Gulliver's Fugitives

Star Trek: The Next Generation #11

by Keith Sharee

While on a mission to find a missing starship, Captain Picard and his crew discover a forgotten colony of humans who consider fiction and works of imagination the ultimate crime. Suddenly the crew is caught in the middle of a civil war between the supporters of imagination and the ruthless mind police.

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Star Trek The Next Generation, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Audiobook, Media Tie In

282 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1990

Reviews

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gulliver’s Fugitives by Keith Sharee is the 11th Star Trek: Next Generation novel. I read a lot of Star Trek novels regardless of the incarnation of the show. I loved all of the shows to varying degrees, so therefore, the major expectation is always: Is the novel faithful to the characters and themes of the show. This one is faithful, but as bland as oatmeal. The story of imagination as a crime has been petrifying (us) geeks since genre literature began. There is really nothing new to see here, but it is Star Trek, and the characters are fun. It is even more fun to have an interplay between the Next Generation roster and the fictional, cultural, mythological figures that the author chose. I do not understand why we needed a love interest for Wesley and another blind engineer that is better than Geordi. Those two unnecessary elements, diminished the possible higher rating. It was really quite puzzling, so right down the middle for me for a story that is merely "Meh!"

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The core premise here is an interesting one and fits quite well within the Trek world, and is exactly what one might expect from an episode of TOS or TNG where the crew encounters a world where something so fundamental is turned upside down and becomes a source of societal friction. Yet it suffers greatly from a myriad of awkward, almost nonsensical technical developments and sub-plots, as well as paper thin character portrayals that fall far from the mark.

[Rindis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way back when, I read through several early ST:TNG novels (all put out during first season). It was a pretty sad bunch. One of them was notably better than the others (not to say that it was worth recommending), and it made sense when I looked at it afterwards and noted it was by Peter David.

Now I've come into possession of some slightly later ones; I think this was put out between seasons two and three (and officially it'd need to be set during season 3, as Dr. Crusher is mentioned, though she never gets 'on camera'). And I can say things have gotten better for the novel line by this point.

Just. Barely.

There's some good ideas here. The Enterprise ends up involved in a lost colony where all forms fiction are banned, and the repressive government is dedicated to 'truth', if not necessarily honesty. There's a long-running underground rebellion dedicated to preserving literature and mythology. This part is handled fairly nicely, including a very multi-cultural set of story traditions.

However, there's a couple of side plots that don't work well at all. In fact the secondary plot gets going first, and looks like it will tie in directly to the main plot, but eventually turns out to be nothing but a red herring. This undermines a fair chunk of the structure of the novel, which is a real shame because at the same time it was also an early look at Troi and her abilities, and undermining that also hurts. The shift to red herring for the secondary plot could have been a nice subverting of expectations, but the payoff isn't good enough to make it work. (I much prefer my initial expectation that the area happened to be where some form of extra-dimensional thought-beings resided, and Rampart's efforts to quash fiction was started as an effort to keep from being unduly influenced by beings they can't understand. Spoiler: Nope.)

And the world-building itself is lackluster. You never get to see what passes for normal life on this planet, never get a sense of what an ordinary person on this planet is like, how the overall culture works, and just why/how there's apparently a constant bleed of people into the resistance. Also, this setup apparently got started by a bunch of Christian fundamentalists (the "truth" of the colony starts with an inerrant Bible), but there's no hints as to how they got to be in charge, because the stories and myths that the resistance is preserving shows that the original colony ship had a very diverse population. Also, in the current day the planet has quite a bit of super-tech that lets them plot execption much of what a 24th Century starship can do.

So, it would take a lot of work, but we have a salvageable high concept here. One that could say some interesting things in the tradition of the best of Trek. But we get an underbaked plot, poor characterization (not something to attach a lot of blame to, as the main cast characters would still be developing in the time period the book would have been written, since there can be a notable lead time for that), and no more moral lesson than 'fundamentalism is bad' (it would have been fairly easy to point more at 'stories are important', and middle does this, but not so much the conclusion).

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Thoughts: A fun blend of classical literature and space opera.

Content Concerns: Ten or so profanities, sci-fi action violence throughout, and, most unfortunately, a disparaging reference to Christianity and the Bible.

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just...I don't...I'm, uh...well...yah, no...this was hot garbage.

As I may have stated in other reviews, it always pains me to dislike anything Trek, especially TNG, because I'm a diehard Trekkie and I will die on that "The Next Generation was the best Trek series ever" hill, but this...ugh...

The premise is that there is a world hidden away in a nebula on the fringes of Federation space which was colonized by Humans during the 21st century (how they got this far out at that time, we'll just not get into right now)...and these Humans were fanatical religious fundamentalists who believed that anything fictional was a disease which needed to be expunged from Humanity. However, they are devout followers of the Judeo-Christian Bible which is just chock full of talking animals, dragons, witches, mystical events, etc...but I guess those aren't "fictional." They consider Science Fiction to be the worst of the worst (irony, she says in a singsong voice), but live in a society in which they all wear helmets which use technology to block out sight and sound (or filter it heavily, rather) and have ubiquitous flying ball-drones that can read anyone's thoughts instantly, are armed with radiation guns, hover everywhere, and are capable of instant dissemination of information amongst each other making them nigh undefeatable. So, you know, totally grounded technology. They even have space ships armed with nuclear weapons and giant versions of their flying ball-drones to fight on battlefields...which is weird considering that they appear to be a world under the thumb of a united planetary government, so what battlefields? ...but, you know, not science fictiony at all.

Most amazingly, they appear to have been a group of colonists who were very diverse, numerous, and accepted those from all over Earth - even though they were fanatically fundamentalist - typically things which don't go hand in hand - as three hundred years later there are still those who are ethnically Australian Aborigine, African, and Native American amongst their population. Also, it seems that those who rebel against this all-controlling society, the Dissenters, have no personality of their own and completely become whichever fictional character they've managed to learn about and they also make sure that they stay within their own perceived native culture, I guess. The Native American Dissenter is Coyote, the Aborigine is a Dreamwalking Earth Mother, the Africans are mythical West African water spirits, a white guy is Odysseus, a Scottish girl is Rhianna, etc., etc. There aren't any Asian Don Quixotes or Hispanic Paul Bunyons or English Sun Tzus...

There are also a couple of Ambassadors onboard from the First Federation (you remember that creepy kid from The Original Series) and they are also creepy kids and we first meet them when Riker stumbles across them in a turbolift making out with each other...or as Riker perceives it "toddlers making out"...was this necessary?!? What the hell? You know, it is possible to describe Halflings getting all romantic without making it sound like toddlers...sheesh...anyway, apparently these Ambassadors are going around being "mischievous" or something...and they are ethnographers, so they say they're down with anything, just chilling on the Enterprise 'cause it's fun or something...

There's also this mysterious element because Deanna Troi keeps perceiving some kind of alien life which seems to make her collapse into a trance state as they talk to her and they all just so happen to resemble mythological creatures and/or gods from Earth's history...weirdly coincidental...and Troi believes that they are somehow in contact with the Dissenters on the planet - oh, it's called Rampart, by the way - and she spends a lot of the book investigating this mysterious connection....

*spoilers*

...which amounts to fuck all. Apparently, early in the novel, Deanna was hanging out with the Ambassadors from the First Federation - who presumably were not making out at the time - and they showed her a movie that they had made during their various visits to Earth in the past where they collected the stories and myths of various cultures and peoples across the planet...and this caused Deanna apparently to lose her fucking mind. It turns out that every time Deanna saw these "Other Worlders" as she called them, she was just tripping balls. There's even a whole scene where all of these mythical and fictional beasts she has encountered whilst tranced attack an installation on Rampart, with Gulliver himself busting out the ground - the illustration on the cover is the battle scene - and Troi believes that she is turning into a statue...

...and it turns out to just be a series of bad acid-trip hallucinations, with the battle one taking place as she was just sitting there handcuffed along with a few other Enterprise crew in a holding area whilst this played in her head. I just...I don't get it...what was the point of this whole "Other Worlder" thing...it meant nothing, it went nowhere, and its removal of the story would change literally nothing...well, okay, Worf wouldn't be encouraged to write a novel...and since we all know Worf because a famous novelist...oh, wait...um...okay...

In the end, an apparent Human colony, who is hostile to the Federation, and has destroyed a Federation starship, will be left alone because of the "Prime Directive" or whatever...

Oh, and there's also another blind Engineer, a female this time, who is actually a Human who was cloned by genetic material some alien race stole from Earth at various points of time, but as they weren't the best with Human biology, they botched it and she's blind...and then somehow was rescued or escaped and went to the Academy, and now has finger sensors that help her see through a special headset that translates touch to vision, she's just like Geordi, the book stresses...and when Riker finally sees her without her helmet he can't help but notice how pretty she is...because Riker is so fricking cringey!!!

And wonder-boy Wesley designs a weapon which is capable of turning anything it hits into a ball of harmless neutrinos which then shoot off to everywhere doing nothing, as neutrinos do - which is how they defeat the floaty-balls...and we never hear about it again. Also, the author seems to be a follower of the pretty much debunked Big Crunch theory of the Universe, as they claim that neutrinos are the source of the dark matter mass mystery which will cause the Universe to collapse back in and itself again someday...which is a no and a no...but, maybe it was more popular in the late 80s...??

Also, Data's poetry is so bad that it renders AIs inoperable and thus defeatable...but, Data is an AI, so, um...and Picard was mind-wiped, but then his personality CD-ROM was immediately reuploaded into himself, and Riker's head was shaved...bet that's not mentioned again...

What was good? Um...not much...fundamentalist break away colonies have been handled in so many better ways - see Grayson and Masada in David Webers Honor Harrington series for one...sheesh, um, nothing was...I literally can not think of anything...

[Jesse A · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fairly lifeless STTNG novel.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a very different person than I was back in 1990, the year this was published and I read it as a high school freshman. The world is different, too - or maybe it's not. Maybe this was a fresh take way back then, I don't know. All I know is that this story is just about every left-wing liberal trope rolled into one fairly predictable book. There are some interesting choices, for sure - the inclusion of First Federation characters, and... uh... yeah, that's about it. There's a blind engineer who's right alongside Geordi for no explicable reason, except she's actually better than he is. There's Picard, being stoic. There's Troi, bravely facing her emotions (seen it). OK, I kinda both did and didn't like the explanation on that one, which I won't divulge here to preclude spoilers. In any case, I think I'll be writing myself a note inside the cover so that, 30 years from now, I'll know not to bother.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh, this one was painful. Kind of a dumb premise and everyone seems to be described with "just a tinge of grey in their hair." We get it...they're experienced. The twist was dumb and Troi's parts were annoying to read. I give it two stars because I enjoyed the stuff happening on the Enterprise and wished it focused more on that - specifically Worf and Geordi. My favourite part was when Worf smashed stuff.

[Ian Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not entirely without merit. Just about held together so I could reach the end. Some interesting ideas that just miss the mark in a missed opportunity. Some trek Novelists have a fine grasp on the characters and what defines and motivates them, sadly this isn't one of those and you could change the names of the characters without anyone really noticing the difference.
Really struggled with the extreme nature of the protagonists of the story and just seemed very little explanation for motivatons of an entire race.
One of the other big problems for me with these" in midst of cannon" novels is writers setting up dynamic characters and relationships of crew members you never see or hear of again. It just takes the whole story out of what you're meant to be reading as it makes little sense in a bigger picture of a whole series. Again interesting character ideas, but lost in the confines of a trek novel. it feels like the Trek has been woven around the idea, not the idea around the Trek.

[Kyle Berry · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Rampartians and their dreaded "one eye" bots come across as threatening enough in the beginning to make the reader take notice. From there, the plot lumbers along from one act of violence to the next - though each one is basically a replay of the last, just in a different room. Later, once you've had the chance to spend some quality time with "the Dissenters", you realize that the plot is a cartoonish postmodern dystopia. I've read some good ones, but this isn't one of them.
On one side: the noble and oppressed Dissenters, a pluralistic melting pot society with a diverse cast of cultures - many taking their identity directly from historical works of fiction. On the other side, the Rampartians - the (literally) quasi-Nazi white Christian oppressors who execute anyone who emits an unfactual thought. They have death bots everywhere that can do the job instantly, but instead their method of execution is about as practical as a Dr. Evil death trap in "Austin Powers".
Attempting to critique society should at least hit somewhat close to home, but the Rampartians are so comically one-dimensional that they make nameless Borg drones seem like deep, complex characters. Between that and the mediocre representation of the Enterprise crew members, you hope the next page brings some cataclysm that puts everyone - reader included - out of their misery. After about 150 pages I skipped to the end, only to find that the tangled plot - which contains odd ends about Worf and a couple of diminutive ethnographers, Troi and "Other-Worlders", and LaForge and another "sightless" engineer - comes tumbling across the finish line in a messy heap. Many problems that took valuable page space to introduce, signaling their importance, are quietly solved in the background in the "all's well that ends well" finish - I've seen plates of barbecue finish more neatly.

This book appears to be the author's only title, and publishers would do well to keep it that way. Send anything else he writes to Rura Penthe.

[Camille · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read two other books while reading this book - that should give you an idea of how much of my attention and interest it captured.

The Enterprise encounters the planet of Rampart occupied by a group of humans who wished to leave Earth and create a new world full of fact. These people did not see the point in fiction, yes, fiction. They consider anything fiction, from literature, art, myths, imagination, exploration, etc. illegal – basically if you have to use your imagination you are considered sick with a disease called Allpox. So when the Enterprise stumbles across this planet looking for the lost ship the U.S.S. Huxley the Rampartians (I guess I can call them that) consider all of the Enterprise "sick" because they speak of nothing of fiction – the very idea that aliens exist is fiction and therefore they must “fix” or destroy the Enterprise and all its inhabitants.

Now that little summary may seem interesting, which I would have to agree, but the sad fact was that this author did a horrible job telling a plausible or interesting story. He even had trouble with writing the canon characters, which caused me to wonder if he even watched the television show. And the worst part for me is that he spent so much time with Troi and her having “hallucinations” of a connection with an alien force (which had nothing to do with nothing) and being a “chick”; as in she could never defend herself or have capability to exert any type of leadership. Granted the TV series does this as well, but I don’t like it there either.

[Rebekah Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, exciting from start to finish. I really loved the whole concept and thought it was done great!

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

This involves a planet where all fiction is outlawed and all law is based on a literal reading of the bible. They literally wear helmets to prevent them from looking at any fiction, and robots will kill people if they think incorrectly. The opening scene involves pages of Gulliver's Travels being weaponized. It's not subtle.

Now, this subject isn't new to trek (it's basically a "Return of the Archons"), but this is amazingly heavy handed. It's cheesy, but not in the Peter David kind of way, but in the smug, self-satisfied way of an author writing about how amazing writing is. It's like all those plays that involve the actors putting on plays. The finale involves physically manifested characters of myth battling the bad guys. Also, Troi saw a holofilm so disturbing her mind blotted it out, but she goes to watch it again because "it's important to open your mind" or something.

The audiobook is hideously abridged, but I doubt I lost much nuance. Scenes are so severely clipped it's honestly difficult to keep track of what's going on. It's a very trippy 1.5 hours.

[Myke Edwards · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this way back in 8th grade; why I chose this as my one book on that fateful back to school shopping trip in the height of my Star Trek craze I'll never understand. I mean, just reading the descriptions on the backs of countless other books, this sounds like one of the weirdest. Reading it was no picnic either, it was confusing and spent a massive chunk in a dream-state, which is beyond infuriating and highly considered one of the worst mistakes and cheats to the audience the author can make.
A part of me wants to read it again 25 years later to see if I might actually "get it" and like it better, but then I realize, I have better things to do. Given the other reviews I see on here, I think I'll stick with this review and call it a day.

[R. C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes you just need a good Star Trek novel to keep your inner reader alive through a rough week, and this one did not disappoint. Not heavily about any one character, but a good balance of Wesley, Troi, Data, Riker and the Captain. The story seemed to be heavily fantastical until it wrapped up in a very logical and believable way. I'd been a bit worried until that point. The themes of polytheism in Earth mythology, trauma, and a people's revolution, all seemed well-done to this reader, who happens to love those three subjects and read on them a good deal.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best. The basic premise is interesting, but the plot is a bit awkward in places and the characterisation clunky. It would have made a great episode! But the book is a bit underwhelming.

[Douglas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just not good. The entire premise was ridiculous. It felt like middle school fan fiction.

[Rose Lowry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too far-fetched (yes, even for a Star Trek offshoot). Kept feeling like, "Really? They just get out of it like that?"

[Reesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars. It was a breath of fresh air to finally have a Star Trek novel fold in gods, myths, and stories from cultures other than western, white, and European. This is something I've found painfully lacking in the novels so far (reading in publication date order). The author was sometimes clumsy or inaccurate in the way the stories were told, and quite on-the-nose regarding which people connected with which myths, but I still thought it was a valiant effort and a joy to finally see some cultural variety in a Star Trek book.

I'm also rather tickled at the author's love of the thesaurus. Again, the use of unusual words in place of more common ones was sometimes clumsy (or even wildly inaccurate), but I found the attempts at vocabulary expansion charming.

The plot, in general, is a bit difficult to believe, but I don't think it matters. The novel illustrates excellent points about the critical importance of imagination - of stories - to the human mind, and the horrors of a government that has gone way too far.

I don't think any of the little plot points were left dangling, even though some were more simplistic than I would have liked for how long the wait was to come back around to them. There were also a few throw-me-out-of-the-story moments where the demand for suspension of disbelief became too great. For instance, at one point, Picard is "kidnapped" on the ship, but he's still wearing his communicator. Crew actively track him being moved throughout the ship yet no one thinks to beam him to a transporter room...? Then there are a few glaring errors, such as a blind crew member losing access to her version of sight, then being given permission for a task by only a nod... but she doesn't question it. In addition, there are some moments about our crew that don't make the slightest bit of sense, such as Picard literally having never met one of his crew (you report to the Captain when you board!), and Data not being able to compose any poetry because his circuits are "too busy" with basic ship functions. This wasn't during a high-intensity emergency, just a ho-hum moment at his station! Maybe he needs to run his disc defragmenter.

But all of those little annoying things really didn't bring my enjoyment of the book down at all. I might be in the minority with this one, but I honestly and unironically liked it a lot.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit of an odd one, on the surface at least. The Enterprise is faced with a society where fiction is thought crime, essentially, and anyone committing said crime is mind-wiped. Naturally Captain Picard and company can't just fly off - hostages are taken, and things pretty much turn to custard before they get any better. And the thing about a lot of the worlds of science fiction is that they're not really that plausible. The logic to them doesn't hold up, and I kept wanting to pick apart the reasoning and the society that resulted from it here, until I decided that I was missing the point. Yes, it's not all that plausible, but the novel's functioning as a metaphor for the limited understanding that occurs in the absence of metaphor, and with that interpretation it's rather more successful.

I was also pleased to see Troi had another major role here. Pleased but surprised... that's two books in a row where she's presented as an effective and competent professional who provides an absolutely necessary critical perspective. I wish I weren't surprised, but stories like that were few and far between for her in the series, so I'm glad to see the books explore her skills more thoroughly.

[Lois Merritt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I imagine I read this once upon a time, because I had gotten the early TNG books, but I just don't remember, being it was so long ago. Now, I found the audiobook (so might not match up entirely with the actual novel since it's abridged), but it is an idea that is very apropos for today - but then, we've been saying the idea of Orwell's 1984 has been going on before and since. Same idea, the Enterprise had to go to this planet to find any survivors of a downed Starfleet vessel, but the crew had to deal with the inhabitants of said planet, a planet that the powers that be have banned everything that requires imagination to produce - particularly fiction works. These people were from Earth originally, so the rebels and their contraband are works we are familiar with, such as the title's Gulliver's Travels. Obviously, it's a story that has been done before, but this version is taking you on the road on how this planet's people are trying to keep it all quashed, how the rebels are trying to fight against it, and our illustrious TNG crew tries to deal with it while being in the middle. Oh, I did rather like it, by the way. Not perfect, but interesting. :)

[Darryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since it was a Deanna Troi story, normally I wouldn't have bothered to read it since her character always seems to inconsistently utilize her Betazoid abilities - but I got this free from my brother in-law who was cleaning out his collection. The story itself plays out as a typical TNG episode, and from the main characters actions and motivations, you can practically deduce in which season this book was written - in this case it turns out it was written in 1990 before season 3 came out.

The story itself stretches the imagination a little bit with the forgotten colony of humans on Rampart. Their technology seemed way to advanced for a forgotten colony that departed Earth 200 years ago. The world building culture and society created for Rampart was well done. I was a little surprised that Deanna was so knowledgeable about Earth mythology in her interactions with the Rampartians. It's a shame that the only real character development came from the two other crew members needed to move the plot forward.

Will I read any more? Well, the brother in-law gave me about 5 more TNG books, so I'll continue to read these in-between novels I'm interested in reading.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never expect literary gold from TV tie-in novels and this one was no exception - a bit of entertainment that at least kept the characterisation pretty much on point. My only real issue with this is that the crew of the Enterprise really didn't do much - got kidnapped, tortured and had things happening to them, but you can't say that they did ANYTHING to get themselves out of trouble. With the exception of Geordi and the rest of the Engineers - they did work on solving the problem, but not enough time was spent with them. However, I don't remember Troi being quite such a wet blanket in the TV show.

I can't say that I found the ending hugely satisfactory - I'm not sure I followed the explanations as to WHY the planet was so dead against the imagination, and the whole ambassador / film thing didn't seem to make a lot of sense. But, despite the moans, I did like it enough to keep reading and I did LOVE Data's poetry.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Generic early Star Trek novel which manages to capture the crew relatively well ... although giving some of them absurd one-shot qualities: i.e. Troi researching human stories; Data constructing poetry from ... random assortments of words; Worf sneaking around the Enterprise, engaged in some sort of skullduggery that is not revealed until the last chapter ... and will never be heard of again.

Aside from that, the plot has the Enterprise captured by some backward civilization that has outlawed imagination, fiction, and art. Somehow there's a group of rebels who are passing around old copies of books they've been hiding for hundreds of years, and keeping imagination alive.

It feels like I should have enjoyed this, but for some reason, the narrative just falls flat.

[Solitudes · Rating 3 out of 5]

more like a 3.5 stars. not a bad book for the average reader and if the reader is already well versed in utopias and books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 or at least some movies like Equilibrium or Minority Report then the book becomes a good one with an interesting approach. I have to say that i like it even is sometimes it lost me and I had to think for a second to understand who does what but overall it was worthy. Never expected tho to see Gulliver helping Troy to fight the bad guys and that's for certain a funny moment. And yes, that acting ensign is saving the ship, in case anyone cares :)))

[Jay Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do enjoy these books. Much like the series, each book represents an episode. In this episode Deanna Troi is the main character. The Enterprise discovers evidence of a lost Federation ship and move to gather details of its loss. They are confronted by a group of humans divided into two factions. One thar restricts thought and another that indulges in myth. The characters are interesting but undeveloped due to restrictions imposed as to the length of books in this series. All in all, this is an entertaining story.

[glass.curtain · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one missed the mark. At times I had to force myself to pay attention, which is not a great sign.

Unfortunately the best parts of this audio book was the time Jonathan Frakes didn't even try to modify his nuance/tone/anything while Deanna Troi was hailing the bridge over the communicator. I had to go back an listen to it three times, before I was sure it was supposed to be her. His angry Picard was pretty spot on though... his Data... not so much.

[Mark R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Enterprise crew encounters a planet populated by Earth refugees who have outlawed anything fictional--including many objects and humanoids the rest of Earth's humanity accepted as nonfiction, years ago.

Picard and crew need time to adjust to such a strange scenario, but unfortunately are given none. It turns out the leaders of this fiction-free civilization aren't keen on outside visitors who come equipped with technology and alien crew members, things that could give way to the lie they've been telling their residents for the past couple centuries.

[Peter Rydén · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boken var riktigt bra. Till en början förstod jag inte mig på särskilt mycket av hur dessa konstiga väsen kunde interagera med vår verklighet, men alltmer när sanningen närmade sig blev detta en närmast episk berättelse med mycket spännande tankar om vad som kan hända när det fria tänkandet trycks ner och förföljs. För mig som informationsvetare kändes därför temat än mer viktigt. En i det stora hela lättläst bok med djupa anspråk som alltså faktiskt lyckas med sitt anspråk.

[Scott Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me, the best part of this novel is the wild cover art! The premise of a planet where imagination is against the law is just too absurd. Often, it felt like this wasn’t even a Star Trek novel. It was like the TNG characters had been grafted on to another story. The final 20 pages are the strongest and there are some interesting thoughts there about the nature of the human brain and existence. It just takes too long to get there.