4.0 out of 5 stars
Very funny and fun to read!, Sep 19 2008
By K. Sozaeva "Obsessive bibliophile" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Treks Not Taken (Paperback)
This book was a great deal of fun, as it created ST:tNG stories that parodied various well-known authors. Now, keep in mind that someone who is not conversant with ST:tNG will probably have a hard time finding the humour in these stories, as the book relies on the premise that those reading it will be fans on the show. Additionally, if a reader is not familiar with some of the authors, some of the jokes will fall a little flat. However, with those concessions out of the way, I loved this book - I laughed my way through it in about 2 1/2 hours time. Some of my favorite "episodes" were: "A Clockwork Data," which is filled with the same sort of crazy verbiage that can be found in "A Clockwork Orange;" "Less Than Data," which is very funny in many different ways; "Lady Fed" is raunchy but fun; "The Vampire le Forge" of course had me rolling with laughter - not only did it parody the writing of the original, but it made fun of the writing of the original story in a very clever way; "Even Androids get the Blues" did a terrific job of playing with English, just like Tom Robbins does - it really captured the essence of Robbins' style; "Q Clearance" makes fun of the way very simple matters can escape people who are full of themselves; finally, "Moby Trek (abridged)" had to be the funniest of the bunch, as the abridgement notes make fun of the over-wrought style of the original (very similar to "The Vampire le Forge").
That said, there were a couple that were difficult to catch all the jokes (likely because I haven't read the original stories): "Trek 22" left me scratching my head - it's so full of double-speak and multiple negatives in the same sentence that I realized I really needed to read "Catch-22" so I can grasp the humour more. "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fan" was likewise pretty dense - again, I suppose you need to have read the original story to really catch the humour here.
There are several more stories in this text, and all of them have their moments of humour. I definitely recommend this for any fan of the show - you won't be sorry you took the time to find this text.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Funny but a bit raunchy, July 24 2000
By Karissa Clark - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Treks Not Taken (Paperback)
Being a Trekker, I picked up this book. I laughed so hard! It is an excellent parody both on Star Trek and various authors' styles. "Moby Trek" for instance, was the best. It captured the spirit of both very well. I enjoyed the fact that it was a collection of short stories and not fully developed plot lines.
The only real downside is the slightly off-colour humor. Especially in "Lady Fed" which focuses on Jackie Collins' writing, the blatant talking about sex and body parts was a bit disconcerting. Was it supposed to be titillating or something? Almost all of the stories have profanity, which means younger kids couldn't read it. Almost all of the female characters in these stories exist only for sex. Crusher is the vamp who tells everyone that Picard has a landing bay but no shuttle, if you know what I mean.
Other than that, you can trust this book for a great laugh! Definetly worth checking out.