Or fourteenth, if you count "Out of the House of Life", a spinoff novel primarily about the character of Madeline de Montalia, a vampiric "childe" of Saint Germain, but also including some flashback scenes featuring an early Saint Germain.

Or seventeenth, if you also include "A Flame In Byzantium", "Crusader's Torch", and "A Candle For d'Artagnan", a spinoff series about Olivia Atta Clemens, an earlier offspring.

Throughout the series, the best part of these novels is the character of the count Saint-Germain himself; he is an unmitigated hero, not the anti-hero that one usually sees in vampire novels, and that's a fascinating change of pace. He always explains that he wasn't always the urbane, elegant, even-tempered, kind and sensitive individual that he is now; four thousand years ago, when he became a vampire, he was a typical ravening beast, but he outgrew it. This is a marvellous and original perspective on vampirism, and a delightfully optimistic outlook on humanity: that given sufficient time, ANYBODY can grow up, even a bloodthirsty creature of the night.

As a result, what we have in this series is a series of historical novels, set at various points along the very long time-line of Saint Germain's life. We generally see very little of other vampires, other than occasionally seeing those who Saint Germain has made vampires in previous books. (Generally, we see even these only in their correspondence with Saint Germain; I cannot remember any book in which we see more of them than this except for "Tempting Fate", in which we see quite a bit of Madeline de Montalia, and one short story in the collection "The Chronicles of Saint Germain", in which we see the count in conflict with a more traditionally minded vampire.) This book is the exception to that rule, as well as the rule that each book covers a "point" on his time-line. This book is told in three sections, each a separate point of its own: one in the seventh century, one in the eighth, and one in the twelfth. This divergence from form is necessary in order to show the fact that interactions between vampires are by necessity very long-term things. The main conflict in this book is between Saint Germain and a woman who he makes into a vampire early in the book, and who refuses to accept him as a mentor on how to manage her new life and the powers that go with it.

This was an interesting change of pace, but resulted in a novel that was long on sub-plots, but had less primary plot than it might have. In addition, it made it difficult to see Saint Germain interacting with mortals as one normally would, because by definition, none of the mortals survived more than a third of the book. We did see interations, but there wasn't time to develop them as there normally would be, and that left them feeling rushed. Still, the loss of that aspect of the books was easily compensated for by the novelty of seeing other vampires, vampires who acted as vampires are expected to, for a change.

Not one of the best in the series, but far from the worst.

Particularly given that this story was written very early in the run of the "Voyager" series, making characterization that will ring true to those who've followed the series much longer difficult, and that it involves time-travel, a very difficult concept to do well, it is amazing how well-written this story is. The characterizations feel spot-on, (except for the fact that the EMH is consistently referred to as "Dr. Zimmerman", which is the name of his creator, but not one that was ever used for the EMH himself during the entire run of the show, a very minor quibble) rare in novels written early in the run of a series, and there are only minor glitches in the time-travel concepts, which are handled much better than is usual in stories that attempt to deal with the paradoxes inherent in time-travel. I found the time-travel aspects reminiscent of Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol" series.

This is easily the worst novel by Peter David I've ever read. He is generally a fine author, particularly of Star Trek novels (which is where I am familiar with his work, for the most part.) In this "New Frontier" series, generally, the only complaint that I've had has been the "to be continued" non-endings. This book continues that tradition, but I can't really complain, considering that there isn't really any plot to be continued; I've never objected to sub-plots being continued from one book to the next, and sub-plots are all this book has. Further, it seems a bit much when things as major as the destruction of the Excalibur and the apparent death of Captain Calhoun happen "offscreen"; book #8 ended with the teaser the the ship was going to blow up in five minutes; this book begins with the command crew, minus Captain Calhoun, gathering for a "Requiem" weeks later. I thought at first that perhaps the book was being told in flashback mode, and we'd eventually be clued in on what happened, but that never happened. I'm left to assume that there was another story, not part of the numbered sequence, which details the destruction of the ship, but nowhere in the book that I can find (certainly not on the back cover blurb, or anywhere in the text of the story) are we told what book that might be, what book this is a sequel to. It's not the "New Frontier" entry in the "Gateways" series; that book was written the year after this one was, and clearly happens after this one does. Sloppy.

What's worse, the sub-plots themselves aren't really up to David's usual standards; both Soleta and McHenry seem oddly out of character. Granted, the actual writing itself is still managed with a fairly deft touch; David is still capable of crafting a compelling story. But this book just seemed sloppy on a number a levels. I got the impression that David had gotten bored with the direction he'd been taking his characters, and decided to play games with them for amusement, much the way "Q" (who puts in a cameo here, by the way) would play games with lesser beings just because he could.

This is a very well-written collection of very graphic erotica. Not for those uninterested in something of value purely for its prurient interest, nor for those with extremely outre kinks, for those of us with a concept of the erotic vaguely within standard norms -- there's a bit of kink to be found here, but nothing that anyone unbothered by a bit of homoerotica will find truly unsettling -- these stories are excellent for getting the juices flowing. Further, they actually have plots and characterization, and few if any sloppy writing errors, all of which places them far beyond what seems to be the standard in the common run of books that depict graphic sex.

I'm not generally a fan of the detective, or "noir" genre. So I find it a continually pleasant surprise that I am as fond of the character of Anita Blake as I am; she is, in many ways, typical of the "tough as nails Private Investigator" character. (Except, of course, that she is 5'3" tall, weighs maybe 110 pounds, and is female. Oh, yeah, and she can animate corpses into zombies and make them obey her; other than that, she's typical.)

This is the second book of the series; I had previously read the first and the third (long story). This book is a bit better than the first, and much better than the third, but the difference is in the internal plausibility of the plot, and in characterization of the villains. Anita is just as much fun in the others as she is here, which is quite a bit, and the writing style is the same (narrative from Anita's point of view, in her voice.)

Word of warning: do not read this book (or any book in this series) if you have a weak stomach, or are easily nauseated. There are graphic descriptions of all-too-realistic crime scenes, scenes in which Anita, as a consultant for the police, is forced to examine the scenes of gruesome murders. Definitely not for the squeamish.

This book is well-written, with characters handled well and a plot that moves well, with a writing style that is very enjoyable to read and few sloppy errors.

Unfortuantely, there are two major problems with it: one is that I find the basic concept to the "Lost Years" stories somewhat dubious; if, during the time between the end of the five-year mission and the first movie, there continued to be major, exciting things going on involving Kirk, it seems doubtful that he would have become the bored and boring paper-pusher who was so desperate to get out of his admiral's office and back into a captain's chair. It seems far more likely that nothing of note happened during those years, which is WHY he became so dissatisfied. So for that reason, among others, I find that I have difficulty accepting the story here (and in its predecessor, "The Lost Years") to be canonical.

Secondly, there is a related issue: it may satisfy the curious to read stories told about the "Lost Years", and it has some of the same morbid fascination as watching a train wreck, but it really isn't my idea of entertainment to read stories about the years during which Kirk became a boring and bored pencil-pusher. It is enough to know that this HAPPENED, and that that explains why he would actively pursue a demotion in order to regain command of a ship later. This was an effective cautionary tale about the dangers of the Peter Principle, accepting promotions to your level of incompetence, but it seems to me it worked better as an off-screen, behind-the-scenes story. It loses some of its effect when examined closely.

Some readers of Star Trek fiction might find the lack of action in this story objectionable; I'm not one of them. It is a fascinating story about the Enterprise crew doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing: exploring and making first contact with new races. I dock it one star mostly for the rather tiresome and pointless subplot involving Wesley Crusher and two of his peers; the less I see of Wesley, the happier I am, but other than that, this story was nearly flawless.

When I rate this at four stars, I'm rating it against other Shakespearean plays; against the general run of literary work, it would certainly rate five. I dock it one star simply because I find the concept, which seems to be accepted as a given in the play, that if a man finds that the woman he loves is cheating on him, it's okay to kill her, and that it's only a bad idea because he might be mistaken, to be, shall we say, a less than enthralling idea which I hate to see perpetuated.

Some other random comments on the work, in no particular order:

1) The racial angle is exaggerated. Yes, Othello is black, and there are a few racial epithets thrown around by his detractors, but really, there is less sign of racism inherent in the characters of this play than one might expect in your average modern person. The main point to making Othello black was to make him an outsider; the play could as easily have been set in England, and Othello made French. (But then, since the target audience was English, they'd have been more likely to get defensive about the portrayal of their prejudices as unreasonable.)

2) The main point of the play is not the evils of racism, but the evils of jealousy.

3) Iago is unquestionably the "best" villain in all of Shakespeare, and one of the best in all of literature, in terms of being a well-portrayed "subtle" villain. It's rare to see a portrayal of a lying, manipulative scoundrel that is actually plausible and successful; usually, the audience finds itself having a hard time believing that the manipulator's victims could possibly be so dumb as to not see through him; certainly, there's a large dollop of that sentiment in "Richard III". But in this play, Iago's lies are remarkably plausible, and it is very easy to see how he is successful in his plan; his machinations were excellently managed.

Diane Carey is a multiply-published author of Star Trek novels, and is frequently the one called upon to write novelizations of popular episodes. This is unfortunate, because her strengths as a writer lie in her ability to create interesting plots and characters, abilities which do not come into play when novelizing someone else's story. Granted, she is also good at pacing and the building of tension, which DO come into play here, as does her ability to make characters come to life, if not as much as it would were she writing her own story.

Her weakness, unfortunately, is in her nuts-and-bolts use of the language. She tries desperately to make creative and original use of the language; generally, all she manages is to distract the reader by misusing words clumsily. This isn't ALWAYS the case; there were very few examples of misused words in "Ship of the Line" and "Day of Honor, Part 1". On the other hand, "The Search" and "Descent" were practically unreadable due to the frequency with which she butchered the language.

This book falls about midway between her two extremes; nowhere near as bad as "The Search" and "Descent", but nowhere near as good as the previously mentioned books. Better than "Way of the Warrior", but not as good as "Battlestations" or "Dreadnought", it is probably closest in quality to "Flashback", although the writing is not quite as good as the writing there.

Which is a real shame, because this is perhaps THE best story in the Star Trek franchise, certainly in the top ten. It deserved better than the mediocre handling it received here; it seems to me that, even ignoring Diane Carey's weird use of language, the story was much better fitted to Peter David's style, and would have worked much better if he'd been the one writing the novelization.

Much better than book two, however. This book probably could be read as a stand-alone, but it obviously works much better if one reads the series in order. This book has a bit less character development than either of the first two in the series, but then, the story is well along and moving toward a climax in this book, and most of the character development has already been done. Some readers will doubtless feel that there is too much focus on action and combat in this story; again, if the trilogy is read as one long story, this is the climactic action scene; as such, it can't help but be combat-heavy. Other readers will be ecstatic at a book so totally action-packed; I suppose it depends on what you read Star Trek for.