Need a gigantic, marauding starship explored? Is your global computer system starting to break down? Call in the crack team from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Overseen by Captain Montgomery Scott from his office at Starfleet Headquarters, the S.C.E. can build, rebuild, program, reprogram, assemble, reassemble, or just figure out everything from alien replicators to doomsday machines. Just don't expect them to perform miracles -- unless they absolutely have to.
Captain David Gold, his first officer Commander Sonya Gomez, and the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci put their lives on the line to save a colony world threatened by a deadly alien and rescue a ship trappedin the ravages of interphase.
Join Starfleet's miracle workers for a wrenching journey through the new frontier!
HAVE TECH WILL TRAVEL, SCE #1 contains the complete eBook editions of S.C.E. adventures #1-4.
Nice to see a "new" crew in actionFebruary 27, 2006 Joe Rixman(Cathedral City, CA United States) 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The first in a series of books collecting stories about The Starfleet Corp of Engineers, "Have Tech, Will Travel" is an excellent way to get things going.
Writer/Editor Keith R.A. DeCandido keeps continuity between the stories and amongst the various writers tight, with varying degrees of success in terms of some writer's giving voice to certain characters.
The book collects four stories: The Belly of the Beast, by Dean Wesley Smith, Keith R.A. DeCandido's Fatal Error, Christie Golden's Hard Crash and Interphase: Book One by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore.
Story #1, The Belly of the Beast, is the weakest in terms of character voice for me. Picard didn't sound like Picard to me and I had a hard time accepting Sonya Gomez, one of the weakest Next Generation characters ever created (and mercifully removed from the series quickly), as a leader. Smith's story did little to alleviate that concern for me. Also, with so much of the story geared toward introductions and character thought patterns, it was difficult to get a strong feel for it. However, I must give credit where credit is due. Smith's grasp of atmosphere and dread are palpable and the scene in the belly of the beast is unnerving and terrifying. The final scenes definitely make this story worth the time. It also sets up the issues with one of the main characters for the rest of the series. A good starting off point.
Story #2 is DeCandido's FATAL ERROR. This story was gripping from beginning to end, with the sentient computer being a very interesting character in its own right. Keith has written a timely story that touches on our own society's issues with religious orthodoxy and the result of a people struggling between pious fervor and the stagnation of the culture of an entire world. This is a very good story.
However, it doesn't beat the emotional power of story #3, Hard Crash, by Christie Golden. A heart-wrenching story of friendship and loss (hate the title of this piece though...one of only two faults of this story, in my opinion), Golden has crafted an intriguing mystery with another sentient machine (the other fault aside from the titel) and how it deals with death. This is an obvious vehicle for one of the main characters of the series who is also struggling with this loss. The end doesn't feel cheap or tacked on, but is a logical and emotional continuation of the overall series. VERY well done and the highlight of this collection.
Story #4 is a very well written story called Interphase: Book One. My only issue with this story is that it is outdated due to an episode of Enterprise that places the object of the story in a completely different time and space. However, taken as a story in and of itself (ignoring the canon of the television series), Ward and Dilmore give us an intriguing look at another long-known, but rarely seen, alien species, the Tholians.
All in all, the stories are very well written but suffer from the "introduction phenomenon" of constantly reminding us who these characters are (as if the stories were all written simultaneously and each writer or writing team wasn't sure if the others would provide the information). It sometimes made for redundant reading, but the stories told were good enough and well written enough for this to be a negligible detraction.
Have Tech, Will Travel is a solid four story book, with new characters and some old (or very old in one instance) characters returning as well. I definitely look forward to reading the next collection and thank the authors for a great job!
And we were doing so well!June 18, 2003 James Yanni(Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) 7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is the first book of a new series of Star Trek books, focusing on the "Starfleet Corps of Engineers", basically a group of troubleshooters who go in whenever there's a mechanical or alien technology problem that either can't be handled by a regular starship, or (more rarely) that COULD possibly have been handled by the regular starship, but there's actually enough time to call for specialists (usually, these things are sufficient crises that if the regular ship CAN handle them, they have to.)
This book was composed of four mid-length stories (longer than "short stories", but not novel-length) each written by a different author, which together follow a continuous time-line and thus more or less make up one book's worth of story. The writing is surprisingly even, given the different authors; the handoffs from each author to the next are seamless, and the writing itself is quite good. The characters are well-developed, a good mix of minor characters from various episodes on TV and new characters (although the first book begins with the Enterprise-E and crew for an introduction, and Geordi LaForge continues through the first three stories.) The plots, while not the MOST original I've ever seen, are good, workmanlike concepts, and the basic SCE concept is in many ways a marvellous return to early science fiction concepts, where there may be action and combat, but the ADVENTURE is in the discovery and the science.
So why is the rating only four stars, given how much good I have to say about the book? (And in fact, I thought harder about whether to knock it down to three than I did about granting it five.) Because the "ending" ISN'T one; they cut the last story off in mid-action in order to make a "tune in next week" cliffhanger to attempt to manipulate the reader into continuing to buy the following books of the series. I will do so, because I enjoyed the book as a whole, NOT because they left me hanging. I consider that a sufficiently cheesy scam to be worth the loss of AT LEAST one star, and demonstrates that they had no confidence in the quality of the series themselves (or they wouldn't have needed to use such a cheap scam.)
The concept that they shoulda used for the new tv series!March 18, 2003 RoseWelsh(St. George, UT United States) 2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I picked up _Have Tech, Will Travel_ and couldn't put it down. I found myself thinking "this is what Enterprise should be!"
What put me off originally besides the techy sounding title was the fact that it was compiled into novellettes, billed as short stories by different writers. I really don't like short stories because, you know, they just get interesting and then they end. But the way it's put together it's really rather seemless and continues the character's stories into each new novelette even if the situtations change.
Each story was wonderfully surprising, high quality adventure Trek, with things to think about. I was surprised by each new twist in each story, kept on the edge of my seat and fell in-like with each new/old character. The decisions that each character maked is logical and the captain is admirable. I like that Scotty shows up in each story, even if it's just on the viewer, though I'd absolutely love to see him get more involved with a few storylines. These authors can write Scotty and LaForge so well you can hear their voices in your head.
Speaking of that, I loved the way the creators of the series and the writers used familiar characters to introduce new ones. I was very happy with the way Picard's adventure was turned over to Captain Gold. I liked that the new characters actually live up to the admiration of the original characters like Picard. When the old characters commented on how much they admired so and so, it wasn't just to lend credibility to a shallow character, but because the characters were so good any way the comments only added to the depth of the new characters.
Geordi gets "stuck" helping the da Vinci crew for three of the stories. It was nice to have "ensign" Commander Gomez be a little warry of her old commanding officer. This added a little depth to her character.... and well we all know everyone loves Georgi, so it was nice to see this little twist where he has to earn her trust back. Cool.
Hats off to the creators and writers of this, what should have been the newest tv series Trek. But I"m glad that its not seeing what they've done with Enterprise so far!
I am headed to the library tonight after work to get the second book. ...
Thanks,
Rosewelsh
Great idea, bad implementationJuly 21, 2002 Richard Frantz Jr.(Cheshire, CT USA) 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I loved the idea of a book about the Starfleet Corps of Engineers from the start. But I didn't find the stories engaging. Written as an anthology with a continuing cast and a common history there is a nice try at developing characters as the stories go along, but I didn't find the characters paricularly striking or original.
What really irritated me was that when I finally started to get into a story, the last one, 'Interphase', about attempting to recover the Defiant from the TOS episode the Tholian Web it suddenly stopped (with a cliff hanger) and says it will be continued in the NEXT volume. I'd like to see how it turns out but I wasn't impressed enough by the other stories in this volume to buy another.
The Tech People Finally Stand OutApril 5, 2002 David A. Finnerty(ABERDEEN, NJ USA) 2 out of 3 found this review helpful
What would Kirk, Piccard, or any of the others do if they woke up and couldn't get their morning tea? Call SCE. This book is great. Stories that show how important the engineer is to Star Fleet. With out them you go no where and get nothing done. I like this series a lot and it is not just because I am a techie or a trekie, they are good stories.
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