My reviews of each story and their ratings:
Nobunaga- An interesting way of telling the story. It certainly left some lingering questions, considering the fact that this story begins almost a decade after the end of the previous MU ENT story that came out in 2007. Overall I liked it, even if it was very vague about the actual truth, and how much Tucker was hallucinating. Obviously the end cleared most of it up, but all I can really assume (especially from what we know happens later) is that Archer is defeated in his attempt to destroy the Empire, probably from Tucker giving up the prefix code sometime after this story ends.
Grade: B-
Ill Winds: I am going to say right now that I have never seen the TAS episode that features Robert April. I don't know if any characters other than him and his wife from this story were involved previously. I certainly didn't recognize any others besides April. I thought the story was pretty good, not particularly amazing, but good enough. Part of the problem for me is that I didn't really know any of these characters, whereas in all of the other stories I do. Therefore, it is hard to care about most of them, even when the one captain dies at the beginning. I am also assuming that the weapon the Klingons were testing was something very similar to the Genesis Device? It seemed somewhat like it.
Grade: C
The Greater Good: I thought this was a tightly packed and interesting look at one of the Mirror Universe major characters who has not been covered as much (Kirk). We also see, for I believe the first time, Mirror Pike. I liked the use of the connection of 'The Managerie/The Cage' from TOS to this MU story. I thought it was nice to see where the name of the 'Tantalus Device' came from, since it was never explained in 'Mirror, Mirror'. However, I should have known that the Tantalus colony was somehow involved. This story gives some good insights into the ruthlessness of Kirk, such as the mention of his deliberately sending the USS Farragut into the vampire
cloud. It also didn't surprise me that unlike Pike, Kirk turned the ship around and blew away the Talosians.
Grade: A
The Black Flag: This has to be my favorite of this collection so far. The first 'Vanguard' MU story works even better than the previous TOS MU story, and manages to make a LOT of references to the series as it has played out so far. It was funny to see Reyes and Ganz practically best friends, when in the normal universe they are on opposite sides of the law. Rana Desai was about as opposite as you can get from her standard universe counterpart. I liked seeing the crew of the Endeavour back to play a major role in the story. I wasn't especially surprised to see T'Prynn play the key role in the story, as she seemed to have her hands in everything in BOTH universes. I am surprised that the Tholians would believe the word of an Imperial and actually show up to stop the Shedai creature after it consumes Vanguard. Considering how ruthless the Empire has been
to the Tholians in the past (see: 'In a Mirror, Darkly I+II'), it seems somewhat unlikely. Well done.
Grade: A++
The Traitor: I wasn't all that impressed with this one. It actually does not focus on the MU Stargazer crew as much as I thought it would. It mostly revolves around MU Guinan and MU Picard (or so we think). I thought that the story didn't flow that well, and was overly confusing and unclear. I also didn't get the troubled relationship in the MU between Guinan and Picard, and I have read all of the MU books up to this point. This comes off as a missed opportunity overall. Plus, two DIFFERENT species of shapeshifting aliens show up to make things even weirder.
Grade: C
Sacred Chalice: An improvement over the last story. However, there are MANY unexplained things, such as how the Trois' descendants survived the Terran Empire's purge of all telepaths. There are reasonable explanations for this that I can come up with, but none of them were provided. I did find it funny that the MU Lwaxana Troi was not all that different from the regular universe's. The main difference was that she was forced into a survival situation, and needed to keep hosts of secrets for herself. I would have cut out the opening few pages where a Cardassian Gul lands on the remains of Betazed with his (closeted) gay son. Why? Because after a few pages, these characters become irrelevant and are forgotten. Meanwhile, this takes out time that could have been used to build up the tension of Troi and Picard trying to get a hold of Lwaxana's cache of Alliance secret files. Instead, they get a hold of it 'offscreen', so to speak. It seemed pretty anti climatic. I do have to say that I enjoyed the fact that the Duras Sisters can never seem to get away from Picard, in ANY universe. That was a nice touch.
Grade: C+
Bitter Fruit: A well-done Voyager-centric episode. Another follow-up to a previous story, it once again focuses on Kes. I feel like it is another one of the stories in this collection that actually works in its small format. Many others have felt rushed or incomplete, but this one works a lot better. B'Elanna struggles with her new telepathic abilities, which leaves her vulnerable to influence by Kes. There are also a bunch of good character moments between Kes and Tuvok, especially after Kes finds out that Tuvok has no intention of letting her see Neelix, which was her primary reason for accepting his mission in the first place. This has consequences, as alluded to at the end of the story.
Grade: A
Family Matters: KRAD's contribution to this collection, it takes a different approach in storytelling than the others. The story consists of a series of communication logs between ships, personal letters between Alliance officers, and other recordings. It mostly reads like a transcript, but the concept actually works. Many major Cardassian and Klingon characters that have not been mentioned in the MU so far show up, including Kurn, Klag, Martok, Kargan, Damar, Macet, and Dukat. Regent Worf has cameos at the beginning and end. Interestingly, Macet and Klag in particular are almost identical in their ways to their normal universe counterparts. Both are honorable men, whereas many of the others we hear from are not so much. I was happy to see a story that mostly focused on the Alliance Klingons, rather than the Alliance Cardassians or Intendant Kira. My only complaint would be that the mystery in the story is rather obvious to solve.
Grade: A
Homecoming: This may turn out to be my favorite story from the collection. PAD's follow-up to the New Frontier MU novel in the last collection continues the story of M'K'n'zy of Calhoun and his Excalibur. This story introduces MU's Selar, who poses as a Romulan in order to get on board. We also see the first appearance of MU Jellico, who joins up with the Excalibur crew as a lower officer (oh, the irony...). There are plenty of comedic moments, especially during the opening scene where McHenry telepathically tries to eavesdrop on Soleta and Mac having sex. The end certainly bodes well for the Rebellion, as the Romulan fleet decides to follow the commands of the new CAPTAIN Calhoun, and fight the Alliance. This in the wake of the decimation of Romulus by a thalaron bomb that they had been building for the Alliance (which, of course, it turned out the Alliance was going to use against Romulus all along). A funny story with some good character moments, it reminds me fondly of the earlier books in the New Frontier series, before things started to get wacky.
Grade: A+
A Terrible Beauty: The continuation of the previous MU DS9 story, 'ATB' primarily delves into the background of Mirror Keiko, who had shown up as a newer character in the previous story set in the DS9 universe. Once again, as in the majority of these stories, we see how the Memory Omega organization gets involved in aiding the Rebellion. However, so far these have been relatively minor victories, especially in the wake of the capture of MU Bashir and Zek. We briefly get to know MU Tasha Yar, who shows up on the Korvat colony as a messenger for Memory Omega to Keiko. Unfortunately we get to see little of her, as she dies rather fast in the process of the slave revolt on Korvat. The ending, like many others, hints at things to come, but it does not reveal much. A decent character story, this was one of the middle of the road entries.
Grade: B
Empathy: Chris Bennett's entry, which is the first to feature MU Titan characters, shows some interesting sides of this universe that we have not seen before. The Irriol bear some similarities to the Caeliar and the system-sized entity from "Greater than the Sum" (also written by Chris). I would like to see if the Irriol exist in the regular universe (unless they already do and my memory is shot). I was not all that surprised to see a darker Dr. Ree, who was already a character with the potential for a lot of violence. The most interesting changes were MU Riker and MU Christine Vale. At first it appears that Vale is actually working undercover for the Rebellion, but soon betrays her 'comrades', proving to be a double agent all along. She has an interesting perspective as a slave, that being that she would rather be enslaved with her master (Jaza Najem in this case), than 'free' to be on her own in the universe. She also expresses a lot of anger towards humanity's past actions as a result of the Terran Empire. What was not clear was whether these opinions were brainwashed into her by her master, who had even more hatred of Terrans than her, or if it was genuine. I would assume the latter after reading. The other major difference was Riker, who was probably the most bloodthirsty human we have seen since the days of the Terran Empire in this universe. He was absolutely immoral and ruthless, and had plannned to take over Captain Ian Troi's ship by mutiny before the captain was killed in another incident. He brutally assaults (and I believe rapes) and murders Christine following her betrayal of the landing party. I think this story may be the most violent Titan entry since the first book. However, the ending, where Tuvok shows Jaza the error of his ways towards Bajor, by telling him of the regular universe Bajor's troubles, was a fitting ending. Well done.
Grade: A
For Want of a Nail: I'm not entirely sure where this story fits in. I would say TNG, because it primarily involves TNG characters Duras, Gowron, Nechayev, Reg Barclay, and K'Ehleyr. I found this story to be well done, although I really wish that we would have seen the beginning of the Memory Omega telepathic rebellion against the Alliance in this collection. Sadly, we do not. Despite this, 'FWoaN' has an interesting perspective of some well-known and peripheral TNG characters. K'Ehleyr shows up on a planet as a commando, tasked with recovering technology crucial to Memory Omega's existence. Quickly we find out that Alynna Nechayev is also a member of Memory Omega, although she has turned on her former comrades because she believes that Memory Omega's rebellion will fail to defeat the Alliance. Thankfully she gives up her information to a Rebellion collaborator, who happens to be Duras (a traitor in any universe, apparently...). Reg Barclay is eventually forced to move from his 'desk' job as the tactical operator for K'Ehleyr so that he can save her life and complete the mission. I found that of these four characters, only K'Ehleyr was much different from her normal universe counterpart, because she goes from being a diplomat in 'our' universe, to a warrior in this one. Other than that, the others stay pretty close to their counterparts. Gowron makes a cameo as his typical backstabbing self in this universe. I honestly would have liked to see a different portrayal of these characters, especially Reg. He seemed almost identical to the Reg we know so well from TNG and VOY.
This story ends up in the middle of the road.
Grade: B-
Rankings:
1. The Black Flag (Favorite)
2. Homecoming
3. Empathy
4. Bitter Fruit
5. Family Matters
6. The Greater Good
7. A Terrible Beauty
8. For Want of a Nail
9. Nobunaga
10. Sacred Chalice
11. Ill Winds
12. The Traitor (Least Favorite)
Nobunaga- An interesting way of telling the story. It certainly left some lingering questions, considering the fact that this story begins almost a decade after the end of the previous MU ENT story that came out in 2007. Overall I liked it, even if it was very vague about the actual truth, and how much Tucker was hallucinating. Obviously the end cleared most of it up, but all I can really assume (especially from what we know happens later) is that Archer is defeated in his attempt to destroy the Empire, probably from Tucker giving up the prefix code sometime after this story ends.
Grade: B-
Ill Winds: I am going to say right now that I have never seen the TAS episode that features Robert April. I don't know if any characters other than him and his wife from this story were involved previously. I certainly didn't recognize any others besides April. I thought the story was pretty good, not particularly amazing, but good enough. Part of the problem for me is that I didn't really know any of these characters, whereas in all of the other stories I do. Therefore, it is hard to care about most of them, even when the one captain dies at the beginning. I am also assuming that the weapon the Klingons were testing was something very similar to the Genesis Device? It seemed somewhat like it.
Grade: C
The Greater Good: I thought this was a tightly packed and interesting look at one of the Mirror Universe major characters who has not been covered as much (Kirk). We also see, for I believe the first time, Mirror Pike. I liked the use of the connection of 'The Managerie/The Cage' from TOS to this MU story. I thought it was nice to see where the name of the 'Tantalus Device' came from, since it was never explained in 'Mirror, Mirror'. However, I should have known that the Tantalus colony was somehow involved. This story gives some good insights into the ruthlessness of Kirk, such as the mention of his deliberately sending the USS Farragut into the vampire
cloud. It also didn't surprise me that unlike Pike, Kirk turned the ship around and blew away the Talosians.
Grade: A
The Black Flag: This has to be my favorite of this collection so far. The first 'Vanguard' MU story works even better than the previous TOS MU story, and manages to make a LOT of references to the series as it has played out so far. It was funny to see Reyes and Ganz practically best friends, when in the normal universe they are on opposite sides of the law. Rana Desai was about as opposite as you can get from her standard universe counterpart. I liked seeing the crew of the Endeavour back to play a major role in the story. I wasn't especially surprised to see T'Prynn play the key role in the story, as she seemed to have her hands in everything in BOTH universes. I am surprised that the Tholians would believe the word of an Imperial and actually show up to stop the Shedai creature after it consumes Vanguard. Considering how ruthless the Empire has been
to the Tholians in the past (see: 'In a Mirror, Darkly I+II'), it seems somewhat unlikely. Well done.
Grade: A++
The Traitor: I wasn't all that impressed with this one. It actually does not focus on the MU Stargazer crew as much as I thought it would. It mostly revolves around MU Guinan and MU Picard (or so we think). I thought that the story didn't flow that well, and was overly confusing and unclear. I also didn't get the troubled relationship in the MU between Guinan and Picard, and I have read all of the MU books up to this point. This comes off as a missed opportunity overall. Plus, two DIFFERENT species of shapeshifting aliens show up to make things even weirder.
Grade: C
Sacred Chalice: An improvement over the last story. However, there are MANY unexplained things, such as how the Trois' descendants survived the Terran Empire's purge of all telepaths. There are reasonable explanations for this that I can come up with, but none of them were provided. I did find it funny that the MU Lwaxana Troi was not all that different from the regular universe's. The main difference was that she was forced into a survival situation, and needed to keep hosts of secrets for herself. I would have cut out the opening few pages where a Cardassian Gul lands on the remains of Betazed with his (closeted) gay son. Why? Because after a few pages, these characters become irrelevant and are forgotten. Meanwhile, this takes out time that could have been used to build up the tension of Troi and Picard trying to get a hold of Lwaxana's cache of Alliance secret files. Instead, they get a hold of it 'offscreen', so to speak. It seemed pretty anti climatic. I do have to say that I enjoyed the fact that the Duras Sisters can never seem to get away from Picard, in ANY universe. That was a nice touch.
Grade: C+
Bitter Fruit: A well-done Voyager-centric episode. Another follow-up to a previous story, it once again focuses on Kes. I feel like it is another one of the stories in this collection that actually works in its small format. Many others have felt rushed or incomplete, but this one works a lot better. B'Elanna struggles with her new telepathic abilities, which leaves her vulnerable to influence by Kes. There are also a bunch of good character moments between Kes and Tuvok, especially after Kes finds out that Tuvok has no intention of letting her see Neelix, which was her primary reason for accepting his mission in the first place. This has consequences, as alluded to at the end of the story.
Grade: A
Family Matters: KRAD's contribution to this collection, it takes a different approach in storytelling than the others. The story consists of a series of communication logs between ships, personal letters between Alliance officers, and other recordings. It mostly reads like a transcript, but the concept actually works. Many major Cardassian and Klingon characters that have not been mentioned in the MU so far show up, including Kurn, Klag, Martok, Kargan, Damar, Macet, and Dukat. Regent Worf has cameos at the beginning and end. Interestingly, Macet and Klag in particular are almost identical in their ways to their normal universe counterparts. Both are honorable men, whereas many of the others we hear from are not so much. I was happy to see a story that mostly focused on the Alliance Klingons, rather than the Alliance Cardassians or Intendant Kira. My only complaint would be that the mystery in the story is rather obvious to solve.
Grade: A
Homecoming: This may turn out to be my favorite story from the collection. PAD's follow-up to the New Frontier MU novel in the last collection continues the story of M'K'n'zy of Calhoun and his Excalibur. This story introduces MU's Selar, who poses as a Romulan in order to get on board. We also see the first appearance of MU Jellico, who joins up with the Excalibur crew as a lower officer (oh, the irony...). There are plenty of comedic moments, especially during the opening scene where McHenry telepathically tries to eavesdrop on Soleta and Mac having sex. The end certainly bodes well for the Rebellion, as the Romulan fleet decides to follow the commands of the new CAPTAIN Calhoun, and fight the Alliance. This in the wake of the decimation of Romulus by a thalaron bomb that they had been building for the Alliance (which, of course, it turned out the Alliance was going to use against Romulus all along). A funny story with some good character moments, it reminds me fondly of the earlier books in the New Frontier series, before things started to get wacky.
Grade: A+
A Terrible Beauty: The continuation of the previous MU DS9 story, 'ATB' primarily delves into the background of Mirror Keiko, who had shown up as a newer character in the previous story set in the DS9 universe. Once again, as in the majority of these stories, we see how the Memory Omega organization gets involved in aiding the Rebellion. However, so far these have been relatively minor victories, especially in the wake of the capture of MU Bashir and Zek. We briefly get to know MU Tasha Yar, who shows up on the Korvat colony as a messenger for Memory Omega to Keiko. Unfortunately we get to see little of her, as she dies rather fast in the process of the slave revolt on Korvat. The ending, like many others, hints at things to come, but it does not reveal much. A decent character story, this was one of the middle of the road entries.
Grade: B
Empathy: Chris Bennett's entry, which is the first to feature MU Titan characters, shows some interesting sides of this universe that we have not seen before. The Irriol bear some similarities to the Caeliar and the system-sized entity from "Greater than the Sum" (also written by Chris). I would like to see if the Irriol exist in the regular universe (unless they already do and my memory is shot). I was not all that surprised to see a darker Dr. Ree, who was already a character with the potential for a lot of violence. The most interesting changes were MU Riker and MU Christine Vale. At first it appears that Vale is actually working undercover for the Rebellion, but soon betrays her 'comrades', proving to be a double agent all along. She has an interesting perspective as a slave, that being that she would rather be enslaved with her master (Jaza Najem in this case), than 'free' to be on her own in the universe. She also expresses a lot of anger towards humanity's past actions as a result of the Terran Empire. What was not clear was whether these opinions were brainwashed into her by her master, who had even more hatred of Terrans than her, or if it was genuine. I would assume the latter after reading. The other major difference was Riker, who was probably the most bloodthirsty human we have seen since the days of the Terran Empire in this universe. He was absolutely immoral and ruthless, and had plannned to take over Captain Ian Troi's ship by mutiny before the captain was killed in another incident. He brutally assaults (and I believe rapes) and murders Christine following her betrayal of the landing party. I think this story may be the most violent Titan entry since the first book. However, the ending, where Tuvok shows Jaza the error of his ways towards Bajor, by telling him of the regular universe Bajor's troubles, was a fitting ending. Well done.
Grade: A
For Want of a Nail: I'm not entirely sure where this story fits in. I would say TNG, because it primarily involves TNG characters Duras, Gowron, Nechayev, Reg Barclay, and K'Ehleyr. I found this story to be well done, although I really wish that we would have seen the beginning of the Memory Omega telepathic rebellion against the Alliance in this collection. Sadly, we do not. Despite this, 'FWoaN' has an interesting perspective of some well-known and peripheral TNG characters. K'Ehleyr shows up on a planet as a commando, tasked with recovering technology crucial to Memory Omega's existence. Quickly we find out that Alynna Nechayev is also a member of Memory Omega, although she has turned on her former comrades because she believes that Memory Omega's rebellion will fail to defeat the Alliance. Thankfully she gives up her information to a Rebellion collaborator, who happens to be Duras (a traitor in any universe, apparently...). Reg Barclay is eventually forced to move from his 'desk' job as the tactical operator for K'Ehleyr so that he can save her life and complete the mission. I found that of these four characters, only K'Ehleyr was much different from her normal universe counterpart, because she goes from being a diplomat in 'our' universe, to a warrior in this one. Other than that, the others stay pretty close to their counterparts. Gowron makes a cameo as his typical backstabbing self in this universe. I honestly would have liked to see a different portrayal of these characters, especially Reg. He seemed almost identical to the Reg we know so well from TNG and VOY.
This story ends up in the middle of the road.
Grade: B-
Rankings:
1. The Black Flag (Favorite)
2. Homecoming
3. Empathy
4. Bitter Fruit
5. Family Matters
6. The Greater Good
7. A Terrible Beauty
8. For Want of a Nail
9. Nobunaga
10. Sacred Chalice
11. Ill Winds
12. The Traitor (Least Favorite)
