Fire Ship

by Diane Carey

Book Overview

There's a space/time/dimension-spanning bar called The Captain's Table where the first round of drinks is always paid for with a story. Those who have held command over vessels of every shape and era... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671014676
• ISBN13: 9780671014674
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.1" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

Awesome and deep - it swallows you up!

A totally wonderful book! At first I did not warm up to the idea of Janeway 'losing' everyone on Voyager, but Diane Carey did a great job! With first-person narration by Janeway, we get a look at what makes her tick, which adds a great deal to the TV character we're used to. Carey's portrayal of Janeway threw me off a little at first, but in the end it gave me a greater understanding and 'respect' of the CAPTAIN.A great read if ever there was one -- and an extra comforting ending too!

Janeway as you've never seen her!

WOW! I simply can't articulate how much I enjoyed this book! I am a devoted Janeway/Kate Mulgrew fan, and I found this story irresistable. The fact that it takes place away from Voyager and the rest of the crew was a bit daunting to me at first. (I was in a rut, and liked it just fine.) But I quickly realized that that fact alone made this book unique and memorable. And Diane Carey delivered all the way through. The story was well thought out and entertaining from beginning to end.This was a look at a side of Janeway we never saw on Voyager. Can you imagine Kathryn Janeway swabbing the deck? Wonderful! And the thing I loved the most about this book was that Carey portrayed Janeway with dignity and grace, even in the worst cirmustances imaginable. And on a far more shallow note, it also answers the question about what happened to her long hair.If you are a Janeway fan, you simply must read this book.

An outstanding story with Janeway on her own as a deck swab

As our story opens Voyager is in an Iscoynian spacedock when the Menace arrive and destroy everything. Trapped aboard a badly damaged shuttle during the brief battle, Captain Janeway can only watch in horror as her ship is apparently destroyed. Suffering from severe burns she escapes the carnage in a space pod that flees the sector, eventually being rescued by the Warranter Zingara and its Commanding Shipmate Quen. Her saviors are not sure what to make of her, since no sane woman would want to be on a space vessel and especially since this alien with the very long name that they shorten to "Kay" insists that the Menace are coming to conquer their home world. Things look equally strange from Janeway's perspective: these people have technology completely different from anything she has ever seen before and run their ships in a disorganized, inefficient manner that baffles her. In short, they run their ships as a democracy while obeying the dictates of a dictatorial "temporary" government on the planet. But the most important thing is that her new shipmates neither trust or belief this strange alien woman. Fortunately she has her hatred of the Menace to keep her going until she is proven right about everything she has told her new shipmates. It only took a couple of chapters to recognize that "The Fire Ship" was the best of the first four books in the Captain's Table series. Half way through it became clear this is one of the best Star Trek novels I have ever read. Unlike a few of the other novels in the series that keep disengaging from their narrative to work in the reactions of the audience in that special bar that transcends space and time (and the gecko), Diane Carey goes in the other direction, with only a couple of comments indicating Janeway recognizes she has a physical audience outside of the framing device at the beginning and end of the novel (apparently there were comments and interruptions, but Carey conveniently omitted them all). The two things that define this series are that the stories are told First Person and that they reflect upon being a captain of a starship. In this latter regard "The Fire Ship" is the best of the bunch, reducing Janeway to this new culture's version of a deck swab (imagine cleaning a house made of bathroom tiles with a toothbrush for days on end). Janeway is very aware of how much her life has changed and Carey does an excellent job of charting the adjustments "Kay" makes to be accepted, as well as her planning for the imminent arrival of the Menace. However, there is one slight additional twist to the tale, because Janeway does not know everything she needs to know about the people she has dismissed with that perjorative label. This is a story about Kathryn Janeway, exploring her not only as a captain but as a person in a way few stories have done, whether on the television series or in a novel. If you burn her hair and clothing off, wrap her in foil, drop her on a ship, injured, alien

Very good entry in the series

I love "Captain's Table" series, and while I am not a big fun of Janeway, this book embodied the best of Star Trek attractions, even though some of the elements are not entirely original. Worth having.

Great read!

I adore Diane Carey. She does what every good writer should do, she "writes what she knows." She's a sailor, and it shines through every novel. Living in Baltimore as I do, where everything's nautical, I enjoy her stories very, very much. I know I'll never become a sailor myself, but it sure is fun reading about sailing in her books! Who said you can't learn anything from fiction? HA!The "Captain's Table" bar is a good backdrop for this swell Janeway romp through space unknown, in a ship unknown, with Janeway serving as little more than deckhand (Ms. Carey told me the exact job title, but I forget what she said!). Written from Janeway's point of view, this book allows the reader to fall right into her head - and heart. Delicious. Fun. Good Stuff.