War Stories 1

Star Trek SCE (ebooks) Novellas #21

by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Beginning a gripping untold tale of the dominion war!
Twice, Overseer Biron of the Androssi has been thwarted by the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci. In order to be prepared for their next encounter, he has obtained the records of the crew's past adventures during the brutal war against the Dominion....
Trapped behind enemy lines after a difficult victory, the damaged U.S.S. Sentinel must find its way home without engaging any superior hostile forces. When they encounter a Breen ship, it's up to Chief Engineer Sonya Gomez to trick them into thinking they aren't what they appear to be. Meanwhile, Dr. Elizabeth Lense of the U.S.S. Lexington must deal with the war's overwhelming carnage, while on Starbase 92, cryptographer Bart Faulwell has an encounter that will change his life forever!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Ebooks

97 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Crystal Bensley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good back stories of the crew but I feel like it didn't need the framing device.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

S.C.E. ebooks are already pretty short, so turning one into an anthology of even shorter stories does tend to leave the reader wanting a bit more meat on the bone. Still, bringing back the da Vinci's recurring enemy is always interesting (and the Androssi are DeCandido's creation, so he's the writer to do it), and in his trade for the logs, he comes off as extremely ruthless. The three stories he delves into are all at least fine. I feel like Dr. Lense is nobody's favorite character, but she's very competent in her war tale, and I enjoyed seeing her spark off other members of her old crew. Bart IS one of my favorite characters - as I'm naturally more interested in linguistics than engineering, and he's given the most relevant background (how he started dating Mark), even if his mission is relatively low on thrills. Sonya's mission is the most exciting, right in the middle of the action, but I somewhat resent it spending so much time on memories of the Enterprise. With a low page count, do we really need this kind of padding? The best thing about this third tale is that you really get a sustained engineering POC of a ship battle, and HER former crew on the Sentinel, while quickly drawn, hold some interest too. War Stories Book 1 is a brief affair, and I'm hoping Book 2 won't be just more of the same, but actually have Biron act on the information he's collected.

[De · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed both the framing story (particularly the clever way of dispatching the "witness") and the vignettes featuring some of the SCE team. The only weakness I felt was the unnecessary name dropping or appearances of TV series characters. Otherwise, this was a nice way to get an "info dump" on Dr. Lense, Bart Faulwell, and Sonya Gomez.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more a novella, but it was still enjoyable. Having a book set during one of the more intense arcs of Deep Space 9, and being able to see the little things that other people have done to contribute to the war effort was excellent too. The chapters were a tad long, but when the book is this short, it doesn't really matter that much.

[Craig Andrews]

War Stories were okay. They are little glimpses of what the SCE crew were doing during the Dominion War. Overall a bit rushed and could have easily been developed into something bigger, escpecially the bits with the Da Vinci crew members that aren't around any more.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of 3 stories that looks at what members of the Da Vinci crew did during the Dominion War. An interesting read with a nice framing premise. Still a novella, but gives more insight into the 3 characters. A good read.

[Christopher Preiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is always fun to get glimpses of the dominion war from a non ds9 perspective and war stories does not disappoint.

[Stephen Robertson · Rating 1 out of 5]

To much dialog. Not enough wounder the bread and butter of star trek

[John Barclay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea of the flashback stories, but I don't like the annoying villain that makes up the frame. Still, it's great to hear the history.

[Nicky2910 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star Trek: S. C. E.: #21 War Stories, Book 1 by Keith R. A. DeCandido Now, this is more like it.
 
Overseer Biron of the Androssi gets ahold of the personal logs of the daVinci-crew during their assignments in the Dominion War and peruses them in order to get an idea of how they could consistently defeat him. He starts with Dr Lense, Bart Faulwell and Sonya Gomez.
 
So, this finally offers some insight into the crew. It starts of with Dr Lense who, after having been questioned for being an augment after having beaten Bashir at medschool, returns to her ship, only to find herself the only doctor alive during battle. Bart Faulwell is asked to lead a team, trying to decrypt Dominion messages, and falls in love there. And Sonya Gomez has to improvise her way out of a mission gone wrong, all the while being the calm beacon of strength for her crew.
 
Granted, all the stories deal with past events, before the crew of the daVinci was even formed, but they serve to further portray the characters which before have remained quite bland due to the concentration on technobabble and ingenious ideas. I'm eagerly awaiting Book 2.