Star Trek #35: The Romulan Way: Amazon.ca: Diane Duane: Books

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.

First Sentence
ARRHAE IR-MNAEHA T'KHELLIAN yawned, losing her sleep's last dream in the tawny light that lay warm across her face, bright on her eyelids. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Half a classic, April 21 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Rihannsu Book Two: Romulan Way (Mass Market Paperback)

The alternating stories are a bit distracting. The 'A' about McCoy is a standard level ST adventure. The 'B' story recounting the Vulcan dissipation and the founding of the Romulan homeworld is tremendous, deep, thoughtful, and serious. Since a cover with McCoy probably more readily identifies the book as formal ST and markets the product better we get only half a book length of a tremendous epic. Also unfortunately, since this is not canon (as it is only in print, not shown on TV) and ST:Nemesis pretty much invalidates the single race concept of the twin planets, it is a wasted opportunity to give some much needed background on why the Romulans became such bad people. Oh, well. Diane Duane is, for my money, the best ST author working. Wonderful.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written, excellent plot, Aug 1 2001

By

Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rihannsu Book Two: Romulan Way (Mass Market Paperback)

Like many of the early TOS novels, this one really has some substance to it. Diane Duane has done an excellent job of developing the back history of the Romulan culture, explaining how and why they split off from the Vulcans at the time of Surak, etc. Her detailed description of the long generation-ship journey to the planet which would become known as Romulus is especially well done. During this journey, the Rihannsu (which is what the Romulans call themselves) consciously changed their language and social structure to reject the logical way of Surak and become an old-new version of the warrior society that once existed on Vulcan. (I found myself wondering if Duane had patterned this history on certain aspects of modern Israeli culture, which has consciously rejected the pacifist philosophy of European Jewry to go back to the biblical warrior mode -- but that's a whole other story.)

The plot itself takes place in the 23rd century, long after the Romulan-Vulcan split. The Federation has lost contact with an undercover operative on Romulus, and now fears for her life. Dr. McCoy is taken prisoner by the Romulans and ends up incarcerated at the same place where the Federation agent has infiltrated Romulan society and is passing for a household servant. Now she must be very careful about acknowledging McCoy, lest she blow her cover and get them both killed. Nahraht the Horta (a silicon-based lifeform who eats rock, and who also appears in several other Duane novels) plays an important, if at times humorous, role in the rescue of Dr. McCoy. To tell you more would be a spoiler, so let me just say that this book is one of the best reads in the TOS series. It also sets the scene for a number of characters and events in future books by Diane Duane.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best ST novels, Jun 26 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Rihannsu Book Two: Romulan Way (Mass Market Paperback)

This was one of the books, along with "Spock's World" (also by Diane Duane) and several others, that made me a Star Trek fan. It's fascinating and compelling reading.

All Star Trek novels are at heart fanfic, which can be a very bad thing, but which can also produce quite excellent results. This is an example of good fanfic---a creation of a totally original character (Arrhae, the human posing as a Romulan) who avoids becoming a Mary Sue; the exploration of Romulan history and culture; the discussion of how Romulans are changing as a result of contact with the Federation and the Klingons. It's fun to read, too. :-)

I personally liked the manner in which the Romulans created their culture: they formulated, discussed, and propagated it via their Internet while they were en route to a new home. It doesn't sound terribly unlikely to me.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 5 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Want to see more reviews on this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 21 reviews 3.9 out of 5 stars

Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Not common
"The Romulan Way" is the second book in Diane Duane's Rihannsu series, following "My Enemy, My Ally". Read more

Published on Mar 29 2001 by Mikael Kuoppala

1.0 out of 5 stars terrible
i don't know why everyone is so frenzy over such a lousy story.

Published on Sep 4 2000