The surviving crew of the USS Da Vinci must try to recover from their devastating mission to Galan VI. Corsi returns home to try to mend a long-standing rift with her father; while Abramowitz becomes embroiled in a complex problem on a mysterious alien world. But Commander Gomez faces the most difficult test of all: how can she deal with her grief at the death of Lieutenant Commander Duffy?
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Domenica Corsi hated landings. Read the first page
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Domenica Corsi hated landings. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By Rory Q
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
After the superb and emotional bombshell that was the Wildfire duology, I dove straight into this collection of stories eager to find out what was going to happen to our crew and the ship. I did expect a more character based story than "engineering problem of the week", but unfortunately, I was disappointed with how this turned out over the four stories.
Home Fires was a fairly decent start and we got some decent character development for "Core-Breach" Corsi. I did feel a bit let down throughout this story that Stevens didn't get more time in the limelight to develop his character as well, and also that we'd skipped the whole journey home, the initial shellshock of the survivors and their return to Earth. It also struck me as a little odd that the story's primary character was actually incapacitated for most of Wildfire, so experienced the least trauma firsthand.
That being said, I didn't mind that the majority of this story was told in flashback format as it was a fairly engaging tale and served to humanise Corsi more than we've seen previously.
Age of Unreason was also fairly entertaining as a straightforward SCE story, with a rather interesting and unique concept of using duplicates of yourself as a weapon, but at the cost of your sanity. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a feeling of Abramowitz dealing with the events of Wildfire and Faulwell and Soloman spend so little time in the limelight as to be there just to make up the numbers of core SCE characters.
Balance of Nature is a story that gave some welcome development of P8 Blue and the Nasat world and culture, but again fell into the "standard SCE fare" category. I found my enjoyment and interest in this story waning at times because I was really hoping for a proper sequel to Wildfire by this point. Had this story appeared elsewhere in the series, I feel I would've enjoyed it a lot more.
Breakdowns is really the star of the collection though as we see Captain Gold and Gomez dealing with their feelings head-on, even coming into direct conflict with each other at one point. We got some decent development for Gold and really got inside his head to see how much importance he puts on family, whether this be his actual family or his crew. His feelings of guilt, sadness, even dejectedness really shine through. The scenes where Gold personally travels to meet the families of the dead crewmen were the kind of passages I'd really been hoping for throughout the collection.
I found it to be quite emotional and poignant that MacAllan, the spit-and-polish lieutenant who sacrificed his life to save Gold, turned out to be so lonely, with no contactable friends or family, and Gold's disappointment and sadness about this was a well executed part of the story as it really gets the reader to feel the loss with Gold.
The only bit that didn't quite work is when Gold goes out to the Gobi desert to visit the son of a fallen comrade and has a particularly bizarre exchange with him. As the crewman in question (apologies for not remembering the character's name) was not a major character and is now dead, I think it's probably unlikely that the reasons behind the son's cold and dismissive attitude will ever be addressed.
The cover art is also a bit misleading as, apart from a brief reference to a memorial service, we don't read about any of the crew, especially Duffy, having a funeral with friends and family gathered together - in my opinion, this is a big missed opportunity to continue to the emotional sacrifice David Mack gave us in Wildfire, part II.
The passages where the survivors all come together before shipping out on a rebuilt Da Vinci, with over half a crew of new faces, was a very satisfying conclusion to this tale, and I'm hoping the Aftermath collection picks up from where this left off as the crew still come to terms with what happened.
In closing, the Breakdowns collection was no worse than any other of the SCE collections, and ordinarily this probably would have got a 4 star rating. Unfortunately, it wasn't what I had hoped for considering how much the status quo changed with Wildfire.
Home Fires was a fairly decent start and we got some decent character development for "Core-Breach" Corsi. I did feel a bit let down throughout this story that Stevens didn't get more time in the limelight to develop his character as well, and also that we'd skipped the whole journey home, the initial shellshock of the survivors and their return to Earth. It also struck me as a little odd that the story's primary character was actually incapacitated for most of Wildfire, so experienced the least trauma firsthand.
That being said, I didn't mind that the majority of this story was told in flashback format as it was a fairly engaging tale and served to humanise Corsi more than we've seen previously.
Age of Unreason was also fairly entertaining as a straightforward SCE story, with a rather interesting and unique concept of using duplicates of yourself as a weapon, but at the cost of your sanity. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a feeling of Abramowitz dealing with the events of Wildfire and Faulwell and Soloman spend so little time in the limelight as to be there just to make up the numbers of core SCE characters.
Balance of Nature is a story that gave some welcome development of P8 Blue and the Nasat world and culture, but again fell into the "standard SCE fare" category. I found my enjoyment and interest in this story waning at times because I was really hoping for a proper sequel to Wildfire by this point. Had this story appeared elsewhere in the series, I feel I would've enjoyed it a lot more.
Breakdowns is really the star of the collection though as we see Captain Gold and Gomez dealing with their feelings head-on, even coming into direct conflict with each other at one point. We got some decent development for Gold and really got inside his head to see how much importance he puts on family, whether this be his actual family or his crew. His feelings of guilt, sadness, even dejectedness really shine through. The scenes where Gold personally travels to meet the families of the dead crewmen were the kind of passages I'd really been hoping for throughout the collection.
I found it to be quite emotional and poignant that MacAllan, the spit-and-polish lieutenant who sacrificed his life to save Gold, turned out to be so lonely, with no contactable friends or family, and Gold's disappointment and sadness about this was a well executed part of the story as it really gets the reader to feel the loss with Gold.
The only bit that didn't quite work is when Gold goes out to the Gobi desert to visit the son of a fallen comrade and has a particularly bizarre exchange with him. As the crewman in question (apologies for not remembering the character's name) was not a major character and is now dead, I think it's probably unlikely that the reasons behind the son's cold and dismissive attitude will ever be addressed.
The cover art is also a bit misleading as, apart from a brief reference to a memorial service, we don't read about any of the crew, especially Duffy, having a funeral with friends and family gathered together - in my opinion, this is a big missed opportunity to continue to the emotional sacrifice David Mack gave us in Wildfire, part II.
The passages where the survivors all come together before shipping out on a rebuilt Da Vinci, with over half a crew of new faces, was a very satisfying conclusion to this tale, and I'm hoping the Aftermath collection picks up from where this left off as the crew still come to terms with what happened.
In closing, the Breakdowns collection was no worse than any other of the SCE collections, and ordinarily this probably would have got a 4 star rating. Unfortunately, it wasn't what I had hoped for considering how much the status quo changed with Wildfire.
By Bryan Dolan
Format:Paperback
The tales give a very good depth to the characters, with their longings and traumas while dealing with very difficult situations. Also the reasons behind the decisions. I will be searching out more by the same authors
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars
5 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
ST:SCE, Breakdowns, Book7
18 July 2006
By Joe Zika
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Star Trek: Strafleet Corps of Engineers, Breakdown, Book 7 is a compilation of 4 short story e-books in print form for easier reading. "Breakdowns" has four stories in it and they are as follows:
Home Fires wriiten by Dayton Ward and Kevin Gilmore
Age of Unreason written by Scott Ciencin
Balance of Nature written by Heather Jarman
Breakdowns written by Keith R.A. DeCandido
These are the e-books numbered 25 thru 28 in pocket books successful e-book series The Starfleet Corps of Engineers. After the zinger of a book called "Wildfire""Breakdowns" is a more subdued book as twenty plus members of the U.S.S. da Vinci have been killed at Galvan VI, the da Vinci is in drydock at McKinley Station around Earth for badly needed repairs and the crew that is still alive go for some badly needed shore leave.
These stories deal with the personal side of the crew and how they deal with the fact that so many have died on the da Vinci. The first story "Home Fires" by Ward and Gilmore deals with Corsi and Fabin Stevens as they go home to Corsi's family and later book passage on a freighter that Aldo Corsi owns as he makes a cargo run and the elder Corsi and his Daughter have a heart to heart conversation about Starfleet and Corsi's uncle Gi. This is a well-told story and fills in the characters and makes them more human. Characterizations and a believeable story is what "Home Fires" is.
The next story "Age of Unreason" by Scott Ciencin is a story about multible people, doppelgangers, as they wear a wrist band and can duplicate themselves to do many amazing things. The story is far fetched and is hard to believe as Carol Abromowitz, Bart, Soloman try to erect a null field to stop all of this madness. Carol is the main character and Bart and Soloman are used as seconadary characters to give the story a little believeablility.
The third story is "Balance of Nature" by Heather Jarman and is the best of the four stories. It's about P8 Blue coming home to her homeworld and chaos breaks out. As we get a better picture of P8 Blue (Patty), we see the struggles she has gone through to be in Starfleet and her reception back home on her homeworld. We find out the there is another sentiant lifeform on Patty's homeworld and they are attacking the Nasat, as an ancient treaty long forgotten by the Nasat comes into play.
The fourth story "Breakdowns" by Keith R.A. DeCadido is about how Captain David Gold reconciles the lost of twenty-three memters of the da Vinci crew under his command and the story fleshes out Gold and gives the reader insight into his personality and that there is a conflict to be resolved with Sonya Gomez making for some interesting reading.
This book is NOT about how the engineers fix things as in previous books, but how they fix their respective lives in the wake of an extream trajady do to "Wildfire" and how they cope. This book is a storytelling book working on the characterizations, and filling in for the characters written about, making for a well-rounded book of an interesting nature and how each one resolves their personel situations.
Home Fires wriiten by Dayton Ward and Kevin Gilmore
Age of Unreason written by Scott Ciencin
Balance of Nature written by Heather Jarman
Breakdowns written by Keith R.A. DeCandido
These are the e-books numbered 25 thru 28 in pocket books successful e-book series The Starfleet Corps of Engineers. After the zinger of a book called "Wildfire""Breakdowns" is a more subdued book as twenty plus members of the U.S.S. da Vinci have been killed at Galvan VI, the da Vinci is in drydock at McKinley Station around Earth for badly needed repairs and the crew that is still alive go for some badly needed shore leave.
These stories deal with the personal side of the crew and how they deal with the fact that so many have died on the da Vinci. The first story "Home Fires" by Ward and Gilmore deals with Corsi and Fabin Stevens as they go home to Corsi's family and later book passage on a freighter that Aldo Corsi owns as he makes a cargo run and the elder Corsi and his Daughter have a heart to heart conversation about Starfleet and Corsi's uncle Gi. This is a well-told story and fills in the characters and makes them more human. Characterizations and a believeable story is what "Home Fires" is.
The next story "Age of Unreason" by Scott Ciencin is a story about multible people, doppelgangers, as they wear a wrist band and can duplicate themselves to do many amazing things. The story is far fetched and is hard to believe as Carol Abromowitz, Bart, Soloman try to erect a null field to stop all of this madness. Carol is the main character and Bart and Soloman are used as seconadary characters to give the story a little believeablility.
The third story is "Balance of Nature" by Heather Jarman and is the best of the four stories. It's about P8 Blue coming home to her homeworld and chaos breaks out. As we get a better picture of P8 Blue (Patty), we see the struggles she has gone through to be in Starfleet and her reception back home on her homeworld. We find out the there is another sentiant lifeform on Patty's homeworld and they are attacking the Nasat, as an ancient treaty long forgotten by the Nasat comes into play.
The fourth story "Breakdowns" by Keith R.A. DeCadido is about how Captain David Gold reconciles the lost of twenty-three memters of the da Vinci crew under his command and the story fleshes out Gold and gives the reader insight into his personality and that there is a conflict to be resolved with Sonya Gomez making for some interesting reading.
This book is NOT about how the engineers fix things as in previous books, but how they fix their respective lives in the wake of an extream trajady do to "Wildfire" and how they cope. This book is a storytelling book working on the characterizations, and filling in for the characters written about, making for a well-rounded book of an interesting nature and how each one resolves their personel situations.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not your usual Star Trek book.
31 May 2008
By James Yanni
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
There are four distinctly separate stories in this book. All of them are quite well-written; two of them are not TOO far from what we normally expect when we pick up a Star Trek book, two of them are.
The previous book in the SCE series was different in that the "good guys", although triumphant, took heavy casualties rather than coming through unscathed. This book explores the emotional ramifications for the survivors of such an experience. Two of the stories (the one dealing with Corsi & Stevens, and the one dealing with Gold and Gomez) do nothing else. The one dealing with P8 Blue and the one dealing with Abramowitz, Falwell, & Soloman have relativey normal Sci-Fi plots overlaying the exploration of the characters' emotional states. Both approaches work quite well, although if you read Star Trek for the action and the Sci-Fi plots, you may be disappointed with two of the stories.
The previous book in the SCE series was different in that the "good guys", although triumphant, took heavy casualties rather than coming through unscathed. This book explores the emotional ramifications for the survivors of such an experience. Two of the stories (the one dealing with Corsi & Stevens, and the one dealing with Gold and Gomez) do nothing else. The one dealing with P8 Blue and the one dealing with Abramowitz, Falwell, & Soloman have relativey normal Sci-Fi plots overlaying the exploration of the characters' emotional states. Both approaches work quite well, although if you read Star Trek for the action and the Sci-Fi plots, you may be disappointed with two of the stories.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solid Work
27 May 2005
By Sxottlan
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Containing four e-books documenting the aftermath of the incident at Galvan VI, Breakdowns takes a bit of a diversion from the usual engineering problem-solving that's defined the SCE series to go after more character oriented fare. For the most part, these stories are good.
"Home Fires": Actually two stories in one as we see Corsi and Stevens visit her homestead and take a trip on a freighter. This story explores some of Corsi's history only mentioned in passing before. It's a quiet story that unexpectedly veers off into a flashback adventure set during the Cardassian conflict that explains Corsi's father's problem with Starfleet. Indeed, it does feel a bit unfair what Starfleet asked the Corsi family to do, but falls within the realm of the plausible that it gives the story some weight. The action was a nice surprise. One quibble though: Stevens goes to get food and her father tells Corsi to go find him after their heart-to-heart. We then go to the next chapter where she's going to his quarters, wanting to tell him about her talk with her father and Stevens is apparently just getting out of the shower. Now did she go find him in the kitchen and not tell him only to really want to tell him later? Just seemed like a snafu.
"Age of Unreason": Certainly the weakest book of the anthology and probably the weakest SCE story since "The Riddled Post". This story was just simply half-baked. We really get little to almost no background or development of the featured aliens, the astral projection technology (a fascinating concept given frustrating short shrift) and the confounding and sudden rivalry between Abramowitz and her "arch nemesis", an evil culturalist (allow me to chuckle) so over-the-top as to never be believable in the slightest. The backstory on some supposed murder he was involved with was also confusing, making me feel like I was missing something. There's an attempt at a theme about power corrupting that feels borrowed from Lord of the Rings, but the story fails to draw me in to really care. Faulwell plays second string and Solomon appears in name only, making me wonder why the writer even bothered to include him.
"Balance of Nature": Conversely, the best story of the anthology and probably the best Heather Jarman tale yet. It's far more focused and tight than her other works, which tended to bloat up on the worldbuilding and skimp on most everything else to really engage me. But here it's a very nice balance between worldbuilding and character work. Pattie has always been a favorite of mine, so it was great getting to see some serious development on her and her homeworld. I loved the idea of cities in the trees, especially around one massive tree, and it gave off an Endor-vibe that I enjoyed. It was nice getting a Federation world that's quite exotic.
"Breakdowns": A nice way to round out these post-"Wildfire" stories, "Breakdowns" is a short story about Gomez and Gold coming to terms with what happened. Some of the family conflict in the Gold family lacked an explanation and thus distanced me from it, but otherwise I enjoyed the characters and their interaction. In some ways, the story felt a bit odd in that I'd figure Gold and Gomez would have hashed this out weeks before right after Duffy died. This might have been interesting to have set this story back on the ship on the trip home. I did however really like the brief court martial scene.
Overall, a pretty solid and understated SCE anthology. I'm quite looking forward to the next one where things pick back up again...whenever it comes out.
"Home Fires": Actually two stories in one as we see Corsi and Stevens visit her homestead and take a trip on a freighter. This story explores some of Corsi's history only mentioned in passing before. It's a quiet story that unexpectedly veers off into a flashback adventure set during the Cardassian conflict that explains Corsi's father's problem with Starfleet. Indeed, it does feel a bit unfair what Starfleet asked the Corsi family to do, but falls within the realm of the plausible that it gives the story some weight. The action was a nice surprise. One quibble though: Stevens goes to get food and her father tells Corsi to go find him after their heart-to-heart. We then go to the next chapter where she's going to his quarters, wanting to tell him about her talk with her father and Stevens is apparently just getting out of the shower. Now did she go find him in the kitchen and not tell him only to really want to tell him later? Just seemed like a snafu.
"Age of Unreason": Certainly the weakest book of the anthology and probably the weakest SCE story since "The Riddled Post". This story was just simply half-baked. We really get little to almost no background or development of the featured aliens, the astral projection technology (a fascinating concept given frustrating short shrift) and the confounding and sudden rivalry between Abramowitz and her "arch nemesis", an evil culturalist (allow me to chuckle) so over-the-top as to never be believable in the slightest. The backstory on some supposed murder he was involved with was also confusing, making me feel like I was missing something. There's an attempt at a theme about power corrupting that feels borrowed from Lord of the Rings, but the story fails to draw me in to really care. Faulwell plays second string and Solomon appears in name only, making me wonder why the writer even bothered to include him.
"Balance of Nature": Conversely, the best story of the anthology and probably the best Heather Jarman tale yet. It's far more focused and tight than her other works, which tended to bloat up on the worldbuilding and skimp on most everything else to really engage me. But here it's a very nice balance between worldbuilding and character work. Pattie has always been a favorite of mine, so it was great getting to see some serious development on her and her homeworld. I loved the idea of cities in the trees, especially around one massive tree, and it gave off an Endor-vibe that I enjoyed. It was nice getting a Federation world that's quite exotic.
"Breakdowns": A nice way to round out these post-"Wildfire" stories, "Breakdowns" is a short story about Gomez and Gold coming to terms with what happened. Some of the family conflict in the Gold family lacked an explanation and thus distanced me from it, but otherwise I enjoyed the characters and their interaction. In some ways, the story felt a bit odd in that I'd figure Gold and Gomez would have hashed this out weeks before right after Duffy died. This might have been interesting to have set this story back on the ship on the trip home. I did however really like the brief court martial scene.
Overall, a pretty solid and understated SCE anthology. I'm quite looking forward to the next one where things pick back up again...whenever it comes out.
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