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Star Trek: Gateways #3
Doors Into Chaos
Left behind by a long-vanished civilisation, the mysterious portals known as the Gateways can enable spacefarers to reach the very furthest corners of the galaxy. Their discovery opens the door to a whole new era of exploration...and who knows what may be on the other side? More than 200,000 years have passed since the Iconians first created the network of interdimensional gateways across the stars. Known to those who came after them as 'the Demons of Air and Darkness', the Iconians vanished from time and space millennia ago -- or did they? Summoned to an emergency briefing at Starfleet Headquarters, Captain Jean-Luc Picard is stunned to discover that the legendary Iconians have returned at last, and are offering to sell the secrets of their long-lost technology to the Federation. To prove their sincerity, they have reactivated their dormant gateways...but the result has been conflict and chaos throughout the Alpha Quadrant. Warring Klingons and Romulans are among the hazards Picard and his crew must contend with as they seek to discover the sinister truth behind the Iconians' mysterious return.
297 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
January 19, 2016
Ends on a cliffhanger! But an interesting tale about the Iconian gateways opening up all over the galaxy.
April 1, 2021
***If you only care about the Next Generation crew, you don’t need to read the other stories and can skip ahead to ‘What Lay Beyond’.
You may wish to refresh your memory by watching the following episodes/films again before reading this book-
Star Trek: The Next Generation -
Series 2
Episode 11 - Contagion (This is the first episode in which we meet the Iconians - The creators of the Gateways)
Episode 21 - Peak Performance (It features the character Bractor, the Ferengi mentioned in this book)
Series 5
Episode 21 - The Perfect Mate (The Miners featured are from Harod IV which gets a brief mention)
Series 7
Episode 8 - Attached (It won’t hurt to skip this one, but it will remind you of the Kes and Prytt peoples briefly visited)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine -
Series 4
Episode 22 - To The Death (A second Iconian Gateway is found)
Series 7
Episode 4 - Take Me Out To The Holosuite (In which we meet Captain Solok)
Episode 22 - Tacking Into The Wind (Gowron’s Death and Martok’s ascension to Chancellor)
Episode 24 - The Dogs Of War (Rom becomes the Grand Nagus, leaving the station with Wife Leeta and returning to Ferenginar)
Episode 25 - What You Leave Behind (The End Of The Dominion War - Worf is appointed Federation Ambassador to Qo’noS, the Klingon home world)
Star Trek (9): Insurrection (There is talk of the Ba’ku and The Briar Patch)
Star Trek: Voyager -
Series 3
Episode 24 - Displaced (Features the character Taleen of the Nyrians. She is quite prominent here)
It may also help to remember that Ilia from Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a Deltan.
There are other races and planets mentioned, but it takes a lot of work searching the internet to find them and it doesn’t effect the story. In fact this story makes many references to the Star Trek universe as a whole which is cleverly worked in to the plot. It does make it a more difficult read if you can’t remember who they are or what episode that planet was in though.
It can be quite frustrating to read these books if you don’t follow the series as a religion and can’t remember all the connections made to the series. I seem to spend half my time looking things up on IMDB, Goodreads and Fandom. It would help to have notes at the beginning of the book or addendums at the bottom of the page to help you remember what has gone before and in what format.
You may also like to know that this book is preceded by two others in this ‘Gateways’ series-
Star Trek (Gateways) - One Small Step
Star Trek: Challenger (Gateways) - Chainmail. (If you haven’t read the New Earth series of 7 books, you may not be familiar with Challenger. They only appear in the last book of the series and you don’t really need to have read all of them for the story to make sense(I didn’t), especially if you just want to know about Challenger. ‘Chainmail’ is the second and last book in the Challenger series.
Having read this, the third in the series, I can’t see that it is necessary to read ‘Chainmail’ at all at the moment, but I hope that it will be relevant in later volumes as I read 4, 5, 6 and 7. The first book ‘One Small Step’ however is very relevant to this story.
Doors Into Chaos is definitely the best of the three ‘Gateways’ stories so far. Picard is such a good Captain and character that you can’t help but enjoy his journey as he builds an allied fleet to confront the so called Iconians, who are selling their portal technology to the highest bidder and causing havoc on planets across the Milky Way. Jean-Luc’s legend goes before him and the man knows his onions.
The rest of the crew all seem to get a good representation here too, despite the fact that there are numerous other characters involved from throughout all of the various series.
In his capacity as the Federation Ambassador to the Klingons, Worf returns to Picard’s side to aid him on this mission.
Counsellor Troi is given a command as part of the fleet that Picard builds. I really like this turn of events, as it’s nice to see her getting the chance to flex her Commander muscles. It seems like that was a key factor for the author, as her task does take up a few pages. I don’t think that it is very plausible however that this appointment happens. It is far more likely that Riker would have been given the command and that Troi would have been kept with Picard for her other skills, Data being the best to handle the tasks that Riker was performing. Greenberger actually seems to weaken Will here and certainly doesn’t show him at his best. He was never my favourite, but he knew how to fight.
I’m hoping that Data and Beverly get featured a bit more in the concluding novel.
We also meet Taleen of the Nyrians again. I think they should have kept her meeting with Voyager a secret for a bit longer and they should perhaps have used it within the story to cause disruption.
It’s difficult to remember that this book is set before Star Trek (10): Nemesis and before Voyagers return to the Alpha Quadrant. I found myself getting frustrated that Riker hadn’t been promoted already. He and Deanna should have been on their own ship and Data should have been the First Officer. Even Geordi should be a Captain by now, surely? Especially after the war had seen so many lost.
It seems more likely that career progression would happen faster in The Next Generation time zone than The Original Series. It felt right that Kirk kept his crew close, none of them seemed to have any ambition for promotion, but Picard’s crew all have a drive to go further. I feel that it’s a bit late for them to still be all together, even at this stage, but you can’t change canon.
I’ve sidetracked again.
I believe that the story has a Deep Space Nine style to it. It seems like something Sisko would be a part of rather than Jean-Luc, perhaps because I’ve seen him do similar during the Dominion War and the Enterprise Captain has never had the chance to do so before. It definitely works though and it’s nice to see Picard get the opportunity.
The end of the book is a bit rushed and clumsy in places, with some sentences that don’t make sense no matter how you read them. There are proof reading issues again and some continuity problems too, but it’s a great story and I can’t wait to see what happens in book 7 ‘What Lay Beyond’. I only hope I don’t get too excited and end up disappointed.
You may wish to refresh your memory by watching the following episodes/films again before reading this book-
Star Trek: The Next Generation -
Series 2
Episode 11 - Contagion (This is the first episode in which we meet the Iconians - The creators of the Gateways)
Episode 21 - Peak Performance (It features the character Bractor, the Ferengi mentioned in this book)
Series 5
Episode 21 - The Perfect Mate (The Miners featured are from Harod IV which gets a brief mention)
Series 7
Episode 8 - Attached (It won’t hurt to skip this one, but it will remind you of the Kes and Prytt peoples briefly visited)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine -
Series 4
Episode 22 - To The Death (A second Iconian Gateway is found)
Series 7
Episode 4 - Take Me Out To The Holosuite (In which we meet Captain Solok)
Episode 22 - Tacking Into The Wind (Gowron’s Death and Martok’s ascension to Chancellor)
Episode 24 - The Dogs Of War (Rom becomes the Grand Nagus, leaving the station with Wife Leeta and returning to Ferenginar)
Episode 25 - What You Leave Behind (The End Of The Dominion War - Worf is appointed Federation Ambassador to Qo’noS, the Klingon home world)
Star Trek (9): Insurrection (There is talk of the Ba’ku and The Briar Patch)
Star Trek: Voyager -
Series 3
Episode 24 - Displaced (Features the character Taleen of the Nyrians. She is quite prominent here)
It may also help to remember that Ilia from Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a Deltan.
There are other races and planets mentioned, but it takes a lot of work searching the internet to find them and it doesn’t effect the story. In fact this story makes many references to the Star Trek universe as a whole which is cleverly worked in to the plot. It does make it a more difficult read if you can’t remember who they are or what episode that planet was in though.
It can be quite frustrating to read these books if you don’t follow the series as a religion and can’t remember all the connections made to the series. I seem to spend half my time looking things up on IMDB, Goodreads and Fandom. It would help to have notes at the beginning of the book or addendums at the bottom of the page to help you remember what has gone before and in what format.
You may also like to know that this book is preceded by two others in this ‘Gateways’ series-
Star Trek (Gateways) - One Small Step
Star Trek: Challenger (Gateways) - Chainmail. (If you haven’t read the New Earth series of 7 books, you may not be familiar with Challenger. They only appear in the last book of the series and you don’t really need to have read all of them for the story to make sense(I didn’t), especially if you just want to know about Challenger. ‘Chainmail’ is the second and last book in the Challenger series.
Having read this, the third in the series, I can’t see that it is necessary to read ‘Chainmail’ at all at the moment, but I hope that it will be relevant in later volumes as I read 4, 5, 6 and 7. The first book ‘One Small Step’ however is very relevant to this story.
Doors Into Chaos is definitely the best of the three ‘Gateways’ stories so far. Picard is such a good Captain and character that you can’t help but enjoy his journey as he builds an allied fleet to confront the so called Iconians, who are selling their portal technology to the highest bidder and causing havoc on planets across the Milky Way. Jean-Luc’s legend goes before him and the man knows his onions.
The rest of the crew all seem to get a good representation here too, despite the fact that there are numerous other characters involved from throughout all of the various series.
In his capacity as the Federation Ambassador to the Klingons, Worf returns to Picard’s side to aid him on this mission.
Counsellor Troi is given a command as part of the fleet that Picard builds. I really like this turn of events, as it’s nice to see her getting the chance to flex her Commander muscles. It seems like that was a key factor for the author, as her task does take up a few pages. I don’t think that it is very plausible however that this appointment happens. It is far more likely that Riker would have been given the command and that Troi would have been kept with Picard for her other skills, Data being the best to handle the tasks that Riker was performing. Greenberger actually seems to weaken Will here and certainly doesn’t show him at his best. He was never my favourite, but he knew how to fight.
I’m hoping that Data and Beverly get featured a bit more in the concluding novel.
We also meet Taleen of the Nyrians again. I think they should have kept her meeting with Voyager a secret for a bit longer and they should perhaps have used it within the story to cause disruption.
It’s difficult to remember that this book is set before Star Trek (10): Nemesis and before Voyagers return to the Alpha Quadrant. I found myself getting frustrated that Riker hadn’t been promoted already. He and Deanna should have been on their own ship and Data should have been the First Officer. Even Geordi should be a Captain by now, surely? Especially after the war had seen so many lost.
It seems more likely that career progression would happen faster in The Next Generation time zone than The Original Series. It felt right that Kirk kept his crew close, none of them seemed to have any ambition for promotion, but Picard’s crew all have a drive to go further. I feel that it’s a bit late for them to still be all together, even at this stage, but you can’t change canon.
I’ve sidetracked again.
I believe that the story has a Deep Space Nine style to it. It seems like something Sisko would be a part of rather than Jean-Luc, perhaps because I’ve seen him do similar during the Dominion War and the Enterprise Captain has never had the chance to do so before. It definitely works though and it’s nice to see Picard get the opportunity.
The end of the book is a bit rushed and clumsy in places, with some sentences that don’t make sense no matter how you read them. There are proof reading issues again and some continuity problems too, but it’s a great story and I can’t wait to see what happens in book 7 ‘What Lay Beyond’. I only hope I don’t get too excited and end up disappointed.
March 9, 2016
Having read this book I continue to really like the gateways concept, a lot. This third book deals with the crew from Star Trek: The Next Generation and, although they go way back with me and I really like the TV series, this is my first TNG book. It probably won't be my last, though. I really liked this one and I think that the author does a great job with the characters.
When it comes to the story I love the fact that we get these glimpses as to how the gateways really has become Doors into Chaos, I would even go so far as to say it was brilliant to write in these smaller stories since every single one of them caught my interest. I actually would have wanted more of them in one way or another. Maybe one of them could have been intertwined in the bigger story or something similar. But I guess you can't always have everything. I really like the book just the way it is, too. And especially that it feels more of a part of the bigger picture that the gateways series is supposed to be. The story goes well together with the first book with captain Kirk and his crew, and it also mentions both Voyager and people from DS9 briefly. I think it would be possible to read it as a stand alone as long as you remember that you get the ending in one of the chapters in the last book, but what I'm really starting to feel in this third part is that this is so much better if you get all the books to get the full story, and I'm glad I did. With that said; on to the next one...
I give this book 8 out of 10 stars.
When it comes to the story I love the fact that we get these glimpses as to how the gateways really has become Doors into Chaos, I would even go so far as to say it was brilliant to write in these smaller stories since every single one of them caught my interest. I actually would have wanted more of them in one way or another. Maybe one of them could have been intertwined in the bigger story or something similar. But I guess you can't always have everything. I really like the book just the way it is, too. And especially that it feels more of a part of the bigger picture that the gateways series is supposed to be. The story goes well together with the first book with captain Kirk and his crew, and it also mentions both Voyager and people from DS9 briefly. I think it would be possible to read it as a stand alone as long as you remember that you get the ending in one of the chapters in the last book, but what I'm really starting to feel in this third part is that this is so much better if you get all the books to get the full story, and I'm glad I did. With that said; on to the next one...
I give this book 8 out of 10 stars.
March 12, 2012
Some issues with the motivations of the "Iconians," but I'm hoping we learn more in the other books of the series. The crisis involving Starfleet makes me wonder about the stories in the Gateways series that don't involve this particular issue. I'm hoping they don't come across as superfluous and unnecessary. Chainmail, for example, was entertaining, but ultimately irrelevant to the rest of the series. I don't think this is a bad thing, but it could turn many readers off. As with the other books, the cliffhanger ending is a little annoying, but interesting enough for me to read the final volume.
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2012/02/d...
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2012/02/d...
July 15, 2024
Gateways #3: Door into Chaos by Robert Greenburger
This book was ok to decent. But it had too much going on. There would be random cuts to people across the galaxy dealing with the Gateways and while I liked how it showed different perspectives of the crisis, it didn’t really add anything to the story. It also left me with questions. I liked the idea of so many different species going together and working together like the Gorn, the Romulans, the Klingons, Deltans and so on. Also, for the first time in a book I’ve read more than 2 starships came together to solve a crisis!
Overall, this was a decent read but the DS9 one is probably my favourite out of the two I’ve read.
7/10
This book was ok to decent. But it had too much going on. There would be random cuts to people across the galaxy dealing with the Gateways and while I liked how it showed different perspectives of the crisis, it didn’t really add anything to the story. It also left me with questions. I liked the idea of so many different species going together and working together like the Gorn, the Romulans, the Klingons, Deltans and so on. Also, for the first time in a book I’ve read more than 2 starships came together to solve a crisis!
Overall, this was a decent read but the DS9 one is probably my favourite out of the two I’ve read.
7/10
September 14, 2021
(This is part of my ongoing look at the 850+ novels comprising the "Star Trek Non-Canon Expanded Universe." For more on what exactly non-canon novels are and why they can be tricky to review, see my very first Star Trek write-up, for SD Perry's Section 31: Cloak; or see here for the master list of all Star Trek novels I've now reviewed.)
2021 reads, #82. One of the things I'm discovering as I make my way through more and more Star Trek novels this year is that, like anyone who tries to awkwardly mash together creativity and capitalism, Simon & Schuster has tried various publicity stunts over the decades in an attempt to generate as many sales of these Star Trek books as possible, including a series of "Special Summer Reading Events" in the early 2000s that took one specific topic and then set a story concerning this topic within each of their franchise series (The Original Series, The Next Generation, New Voyages, etc), as a way of getting readers loyal to just one of these series to try out and hopefully get hooked on the others. For example, this is how the "Section 31" quadrology that originally got me started reading Star Trek novels originally came about, all of them originally published in the same week in May 2001, with the idea being that contemporary readers at the time would spend the rest of that summer slowly reading all four books on the beach and in airports.
Unfortunately, though, this clashes with my current goal of reading all the Deep Space Nine "relaunch" novels in a row right now (but for more on what exactly this is, see my review of book #1 in the series, SD Perry's Avatar); because right off the bat, two of the early novels in this series were also volumes in two of these special summer reading events, not just the Section 31 novel Abyss but then the one right after that too, part of a special crossover series regarding the Iconian gateways that originally showed up during the television run of The Next Generation back in the early '90s. They're basically like transporters except that they let people instantaneously travel from one planet to another, instead of short distances like the transporters are limited to, supposedly the invention of a long extinct alien race that hasn't been around for a quarter of a million years; so needless to say, it throws things into chaos in these novels when the Iconians suddenly show up out of the blue for the first time in 250,000 years, turn on all their gateways located in various random spots throughout the galaxy, and declare that they're willing to sell the technology to the highest bidder.
There are actually seven novels in this series, and I realized quickly that I was going to have to read at least a couple other ones in order to fully understand what was going on in the one specifically set among the DS9 cast and locations. But as I learned during the Section 31 novels, you can effectively skip any of these kinds of series novels that are set among the original Kirk/Spock crew, since those stories take place a hundred years before the TNG/DS9 era, and so never talk about anything directly relevant to the DS9-specific volume; and you can also skip any of the Voyager-set novels in these kinds of series, since the whole deal with Voyager is that they were supposed to be stuck on the far ass-end of the galaxy from the rest of the Federation, so none of their stories are directly applicable to the DS9-specific ones either. Two other volumes from this series are set among the book-specific franchise series Challenger and New Frontier, so I thought it'd be safe to skip those too; and the last book in the series is very sneakily a compilation that does nothing but print the last chapter of every one of these six other books, forcing readers to buy that last one if they plan on ever finishing any of the other six books that came before, which I would be mad about if I didn't in fact torrent all of these for free illegally at The Pirate Bay.
So that only leaves the TNG volume in this series, which I'm quickly realizing is a milieu that actually bleeds over with the DS9 milieu a lot in these Simon & Schuster books; they're both set at the exact same time, after all, and in the exact same quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy, and even in the original TV shows there was a certain amount of crossover between the two, so it makes sense that there would be this warm sibling relationship between these two series within these non-canon books. Only one problem in this particular case, though, which is that the TNG-set Gateways volume, Doors into Chaos, is the biggest freaking slog now out of the seven Star Trek novels I've so far read, so much so that it took me literally weeks to get through this one, when most of the others have only taken me a day or two, a title I found myself really dreading picking up again even by around the halfway mark, one of the reasons it took me so long to finally get through it.
There are multiple problems going on here, which kind of layer themselves into the big mess the book eventually becomes. First, although I don't know if this is the fault of the original Simon & Schuster editors or this particular book's author, franchise regular Robert Greenberger (who I'm reading for the first time with this specific book), for some reason the decision was made that, to show how much these suddenly working gateways are screwing with the various alien worlds of the galaxy, little short stories would be inserted here and there through the whole book actually showing random alien worlds getting screwed up. It leads to this schizophrenic disaster of a reading experience, where you're paying all this attention to a bunch of brand-new characters who are suddenly having this brand-new adventure and you're trying to keep it all straight in your head, just to realize ten pages later that you've been caught in a Douglas Adams-style "And this book is NOT about these characters!" gotcha, which pissed me off to no end because it's just about the sloppiest way I've ever seen a three-act novel's storyline put together. And then speaking of too many random new characters, this is the other main problem, that in an attempt to hastily assemble a rag-tag all-star team of Federation ships to confront the Iconians and finally put an end to their highest-bidder nonsense, each regular senior officer of the Enterprise ends up getting assigned as a temporary captain to another starship besides the Enterprise; so suddenly you as the reader are being confronted with half a dozen new ships, each of which have a half a dozen senior officers of their own, all of whom Greenberger decides to introduce by name and race and character tics, which is just way, way too much information to throw at a person in a 300-page book and expect them to make any kind of heads-or-tails of the whole thing.
Now add one of my biggest pet peeves in fiction, which is that an entire 20 percent of this book's page count (and thanks as always to the Kindle stats page for determining that for me) is a written-out account of the minute-by-minute minutia of a space battle between all these people involved; and if there's one thing I really can't stand in contemporary fiction, it's when someone writes out a scene from an action movie in prose, which to a plot-focused reader like me is the very definition of pointless. (Here's how such scenes work from a plot standpoint: "'All hands to battle stations!' cried a worried Picard." [flip 30 pages with my finger] "'I guess the Oobiedoobies learned the hard way not to mess with Starfleet anymore!' cried a triumphant Picard.") All of this added together led to an extremely unsatisfying reading experience, especially frustrating because I was only reading it in the first place so I'd be up to speed when I read the related DS9 volume right afterwards; and out of the seven Star Trek novels I've now read, it's so far the only one I would actively discourage people from reading at all. I've moved on at this point to that related DS9 title, Keith DeCandido's Demons of Air and Darkness (DS9 is sort of known as the one series in the franchise where you can get away with the most pretentious titles), and I'll of course let you know what I thought of that one as well; but for now, I recommend skipping the TNG title in this Gateways series, and might very well end up recommending skipping the entire Gateways series altogether, especially considering the reader-hostile bait-and-switch way they chose to end all of them, by shuttling off all their climaxes into an entirely separate book you have to buy just to find out how they turn out.
2021 reads, #82. One of the things I'm discovering as I make my way through more and more Star Trek novels this year is that, like anyone who tries to awkwardly mash together creativity and capitalism, Simon & Schuster has tried various publicity stunts over the decades in an attempt to generate as many sales of these Star Trek books as possible, including a series of "Special Summer Reading Events" in the early 2000s that took one specific topic and then set a story concerning this topic within each of their franchise series (The Original Series, The Next Generation, New Voyages, etc), as a way of getting readers loyal to just one of these series to try out and hopefully get hooked on the others. For example, this is how the "Section 31" quadrology that originally got me started reading Star Trek novels originally came about, all of them originally published in the same week in May 2001, with the idea being that contemporary readers at the time would spend the rest of that summer slowly reading all four books on the beach and in airports.
Unfortunately, though, this clashes with my current goal of reading all the Deep Space Nine "relaunch" novels in a row right now (but for more on what exactly this is, see my review of book #1 in the series, SD Perry's Avatar); because right off the bat, two of the early novels in this series were also volumes in two of these special summer reading events, not just the Section 31 novel Abyss but then the one right after that too, part of a special crossover series regarding the Iconian gateways that originally showed up during the television run of The Next Generation back in the early '90s. They're basically like transporters except that they let people instantaneously travel from one planet to another, instead of short distances like the transporters are limited to, supposedly the invention of a long extinct alien race that hasn't been around for a quarter of a million years; so needless to say, it throws things into chaos in these novels when the Iconians suddenly show up out of the blue for the first time in 250,000 years, turn on all their gateways located in various random spots throughout the galaxy, and declare that they're willing to sell the technology to the highest bidder.
There are actually seven novels in this series, and I realized quickly that I was going to have to read at least a couple other ones in order to fully understand what was going on in the one specifically set among the DS9 cast and locations. But as I learned during the Section 31 novels, you can effectively skip any of these kinds of series novels that are set among the original Kirk/Spock crew, since those stories take place a hundred years before the TNG/DS9 era, and so never talk about anything directly relevant to the DS9-specific volume; and you can also skip any of the Voyager-set novels in these kinds of series, since the whole deal with Voyager is that they were supposed to be stuck on the far ass-end of the galaxy from the rest of the Federation, so none of their stories are directly applicable to the DS9-specific ones either. Two other volumes from this series are set among the book-specific franchise series Challenger and New Frontier, so I thought it'd be safe to skip those too; and the last book in the series is very sneakily a compilation that does nothing but print the last chapter of every one of these six other books, forcing readers to buy that last one if they plan on ever finishing any of the other six books that came before, which I would be mad about if I didn't in fact torrent all of these for free illegally at The Pirate Bay.
So that only leaves the TNG volume in this series, which I'm quickly realizing is a milieu that actually bleeds over with the DS9 milieu a lot in these Simon & Schuster books; they're both set at the exact same time, after all, and in the exact same quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy, and even in the original TV shows there was a certain amount of crossover between the two, so it makes sense that there would be this warm sibling relationship between these two series within these non-canon books. Only one problem in this particular case, though, which is that the TNG-set Gateways volume, Doors into Chaos, is the biggest freaking slog now out of the seven Star Trek novels I've so far read, so much so that it took me literally weeks to get through this one, when most of the others have only taken me a day or two, a title I found myself really dreading picking up again even by around the halfway mark, one of the reasons it took me so long to finally get through it.
There are multiple problems going on here, which kind of layer themselves into the big mess the book eventually becomes. First, although I don't know if this is the fault of the original Simon & Schuster editors or this particular book's author, franchise regular Robert Greenberger (who I'm reading for the first time with this specific book), for some reason the decision was made that, to show how much these suddenly working gateways are screwing with the various alien worlds of the galaxy, little short stories would be inserted here and there through the whole book actually showing random alien worlds getting screwed up. It leads to this schizophrenic disaster of a reading experience, where you're paying all this attention to a bunch of brand-new characters who are suddenly having this brand-new adventure and you're trying to keep it all straight in your head, just to realize ten pages later that you've been caught in a Douglas Adams-style "And this book is NOT about these characters!" gotcha, which pissed me off to no end because it's just about the sloppiest way I've ever seen a three-act novel's storyline put together. And then speaking of too many random new characters, this is the other main problem, that in an attempt to hastily assemble a rag-tag all-star team of Federation ships to confront the Iconians and finally put an end to their highest-bidder nonsense, each regular senior officer of the Enterprise ends up getting assigned as a temporary captain to another starship besides the Enterprise; so suddenly you as the reader are being confronted with half a dozen new ships, each of which have a half a dozen senior officers of their own, all of whom Greenberger decides to introduce by name and race and character tics, which is just way, way too much information to throw at a person in a 300-page book and expect them to make any kind of heads-or-tails of the whole thing.
Now add one of my biggest pet peeves in fiction, which is that an entire 20 percent of this book's page count (and thanks as always to the Kindle stats page for determining that for me) is a written-out account of the minute-by-minute minutia of a space battle between all these people involved; and if there's one thing I really can't stand in contemporary fiction, it's when someone writes out a scene from an action movie in prose, which to a plot-focused reader like me is the very definition of pointless. (Here's how such scenes work from a plot standpoint: "'All hands to battle stations!' cried a worried Picard." [flip 30 pages with my finger] "'I guess the Oobiedoobies learned the hard way not to mess with Starfleet anymore!' cried a triumphant Picard.") All of this added together led to an extremely unsatisfying reading experience, especially frustrating because I was only reading it in the first place so I'd be up to speed when I read the related DS9 volume right afterwards; and out of the seven Star Trek novels I've now read, it's so far the only one I would actively discourage people from reading at all. I've moved on at this point to that related DS9 title, Keith DeCandido's Demons of Air and Darkness (DS9 is sort of known as the one series in the franchise where you can get away with the most pretentious titles), and I'll of course let you know what I thought of that one as well; but for now, I recommend skipping the TNG title in this Gateways series, and might very well end up recommending skipping the entire Gateways series altogether, especially considering the reader-hostile bait-and-switch way they chose to end all of them, by shuttling off all their climaxes into an entirely separate book you have to buy just to find out how they turn out.
October 27, 2018
I'm jumping into the Gateways series of books part way through, because this is where they fit in the current timeline I'm following. It's not a an issue, though, because the previous books are their own thing whereas the books covering TNG/DS9/VOY are all connected to some degree.
This begins a story that's pretty intriguing, but I found the actual presentation of it to hinder things. It's a bit of a jumble and very hectic. An extended space battle in the middle is nearly impossible to follow with all the different factions involved, but the writing here only makes it more complicated. Keeping things simpler and sticking to one (or even two) points of view throughout it would have helped.
It's a nice adventure with the TNG crew, I wish it just had a bit better pacing and focus. The characterisations are all a bit off which is distracting, there's numerous lines of dialogue which I could never imagine Picard and his crew saying.
This begins a story that's pretty intriguing, but I found the actual presentation of it to hinder things. It's a bit of a jumble and very hectic. An extended space battle in the middle is nearly impossible to follow with all the different factions involved, but the writing here only makes it more complicated. Keeping things simpler and sticking to one (or even two) points of view throughout it would have helped.
It's a nice adventure with the TNG crew, I wish it just had a bit better pacing and focus. The characterisations are all a bit off which is distracting, there's numerous lines of dialogue which I could never imagine Picard and his crew saying.
December 25, 2020
This book felt longer than it actually was, which made for a more challenging reading experience. The fact the bulk of the book involves gathering allies to face the supposed Iconians didn't make for the most exciting bits with the odd mix of snippets of the impact of the gateways on different worlds we mostly couldn't associate with.
The actual confrontation with those in control of the gateways had interesting moments as the multi-force fleet had to face off against the unusual defenses of the aliens but then it sort of degenerated into sometimes tedious bits of back and forth.
I'm assuming this book contains the core aspects of the larger Gateways series of novels and it will still be interesting to see how they ultimately tie everything together. Thus far this felt like quite a lot all once without sufficient build-up from the prior Gateways books.
The actual confrontation with those in control of the gateways had interesting moments as the multi-force fleet had to face off against the unusual defenses of the aliens but then it sort of degenerated into sometimes tedious bits of back and forth.
I'm assuming this book contains the core aspects of the larger Gateways series of novels and it will still be interesting to see how they ultimately tie everything together. Thus far this felt like quite a lot all once without sufficient build-up from the prior Gateways books.
October 4, 2014
Lots of gates have opened, draining energy and causing confusion. Picard is sent on a mission to find those who had activated them. The aliens are trying to sell control to the highest bidder. Worf gets involved. There's some nice character moments and a huge battle. The book ends on a cliffhanger. A good read.
July 23, 2018
More like 3 and 1/2 stars
Decent story with a cliffhanger to be finished in book 7. Takes place between 3rd and 4th TNG movies, after DS9 finale. You don't have to read books 1 or 2 in Gateway series to understand this novel. It was definitely worth getting for the 99 cent sale price, but I don't know if I'll ever re-read this one.
Decent story with a cliffhanger to be finished in book 7. Takes place between 3rd and 4th TNG movies, after DS9 finale. You don't have to read books 1 or 2 in Gateway series to understand this novel. It was definitely worth getting for the 99 cent sale price, but I don't know if I'll ever re-read this one.
April 17, 2021
I'll give a 4, but not a strong 4. I agree with other reviewers. Some Gateways books are better than others and you can skip one if it is not your forte. I liked " One Small Step " and "Doors Into Chaos", but I could not get into Book 2 " Chainmail ".
Looking forward to book 4, "Demons of Air and Darkness " by Keith R.A. DeCandido. I really like his work, especially the Klingon books.
Looking forward to book 4, "Demons of Air and Darkness " by Keith R.A. DeCandido. I really like his work, especially the Klingon books.
April 26, 2015
One of the better Gateways books, this time around we get to see how the crew of the Enterprise-E handles the chaos that the active gateways cause. Like the others (and losing a star for it) the ending of this book is actually in another book.
April 17, 2013
Just slightly above average, but has a nice, epic feel to it, and offers the big picture of the Star Trek universe.
June 15, 2024
I haven't been totally won over by this series yet. It just seems to have a lot of build-up with no pay-off. Especially with this one with all the moments of chaos from the Gateways and what they are doing just seem to be adding to the book length but don't bring much to the story. I think I was sitting at a 3.5 near the end but then a couple more were tossed in and I figured I would drop the score.
Their mission seemed a bit odd. Riker did a terrible job commanding the Enterprise and almost got it destroyed for no purpose whatsoever and then Picard shows up and gets everyone to calm down in two minutes...grrr...
I liked the Marco Polo and even the Mercury. If these ships are in the S.C.E. books I am looking even more forward to reading those. We'll see I guess. Troi in command is a fun idea so wish there was more of that.
In the end I think the book couldn't really rise out of just being an okay book with some neat ideas that don't seem to be executed well. Still don't care for the Petraw.
Their mission seemed a bit odd. Riker did a terrible job commanding the Enterprise and almost got it destroyed for no purpose whatsoever and then Picard shows up and gets everyone to calm down in two minutes...grrr...
I liked the Marco Polo and even the Mercury. If these ships are in the S.C.E. books I am looking even more forward to reading those. We'll see I guess. Troi in command is a fun idea so wish there was more of that.
In the end I think the book couldn't really rise out of just being an okay book with some neat ideas that don't seem to be executed well. Still don't care for the Petraw.
February 26, 2022
Best book of the series, so far
As much as I liked the first book in this series, which dealt with the TOS crew and is a follow up of the episode “That Which Survives,” I feel that this book has a better flow, is slightly better written, and has a bit more drama. Looking forward to seeing how this book and the first one tie together, especially after the similar cliff hanger ending to both.
As much as I liked the first book in this series, which dealt with the TOS crew and is a follow up of the episode “That Which Survives,” I feel that this book has a better flow, is slightly better written, and has a bit more drama. Looking forward to seeing how this book and the first one tie together, especially after the similar cliff hanger ending to both.
December 6, 2020
One Quarter Impulse to Warp 9
This voyage of the starship Enterprise gets off to a slow start, but redeems itself in its second half with a mystery as to the identities of the antagonists and one of the best (and longest) space battles I’ve read in a Trek book. Be advised; this ends on a cliffhanger resolved in book seven of this Gateways crossover series.
This voyage of the starship Enterprise gets off to a slow start, but redeems itself in its second half with a mystery as to the identities of the antagonists and one of the best (and longest) space battles I’ve read in a Trek book. Be advised; this ends on a cliffhanger resolved in book seven of this Gateways crossover series.
June 4, 2021
The TNG chapter of the Gateways saga finally sheds a bit more light on things and tells an interesting enough story, but things do continue to feel increasingly disjointed for such a big crossover.
3.5/5 Still hopeful.
3.5/5 Still hopeful.
May 4, 2022
omg nailed it
From beginning to end this book did not fail at times I felt I was watching an episode on tv great book great read now for the next one
From beginning to end this book did not fail at times I felt I was watching an episode on tv great book great read now for the next one
March 10, 2024
I really enjoyed this book. Picard at his best, all the gang back together, great fun
March 25, 2012
The TNG installment of the Gateways saga continues. Unlike the book preceeding this one, "Doors Into Chaos" picks up certain storyline elements from the initial book in Gateways. The "Iconians" wish to make a deal with all Alpha Quadrant powers, the gateways will go to the bidder who can pay the most. However, these Iconians open the gateways to generate support for their venture, but with so many species spanning the galaxy, conficts quickly erupt. The Enterprise-E is sent to contain a certain area of conflicts and eventually uncovers the real purpose of the gateways. Like the previous books in the Gateways series, this one hangs with a cliffhanger that isn't resolved until the final book. In terms of the Star Trek franchise, this book takes place after the Deep Space Nine Section 31 novel and after the Star Trek Voyager episode Pathfinder. As such, certain elements from those Star Trek properties make their way into this book. Overall, it was a great read, especially for TNG fans.
July 3, 2014
One of the better books in the Gateways series, probably because it actually pulls in story elements from at least the first book in the series. As with the other two, it ends on a cliffhanger that doesn't get resolved until the final book. In addition, there is a lot going on in this novel that has been taking place since the DS9 relaunch, so it's very easy to get lost in the mire of Star Trek mythos.
November 19, 2021
This entry in the Gateways series, is a decent enough one. It does start off the part of the series that includes 4 novels in the 24th century. As a part of the series it's an important entry, but definetly not the best.
July 5, 2007
just like what i expect from the crew of a legendary sovereign class starship... :p
June 22, 2017
These books were all very good; I don't remember the details of each so well, though.
August 3, 2011
Great content expanding on the idea of the Iconians and Picard's desire to know more. Also, just finished Book #7 that had the last chapter of this book included in it. See that review.
September 22, 2021
Ineptly written. The book fits well enough into the series 'Gateways' which is written by several authors, but the clumsy handling of language pulls it down.
May 15, 2017
There were some fun moments, but they were buried under stilted dialogue, a pointless plot, and a whole starship's worth of DS9 cameos. This might be the worst Star Trek novel I've ever read.
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