obligations not to disclose that he wrote them. Many of Dean’s original novels are also under hidden pen names for marketing reasons.

Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.

Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books.

Currently, he is writing thrillers and mystery novels under another name.

Reviews

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

A decent read, but, the show is better...and that's a longtime bibliophile talking.

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

My new. Star Trek reading plan is to get thru all the Enterprise novels in tandem with my rewatch of the show, since there"s relatively few of them.

The relaunch novels (starting with "The Goid That Men Do") get generally favorable press/reviews while the 6 original novels get less positive reviews.

This book is a fair (but not great) start to the series: it has a decent premise, and is definitely readable, but ultimately fails to truly deliver.

The two plots, while impacting each other at least minimally, fail to resonate in the way the best Trek books/episodes do.

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really… slow… going.

If you've watched any TV at all, you know the crew's recreational interactions, the B plot, are going to tie into the ship's presenting problem. Okay. Getting to focus on recreation more than tight TV coming would allow sounds promising, but the interactions are quite dull. They don't reveal much about the personalities.

[Chris Townsend · Rating 4 out of 5]

This takes place early in the show, during season one. When T'Pol and Archer were still fighting. Archer comes across as pretty inept through most of the story.

The main plot revolves around Archer's first attempt at first contact. The secondary plot concerns several shipmates playing an RPG. The main plot was interesting, the secondary plot was not. It did serve a purpose as it showed some character development and had some parallels with the main plot, but took up way too many pages.

There was one particular plot point that was very obvious, namely the alien using telepathy, which, for some reason, took the crew an inordinate amount of time to figure out.

Despite its flaws, this was an enjoyable read. I liked the aliens.

[Travis Starnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is split into two parts; the first part is a first contact with an alien species that goes sideways. The second, and seemingly more important part to the authors, is a role playing game played between five of the crewman that in minor ways affect the first contact plotline.

I have to applaud the authors for trying this. It is a really fresh take on a Star Trek novel. By the time this book came out there were literally hundreds of other books giving us straight ahead Star Trek stories. Honestly it is hard to tell them all apart as they start to run together. If nothing else, the use of a role playing game to counter-balance an otherwise standard plotline is memorable.

Sadly, it didn’t completely work from a reading standpoint. The two plots are fairly separate and keep breaking up the momentum of the other plotline. Just as things start to get interesting the book switches plotlines. You end up with reading whiplash.

Overall this is a middle of the road Star Trek book that is memorable more for what it tries to do more than for what it actually accomplishes.

http://homeofreading.com/star-trek-enterprise-by-the-book/

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Archer and his crew of the NX-01 Enterprise visit a planet of humanoids with the intention of making first contact with the residents. But the indigenous population has a very structured society with rules and conventions that the Enterprise crew doesn't fully comprehend. And why don't the residents acknowledge the southern continent of their world?

While this really could have been a story for just about any Star Trek crew, what makes this one so unique as an Enterprise-Era story is that it's the first time a human crew has attempted a first contact. Archer himself is biased by how the Vulcans treated their relationship with humanity and he doesn't want to be like that to any society he meets. But as the complications and faux pas pile up, he starts to realize just how complicated this type of mission is and just how easy it could be to disrupt a fledgling society. Throughout the series up to this point, Archer has found himself confronted with his own bias and he grows more and more understanding of the Vulcans' behaviors. He may not quite get that chip off his shoulder, but understanding does bear out wisdom.

There's a secondary story about Travis Mayweather and some other crew creating and enjoying a role playing game during their off hours. This will serve as an amusement to anyone who is a regular, or even casual player. While this side plot doesn't really feed the main story at all, some of the players figure in. It's a nice way to get deeper into a few of these side characters that you wouldn't normally get to see much of. In fact, a few are picked up from one of the Season 1 episodes in which they were supporting cast. Nice to see them again.

A fun piece of Star Trek history that fans of any era could enjoy.

[Jasmine]

That was an interesting concept. I would have liked to see it from authors with some affection for the characters, or the concept of characterization, or the concept of showing as opposed to telling, or the construction of a compelling plot, or the show bible, or the Star Trek universe.

[SamB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hahaha, Archer is so, so stupid, I love it.

Really enjoyed this one, it's a solid, early series-based tie-in elevated by good writing and an interesting alien society. The characterisation is spot on too - in any other book, the lead character's stupid mistakes and repeated learning of basic lessons would be infuriating (seriously, there's a 'Captain's Log' near the end where he allows how learning stuff, knowing things and taking time to understand a situation are beneficial), but here it works, because it reflects exactly how Archer was in the early days of Enterprise. T'Pol's role as 'the only grown-up on Enterprise' is also perfectly pitched, and there's great use of the minor characters - both Hoshi and Travis, but also the lower decks characters like Cutler and Novakovich, which is a great callback to the early days of the show when the ship felt fully populated and like a real community casting out into space.

Lots to recommend here, and it's also an easy read - good, with some insightful moral discussions without being demanding or earth-shattering.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong effort for the first original Enterprise novel. It's clear that there were a few things that weren't set in stone about the series at the time the novel was written, but the story ends up looking a lot more like the actual series than the first original Star Trek: The Next Generation novel resembled that series. Some of the characterizations are a bit off, and a b-plot seems fairly unconnected to the main narrative, but By the Book was still an enjoyable read for the most part.

Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2018/04/B...

[Mh430 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the very first Enterprise original novel and there are a few things that feel slightly off to me. I don't remember Porthos sleeping on the bridge before and here Archer routinely calls his crew members by their surnames instead of the first names he favored on the series. And the relationship between him and T'Pol is completely without warmth. Or respect, frankly. Still, it's not so far off the mark from the earlier episodes of Season One for this series. I really didn't care for the role playing game subplot which never tied in with the main plot of the novel as directly as I thought it would, but the real challenge confronting the Enterprise crew here is making First Contact on a planet with two very different sentient races who happen to share the same planet. Having this mission take place in novel format rather than a 45 minute long television episode allows for a more nuanced exploration of the issues involved and the unusual focus on secondary ship characters gives this one a "Lower Decks" feel to it. By no means a classic Trek story but it held my interest throughout.

[Louisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. This book. Don't bother. There are two story lines in this book that have pretty much nothing to do with each other (aside from the few times the authors manage to tie them together in the most cliche ways). One is about an RPG that some of the crew are playing. Reading these chapters is about as interesting as...watching someone else play an RPG...These chapters were painfully boring, and pointless. The other story was about first contact with a world that has two sentient species developing at different rates. This presents some interesting challenges for the crew (especially before the Prime Directive), but it was poorly executed and underdeveloped. Had the authors developed the REAL plot better, they wouldn't have needed the lame RPG story line to fill up space. On top of that, Archer seemed extremely impulsive (and not in a good way that moves the story along) and childish. Unless you are trying to read all of the Enterprise books for some reason, don't bother with this one.

[Kaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the Book is an original novel based on the television series Star Trek: Enterprise. The story follows the crew as they face challenges on an alien planet, with all the characteristic elements of a standard Star Trek mission. The book features a familiar cast of characters and maintains a tone faithful to the television series, which will surely please Enterprise fans. Additionally, the plot offers enough action and suspense to keep the reader engaged, although it does not introduce revolutionary ideas or unexpected developments. While By the Book doesn't particularly stand out in any aspect, it delivers what is expected of a franchise story. It's an entertaining read and a classic Enterprise adventure.

Throughout the story, we see a part of the Enterprise crew playing a role-playing game... for some reason. They arrive at a system and are called by Captain Archer. They find a planet with two races technologically about a hundred years behind humans... The race that inhabits most of this planet calls themselves the Fazi. They don't make contact with the Fazi initially because they don't master their language well. They notice that the Fazi have a very organized and structured civilization... too much. They also discover another race living on the southern continent of the planet, resembling spiders or crabs... They theorize that the Fazi colonized the planet afterward and that the race living on the southern continent was there first. They make a call to the planet to announce their presence before deciding to land on the planet.

Captain Archer and a group of the Enterprise descend to the planet to meet with the High Council of Fazi. They notice that the Fazi are shorter than humans. The tallest Fazi never exceeded five feet six inches in height. They speak with the members of the High Council of Fazi. In the middle of the conversation, Archer offends them by speaking out of turn... so, this first contact ends in failure, and they leave the planet being hated... Archer decides to better prepare for his next meeting with the High Council of Fazi and sends to investigate the other species living on the southern continent of the planet. They discover that the culture on the southern continent is a predominantly water-based civilization that is quite advanced. This species are indeed, like crabs or spiders, and they spend most of their time underwater. Archer speaks with Councilor Draa in a transmission and asks about the second race. The councilor cuts the call and ruins another potential contact...

They investigate the species from the southern continent. A crew descends and escapes when they are pursued by the aliens. One of the crew members, Edward, is transported with one of the aliens to the Enterprise. They stun the alien and capture him. Eventually, the alien escapes, and they have to catch him. The alien attacks several crew members until he is finally stopped. But it seems that the alien has some kind of control over all those he has attacked. T'Pol suggests that all the attacked suffer from telepathic control of the alien. T'Pol and Hoshi propose the idea of ​​creating an adapter to communicate with the alien. Ensign Cutler says that aliens cannot communicate due to their biology. This reinforces the fact that they communicate telepathically. Captain Archer decides to speak telepathically with the alien. Archer contacts the alien thanks to a translator device created by T'Pol and Hoshi that allows him to communicate mentally. The communication is successful, and the alien says that he did not want to harm anyone. The alien fires a psionic energy beam from the ship to the surface of the planet and says that his people have agreed to have a meeting with the Enterprise. The Fazi also call and want to meet with Archer. The alien reveals that the Fazi are the native species and that they, the Hipon, are a more advanced race that oversees the technological advancement of the Fazi.

Archer confronts T'Pol for questioning his decisions in front of everyone by refusing to accept that it is Archer who contacts the alien first. T'Pol responds by saying that she disagrees with interfering with the development of the Fazi people. They have a discussion about Vulcan politics with Earth and how the Vulcans hindered humanity's technological advancement...

They take the Hipon to their people, and the alien bids farewell to Archer. Then they go to meet with the Fazi. The meeting ends with an agreement that Earth and the Fazi would remain in contact and try to learn from each other. They decide not to give the communication device to the Hipon to interfere no more between them and the Fazi. But they keep the device specifications to give them to Starfleet so they can build their own models when they want to open a dialogue with the Hipon. Archer and the rest of the Enterprise leave the system hoping not to have interfered too much between these two cultures and that, if they ever return, both races have not destroyed each other...

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

For many years, my dad had an almost complete collection of every TOS Star Trek book that had ever been written. I'm pretty sure he has given up by now, but it's a sight to behold - takes up an entire closet.

I am first and foremost a TOS fanboy as well, but I'm not going to try to double-collect everything he has. So instead, I went with something more manageable - Enterprise - Which didn't have nearly the extended universe TOS did. I set myself a rule - I wanted all the books that had new stories, and none of the books that emulate episodes - because invariably episode novelizations end up introducing continuity errors or change people's character from how I perceived them on the show.

So By-The-Book is the first in the series... technically. And while I read it once before, my memory was super hazy. But I remember finding it boring as a kid.

As I cracked it open, in the first few pages something sparked, and memory came flooding back. I remember pretty strongly enjoying the B-Plot that centers around Mayweather, Armstrong, Novacovich and Cutler playing - essentially - Sci-Fi D&D during their off hours.

Still no memory of the A-Plot. Uh oh.

The A-Plot is - from the blurb - about Enterprise's *first* First Contact mission; and falls into a problem that a lot of adaptations end up with. In an effort to be exciting, it retroactively says, "No, that thing you saw in the show? Yeah, that's not as important as it seemed, because this book tells the REAL story of Enterprise's first crack at First Contact."

And that's basically the A-Plot - they end up muddling their way through First Contact with a pair of races sharing the same planet, and by the end of the book they cruise off into the stars to continue their mission, and we never hear about the events on this planet ever again. Very little is learned - Archer basically shrugs and goes, "Well, someday we're going to develop rules, but today's not that day, so I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing." There's never any really game-changing stakes; if Enterprise had just given up after their first big gaffe and moved on, it wouldn't really have nudged the needle on the Star Trek universe. And that's pretty dull.

The B-Plot - which takes up roughly half of the 250 page book's runtime - is confined to the game in mess-hall between the four side characters. It has no overarching importance to the A-Plot, other than mirroring it in a few ways, but the players don't garner any revelations from their play that service the main plot. It's basically the 'downtime' section of each show, when for about 10 minutes per episode we'd have a few asides where the crew talk about what traveling in space is like, and how the limitations of Enterprise can make it a bit difficult. Except this lasts half the book.

I do appreciate the context of the subplot - I'm a Dungeon Master myself - but it's wasted airspace. And it carries even less weight because it shoehorns a characterization onto crewman (ensign) Cutler that is a bit at-odds with what we learn from the show. In the show, she's *super* into studying about alien races such that she does so on her off-time - but instead, in this book, she's GMing a schlock-Sci-Fi roleplaying game about shooting up little green martians.

And since she just kinda disappeared from the show - due to the actresses untimely death IRL - all this development of a side-character takes away from the main crew, and thus the adventure itself. Anderson and Novakovich are safe - Anderson being a completely new character who only appears in this book, and Novakovich being a call back from an earlier episode. Mayweather is... passive. It strikes me he was added to the game to add 'bridge crew name recognition', but doesn't 'feel' like Mayweather on the show.

Which - lets talk about that. Because so much time is spent on the RPG, the characters we DO know from the show only get tiny snippets of time to shine. And they don't. Not really. Archer and T'Pol capture their relationship alright, but Trip basically stands around and cracks jokes. Reed makes a few salient points here and there but isn't important to the story. Hoshi - while important to the plot itself - spends most of her time with her face glued to a screen. And so on.

Cut out 90% of the RPG from the book, and what you have here feels like the bare-bones of a script for an episode of the show. And not really the most exciting one.

It wasn't terrible. But considering how little it connects to the rest of the universe - I could just as easily bin it and pick up with the next book.

EDIT: Of course, I only settled on the word I was looking for after I finished typing. The overarching feeling I got while reading this was that it read like an author's self-insert fanfic with how much time was spent on the game.

[Erick M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disfruté completamente este libro de principio a fin.

Me encanta como los autores exploran a la tripulación de Archer, expandiendo un aspecto que el show nunca tocó realmente: los primeros contactos. Conocer a una nueva especie siempre será complicado y que esta sea una de las primeras veces que la humanidad lo realiza lo carga de muchos retos, siendo estos ejemplificados con los Fazi y los Hipon; el primero siendo la familiaridad entre los humanoides, pero a su vez cómo la diferencia cultural es un aspecto que ellos deben aprender y respetar para lograr crear un diálogo; y los segundos mostrando los prejuicios de interactuar con un alienígena que no se parece en lo más mínimo a ti, pero que no deja der ser un ser vivo conciente. Archer aprende de ambas especies, del equilibrio que debe alcanzar como capitán si desea seguir explorando el espacio y eso me encanta!!

De la misma forma, disfruté mucho viendo a la gran mayoría de la tripulación trabajando en conjunto para un bien mayor. Hoshi, T'Pol, Trip, Reed, Mayweather, la gran mayoría tiene un rol importante y que activamente ayuda a avanzar la trama. Agradecimientos especiales a Dean Wesley Smith y Kristine Kathryn Rusch por incluir el juego de rol de marte en el libro. Me encantan los juegos de rol y ver algo asi en ST fue genial; siempre me gustó mucho el personaje de Cutler, disfruté su punto de vista y me hubiera encantado ver más de ella (QEPD Kellie Waymire).

Creo que este es, en general, una primera novela muy buena. Enterprise definitivamente empezó con el pie derecho.

[Jason Jewell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read most of this book on airplanes flying to and from a conference. It was a good read for that sort of trip: engaging but not too demanding. In the Star Trek timeline, this story falls in the first quarter of season 1 of Enterprise, after the events of "Strange New World." Crewmen Cutler and Novakovich from that episode both play important roles in the plot.

The Enterprise comes to an M-class planet inhabited by a humanoid species called the Fazi. The Fazi have just made a successful warp-drive test and are unaware that there are other sentient species in the universe. The Enterprise is thus in a first-contact role analogous to the one played by the Vulcans just after humans achieved warp capability. Captain Archer wants to "do better" than the Vulcans, who refused to share information and technology humans desired in the decades following first contact. However, his attempts to engage the Fazi involve several missteps that lead him to doubt the wisdom of that approach.

The book's main subplot involves several crewmen who use their downtime to develop and play a role-playing game apparently inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter series. This subplot has a minor influence on the main story; its chief significance is its contribution to the Enterprise's realization that the crew has a need for recreation on a ship where there are no recreational facilities.

[John Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feels like it could have been episode of the show. The main crew deals with a first contact while lower deckers play tabletop adventures. You might be surprised how much of the book focuses on that tabletop adventure, and whether or not you enjoy reading that will really inform how you feel about the book. I personally mostly enjoyed those parts, tho they did start to feel repetitive as the book went on. Yet the finale of that plotline made me smile and think about how they teased where it was going early on. Meanwhile the first contact is an interesting story where they seem to repeatedly get it wrong, until they understand certain things about the planet and are able to establish a dialogue. The characters do seem pretty immature and unprofessional at times, which is annoying to read as a star trek fan, but to be fair it's meant to take place early in the first season and they're new to all this. Also the book would have benefited from being written later, because the writers really don't have much to draw from. Anyway overall I thought this was an ok read, and I hope to see the books get better as they go. Oh and I liked Cutler being heavily featured, she's a fun character from the show who didn't get enough screentime and I hope the books continue to use her.

[Joe Pranaitis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author's Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch bring us an early adventure for the crew of the Enterprise NX-01. In the early days of their adventures the Enterprise crew comes to a planet that it's primary inhabitants the Fazi are a people who are on the surface very strict with everything from their building designs to how they interact with each other. It turns out that the Fazi have broken the warp barrier and Captain Archer intends to make first contact with them. While this is going on Subcommander T'Pol is asking him to follow Vulcan guidelines for first contact as well as observe them before making contact. Archer who is a little to quick to rush into it dose make contact with them but he finds out that in doing so and speaking out of turn that he offended them. As these events unfold they find another species on the southern continent of the planet who use their minds to communicate and who are from another part of the quadrant. This is a great early Enterprise book and one that reinforces the Prime directive that would come later for Starfleet. I highly recommend this book for all science fiction fans.

[Erica Naone · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book feels like it should have been better than it was. The actual plot was good and well written and would have made for a four or five star read for me. The cultures on the planet were fascinating and the problem and solution felt very in line with the values of Star Trek. However, something like half the book was devoted to reading about someone’s RPG. I don’t see how it really fit the plot or revealed anyone’s character, and it’s so detailed. Like we know what each characters dex and int scores are and read descriptions of their specific dice rolls. It felt like the authors needed to fill out like 30,000 words with random padding and to me detracted from an otherwise excellent story and book. It’s probably a testament to how good the main story was that I still rate the book a three despite my boredom and frustration with the RPG “plot.” There’s a good novella here, and I don’t think a reader would lose anything by just skipping the RPG sections.

[Frank Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick easy read. Enjoyable adventure. The characters were portrayed pretty well exactly as you'll remember them from the early TV series episodes.

Except that Porthos finds himself lazily snoozing on the bridge at one point!

An interesting mission that involves fumbled first contacts and unexpected new alien relationships.

Hoshi has a lot of work cut out for her, trying to nut out an alien language where sentence structure is more important than specific words.

The aliens are interesting and fairly unique.

If you can remember Cutler from the episodes, she is quite involved in this story too. She DMs an RPG for some of the crew and then shows off her exobiology skills to help save the day.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cover told me to buy the book so I did. An interesting take on a first contact story with a role-playing game being played throughout the book which as a DM I could appreciate. I am not entirely sure if I am happy with the resolution but really not many were. One of the endearing qualities of Archer is that he is kind of an idiot and this book doesn't pull any punches there. Based very early on in the Enterprise series so take some of the character traits and motivations with a grain of salt and T'Pol was kind of annoying throughout the book but she kind of was most of the series anyway. Ha ha!

[Benjamin Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am new to watching Enterprise and this is my first Enterprise book, but hey, I liked it. I will admit, I have an interest in tabletop RPG games, so the subplot throughout the book was still interesting to me, but i can see how some reviewers found it more of just a distraction.

I appreciate the newness and ineffectiveness the crew faces. They failed at their first attempt of contact with 2 different species, and made mistakes. Their approach was unrefined, and that felt right.

I thought the book was well written , quick, and enjoyable. Looking forward to more.

[Peter Rydén · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boken var spännande, även om Dean Wesley Smith har gjort bättre. Man fick en tydligare bild av fänrik Elizabeth Cutler, som också syns i flera avsnitt. En rolig finess var just att de använde sig av rollspel i boken. Möjligen var den detaljen lite för banal i min smak.

Det var dock ett välkommet inslag i Star Trek-serierna, denna första bok i Enterprise-sagan (om man bortser från novelliseringen av det första avsnittet).

[Sheila Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book because I felt that the Star Trek Enterprise characters were more "alive" in it than in the show. The characters were more animated especially the ones which the show featured so little - Reed, Mayweather, and Sato. They were ESSENTIAL. I also loved the interaction between Archer and T'Pol. The rendering of the tension and slow build-up of mutual understanding/respect between the the top two commanding officers was simply riveting.

[Jane K. Stecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good series begins here

Archer and his crew arrive above a strange planet containing a race that is very structured in what they do. He messes up first contact with the race. Will be ever make a good first contact? The novel flows smoothly and the characters are consistent with the TV series. Altogether a good read.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know I wasn't feeling this AT ALL, but it really got me in the end. Definitely by the time they found a way to communicate with the Hipon. Archer was intolerable in the beginning, but I liked how the authors were able to articulate his point of view once he started to slow down and take in what he was learning.

[Marc Chénier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a big Star Trek fan since I was a kid. What I find most intriguing about the ST universe are all the philosophical debates that take place whether in the shows or the books. "By The Book" deals with first contacts and the implications thereof. A very enjoyable novel although short.

On to the next book...

[KiWi Dragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting first-contacts along with Archer's POV make this an addictive read. I finished it in about a week because I want to know more about the Fazi. That being said, some of the dungeons and dragons with the crew took up a lot more time than I would have liked seeing as it didn't really add anything to the plot.
Still, I really liked this and would recommend it.

[Leo Moran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like an episode from series 1 of Star Trek Enterprise. A good read. Very enjoyable even though a bit of time wasted on a game played by the crew which I think the story could have done without.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Contact

This was the first original story written for the Enterprise series. It read like an Enterprise episode. It didn't have the most amazing plot, but it definitely kept me reading.

[Dan Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great read. I had a great time with this book, there were humorous parts of this book that actually made me laugh out loud and when the story got tense, I couldn't stop reading. This book will not change the world but its not trying to. It's definitely worth your time.