Tales from the Captain's Table

This book arrived in a timely fashion and in perfect condition. I am very pleased with your serivce. Thank you. Jerry Smith

This is a compilation of all the "Captain's Table" books into one volume. It thought that all the stories to be pretty well written - and they are not all the same of even similar, although they all start out the same in which Kirk or Sulu or Janeway set off on a planet and end up in the same bar "The Captain's Table". Part of the mystery is piecing together through the various stories what the "Table" is and the mystery behind this very strange and exclusive bar which is essentially a club for Captains only. Wonderful read for all your Star Trek nuts out there.

The stories were fresh. The Kira story was a surprise to me.

A few years ago, Pocket Books came out with a series of six Star Trek books that were called Captain's Table, each a story of one of the series' captains at that time (Picard, Janeway, Sisko, Calhoun, Kirk, and Pike). That series was quite successful, but there have been quite a few more captains in the series since then. Thus was born the latest Trek anthology, Tales from the Captain's Table, edited by Keith R.A. DeCandido. Probably my favourite story in the bunch is "The Officer's Club" by Heather Jarman. I've criticized Jarman in the past for her two novels, but I greatly enjoyed her last short story (in Tales of the Dominion War), but this one was even better. It's a story of Kira's time in the resistance, where she has to infiltrate an officer's club run by collaborators, apparently including her brother, in order to kidnap one of the Cardassians' greatest communications techs in order to stop the upgrading of communications in the Bajoran sector. What she discovers there is not what she expected, as apparently the club is a front for another resistance cell. Or is it? Who can Kira trust? And is her brother the collaborator she thought he was? Kira will have to sacrifice a lot in order finish her mission, and she will not remain unaffected by it. This story is even better than the previous Jarman story I mention above. It has a completely believable Kira, who hasn't been completely hardened by the circumstances of her life yet, though she's well on her way. It has betrayal, intrigue, and wonderful characters all the way around. It's the longest story yet (though it's not the longest in the book), so Jarman has space to create these characters, manipulate them, and make us care for them. There are also enough twists and turns that the reader is kept guessing until the very end what the truth really is. This is probably my favourite story in the book. Another good one is "Pain Management" by Peter David. Shelby is one of my favourite New Frontier characters (what I've read of it, anyway), so I was looking forward to this story. Here, the Trident is in for refit and repairs after being damaged in a massive ambush during the Selelvian/Tholian war. At the starbase, Soleta, science officer of the Exalibur (Shelby's former ship, captained by Shelby's husband) happens to be there for a conference and offers her a ride back to Excalibur to see her husband while the Trident is being repaired. On the way, they are shot down by an Orion ship and crash land. Surrounded by Orions in a cave, Soleta does what she has to do to take them out, knowing that either she will die, or her horrible secret (she's half-Romulan) will be revealed. Shelby must choose between an oath to a friend, and loyalty to that very same friend. And she's not happy about it. This story is also quite good, filling in a little bit of backstory on both Shelby and Soleta, detailing how Soleta's heritage came to be known. There's a little bit of that old "Pet

I finished up the anthology Tales of the Captain's Table this afternoon and really quite loved it. It's the best Trek anthology since The Lives of Dax. The stories are held together by focusing more on events happening within the Captain's Table as we start off with Picard inducting Riker into the group. The mysterious Cap is the glue as he reflects on a particular day at the bar when all our characters turn up at one point or another. The biggest problem I had with recent anthologies like Prophecy and Change and Tales of the Dominion War was that many of the stories themselves felt inconsequential. That problem is completely remedied in Tales of the Captain's Table because the stories told deal with far more important moments in the lives of the new batch of captains. Others document events previously mentioned in earlier books. Some thoughts on the individual stories: Riker: Hokey to the extreme, this tale of the honeymoon of Will Riker and Deanna Troi is tolerable because of the dubious credibility cast upon it. I'm sure there was a honeymoon of some sort, just maybe not this one involving pirates and mistaken identity. It's kind of a good bad story if you know what I mean. This is the kind of story you'd see in a bad episode of any given Trek series, but with the tongue firmly planted in cheek, it makes it fun. Riker is going to be a regular at the bar I think. Picard: I ended up quite turned off by the Stargazer series by Michael Jan Friedman, so this short story by him was a nice surprise in the way it engaged me. I hadn't realized how much time had passed between the loss of the Stargazer and Picard getting command of the Enterprise. Picard's mindset is pretty dark and I rather liked seeing him during this time. Klag: A surprisingly emotional tale about Klingon family. It gives further depth to M'Raq, who is often mentioned but not much beyond his capture and subsequent dishonor. I noticed Klag reflecting on his father's twilight years in a more gentle light. The twist ended the segment wonderfully. Shelby: We start to get a little insight into the Selelvian/Tholian War with this tale. Apparently, the Selelvians are able to get the Tholians and Orions on their side. I guess all these villain species are just lining up to take a whack at the Federation for the hell of it. This seems to be developing into a similarly sized conflict like with the Cardassians and Tzenkethi. The story packs a wallop because there's a certain grandioseness to every action the characters take out of loyalty and friendship. And frankly, it's nice to take a break from Calhoun every once in a while. Kira: Honestly, I didn't remember that Kira ever had a brother. Still, this proves to be a great little tale of espionage during the Bajoran Occupation. It was interesting to see the contrast between the way Kira's cell does things as opposed to Plin's. Kira undergoes several shifts in her opinion of her brother and end on the right one. Archer: If looked at in t