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The U.S.S. Voyager finds itself in a system where a planet might have existed, but doesn't. Where the planet should have been, millions and then billions of people are appearing from nowhere and dying in the vacuum of space.
To solve the mystery and save billions of lives, Captain Janeway will have to face alternate versions of herself and the crew of Voyager -- not just one almost-mirror-image, but many. Janeway will have to find a way to work with her alternate selves, with whom she shares much but each of whom has a different agenda. At stake is the survival of Voyager and the lives of billions of innocent people.
282 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
41 people are currently reading
507 people want to read
About the author
Dean Wesley Smith
821 books176 followersPen Names
Edward Taft
Dee W. Schofield
Sandy Schofield
Kathryn Wesley
Dean Wesley Smith is the bestselling author of over ninety novels under many names and well over 100 published short stories. He has over eight million copies of his books in print and has books published in nine different countries. He has written many original novels in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and romance as well as books for television, movies, games, and comics. He is also known for writing quality work very quickly and has written a large number of novels as a ghost writer or under house names.
With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. The following is a list of novels under the Dean Wesley Smith name, plus a number of pen names that are open knowledge. Many ghost and pen name books are not on this list because he is under contractual obligations not to disclose that he wrote them. Many of Dean’s original novels are also under hidden pen names for marketing reasons.
Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.
Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books.
Currently, he is writing thrillers and mystery novels under another name.
Edward Taft
Dee W. Schofield
Sandy Schofield
Kathryn Wesley
Dean Wesley Smith is the bestselling author of over ninety novels under many names and well over 100 published short stories. He has over eight million copies of his books in print and has books published in nine different countries. He has written many original novels in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and romance as well as books for television, movies, games, and comics. He is also known for writing quality work very quickly and has written a large number of novels as a ghost writer or under house names.
With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. The following is a list of novels under the Dean Wesley Smith name, plus a number of pen names that are open knowledge. Many ghost and pen name books are not on this list because he is under contractual obligations not to disclose that he wrote them. Many of Dean’s original novels are also under hidden pen names for marketing reasons.
Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.
Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books.
Currently, he is writing thrillers and mystery novels under another name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
January 7, 2018
Things to enjoy about this novel: (1) the authors take the over-used parallel universe plot and give it a creative spin; (2) the authors create a story featuring an incredibly grim scenario, resulting in actual emotional consequences; (3) an alien world is created in a most concise & compact manner, managing to convey much detail without info-dumping; (4) the Voyager crew is surprisingly consistent to their mid-season 3 counter-parts...except for a few season 1 Torres moments getting in the way. It'd call this a satisfying success.
April 26, 2016
The premise was an interesting one, but reading three identical Voyager crews working on the same problem at the same time and coming up with the exact same conclusion at the same time for the same reason got really, really, really repetitive.
July 23, 2015
Objectively speaking this may not be the best book ever, but it was the first full book I ever read on my own (I was 9 and it took me a month) and it launched many years of reading
May 27, 2012
Throughout the years we have seen Star Trek books that are completely based on time-travel and restoring the timeline. So it was about time we get to see a novel that leans completely on the other favotite science-fiction clishé: parallel universes.
Inspite of the horrible premise "Echoes" holds itself together surprisingly well. Yes, the plot is virtually nonexistant, and the whole purpose of the book is to show us different Voyagers from the one we are used to. We get to follow two of these alternate Voyagers and their crew in this book plus the 'regular' one. Unfortunately, the only things that are different in these alternate Voyagers in relation to the familiar one are the uniforms, hairstyles and minor differences in the layout of the interior design of the ship. With such great potential for speculation, I truly wonder why the author's decided to play it so very safe.
The most annoying thing with this novel is that it feels like a combination of few of the most popular Star Trek TV episodes and offers absolutely nothing new. It is apparent throughout the book wich episode is being copied with each scene. The biggest strenghts are good characterization, especially each Janeway is being portrayed extremely well.
The plot doesn't take any risks. In fact it cannot take any risks. The ending becomes apparent after the very first chapters, and the novel isn't nearly as dark as it could- and probably should- have been.
Inspite of the horrible premise "Echoes" holds itself together surprisingly well. Yes, the plot is virtually nonexistant, and the whole purpose of the book is to show us different Voyagers from the one we are used to. We get to follow two of these alternate Voyagers and their crew in this book plus the 'regular' one. Unfortunately, the only things that are different in these alternate Voyagers in relation to the familiar one are the uniforms, hairstyles and minor differences in the layout of the interior design of the ship. With such great potential for speculation, I truly wonder why the author's decided to play it so very safe.
The most annoying thing with this novel is that it feels like a combination of few of the most popular Star Trek TV episodes and offers absolutely nothing new. It is apparent throughout the book wich episode is being copied with each scene. The biggest strenghts are good characterization, especially each Janeway is being portrayed extremely well.
The plot doesn't take any risks. In fact it cannot take any risks. The ending becomes apparent after the very first chapters, and the novel isn't nearly as dark as it could- and probably should- have been.
April 4, 2020
i really did like this book i liked that you went through and saw what the other voyagers dealt with these bodies that appear in space and i liked how Janeway in our universe had to send a message to the other voyagers to find out how they were going to solve the mystery of the bodies that appear
July 3, 2019
I thought this story was pretty poor honestly. I love Voyager and recently just finished the series for goodness knows what time through. I was excited to get into some of the Voyager books and started with this one as I saw it had fairly good reviews. I was thoroughly disappointed though. I felt the book started strongly and the premise was intriguing. However, the characters I felt were not done well, and the dialogue just didn't sound like what they would say. (I'm talking about the our universe voyager here). The story also did something that I am not fond of, which was dwell on a past recent event in the show. It's fine to give us a setting, but to constantly bring it up and re-hash it time and again with characters constantly mentioning it etc, I just felt it was tidious. I honestly think you could edit out a lot of the poor writing and needless introspection and get this book to be 100 pages, and the story might flow better and I could have given it a higher rating. However I felt too often that I was reading 'filler' to get the word count up. Also I have to mention -Chakotay 2, Paris 2 etc, I think that's the most awful thing I have ever read in an adult book. I mean she literally mentions how childish it is to call them that in the book itself. That shouted to me that the writers literally couldn't be bothered the think of something else, something that I think was evident throughout this book.
May 10, 2009
is there truly anything worse than a story which seems to end exactly where it started? perhaps I'm being harsh, really. Echoes was published in January 1998. year of hell, a two-part story line which also sees everything reverting to the way it was at the beginning, more or less, first aired in November the year before. deadlock, an episode of the series often mentioned in Echoes aired in march of 1996, so you'd have thought there was plenty of time,as it were, for events to propagate before a television episode muscled in.
Still, this sort of story allows for mass destructionn and all sorts of things, because as with "it's all a dream", everyone's fine at the end. not that any of the authors seem to be in for that ssort of thing; to be truthful I expected better of Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch as they are quite prominent.
Still, the concept is familiar. As with the TV episodes mentioned above, things can just go full circle and no harm done. Add Voyager's Endgame, TNG's Cause and Effect and yesterday's Enterprise and probably a TOS episode or two (I haven't watched many) and you're probably well on your way to imagining how droll this sort of thing can get.
Still, this sort of story allows for mass destructionn and all sorts of things, because as with "it's all a dream", everyone's fine at the end. not that any of the authors seem to be in for that ssort of thing; to be truthful I expected better of Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch as they are quite prominent.
Still, the concept is familiar. As with the TV episodes mentioned above, things can just go full circle and no harm done. Add Voyager's Endgame, TNG's Cause and Effect and yesterday's Enterprise and probably a TOS episode or two (I haven't watched many) and you're probably well on your way to imagining how droll this sort of thing can get.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 13, 2021
Parallel universes is a tough subject to deal with and in reading this book it did seem confusing initially. Greatfully the beginning of each chapter indicates where or should I say which place we are at. The book does keep one interested and wanting to read further to understand how it all comes together. Yes there is some duplication which is hard to avoid with parallel universes but it works well. To this end it was a most enjoyable read.
September 29, 2018
This was my first Star Trek book and I really enjoyed it.
January 24, 2022
What a really great sci-fi idea to explore! Having heard JessieGender talk about this book in her Youtube videos a couple of times I was really excited to get to this one.
So the story has some flaws - I would've loved there to be more significant differences between each universe although I get why this wasn't the case with the universes being hard enough to track as it was without them all having their own individual storylines. In some ways it's fun to believe that the Voyager crew would've become a found family in all the universes. There was a lot of repetition throughout and again this emphasised the similarity of all the crews but could sometimes get a little tiresome. It would've been so great to have found a way of expanding the story in a multitude of universes - what about one universe where Janeway isn't the Captain? Or a rebellious Paris who wouldn't fly the ship into certain death to save the planet below? Or even one of the classic evil parallel crews? But with the tragedy of billions dying every couple of hours and limited time scale I get why this wasn't explored.
All this being said I really enjoyed the premise and the story. I loved the crews noticing slight differences in parallel crews and character interactions. The characters I felt were well written and accurate to the screen versions of the time. There was some coverage of the strain on relationships - Harry and a parallel Tom having a particularly interesting conversation and it would've been great for more of these to be explored. The story was gripping and tragic - and you could feel the dread of the crew witnessing all the death and destruction. I felt myself preparing for when parallel away teams got to the empty space. Enjoyed the heavy sci-fi and I have found it incredibly interesting to think of all these stories which could've happened - I'll have to get on the fan fiction!
Overall really enjoyed - so much potential in such a short story but I think it was pulled off really well.
So the story has some flaws - I would've loved there to be more significant differences between each universe although I get why this wasn't the case with the universes being hard enough to track as it was without them all having their own individual storylines. In some ways it's fun to believe that the Voyager crew would've become a found family in all the universes. There was a lot of repetition throughout and again this emphasised the similarity of all the crews but could sometimes get a little tiresome. It would've been so great to have found a way of expanding the story in a multitude of universes - what about one universe where Janeway isn't the Captain? Or a rebellious Paris who wouldn't fly the ship into certain death to save the planet below? Or even one of the classic evil parallel crews? But with the tragedy of billions dying every couple of hours and limited time scale I get why this wasn't explored.
All this being said I really enjoyed the premise and the story. I loved the crews noticing slight differences in parallel crews and character interactions. The characters I felt were well written and accurate to the screen versions of the time. There was some coverage of the strain on relationships - Harry and a parallel Tom having a particularly interesting conversation and it would've been great for more of these to be explored. The story was gripping and tragic - and you could feel the dread of the crew witnessing all the death and destruction. I felt myself preparing for when parallel away teams got to the empty space. Enjoyed the heavy sci-fi and I have found it incredibly interesting to think of all these stories which could've happened - I'll have to get on the fan fiction!
Overall really enjoyed - so much potential in such a short story but I think it was pulled off really well.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 9, 2019
Captain Janeway and the Voyager crew respond to a distress signal from the planet Birsiba. Janeway speaks to R'Lee who tells her that they activated a new, planet-wide teleport system which has resulted in subspace waves every two and a half hours. An away team is sent to the planet to investigate. Another wave hits and when Janeway contacts R'Lee, he has no recollection of talking to her.
It is discovered that during the subspace waves there is a three-second period where views of multiple planets and Voyagers can be seen going off to the right and left. 2,410 planets to the right, that Janeway and Voyager face a horrible revelation. They are not orbiting the planet. In its place is a mass of bodies where the planet was. It is determined that with each wave the populations of the planets shift to the planet next to theirs and that each shift brings 3.5 billion people to empty space and a horrible death.
That Janeway and her crew do all they can to save some of the people. The Voyagers are able to send a three-second compacted message to the other ships hoping to find a solution to the billions of lives being lost with each new wave.
With thousands of Voyagers searching for the cause and solution to the problem, they prevail.
This is an interesting story with viewpoints from different Janeways and their crews. Some of the away teams end up on a different Voyager than their own and one Voyager ends up with two away teams.
It is discovered that during the subspace waves there is a three-second period where views of multiple planets and Voyagers can be seen going off to the right and left. 2,410 planets to the right, that Janeway and Voyager face a horrible revelation. They are not orbiting the planet. In its place is a mass of bodies where the planet was. It is determined that with each wave the populations of the planets shift to the planet next to theirs and that each shift brings 3.5 billion people to empty space and a horrible death.
That Janeway and her crew do all they can to save some of the people. The Voyagers are able to send a three-second compacted message to the other ships hoping to find a solution to the billions of lives being lost with each new wave.
With thousands of Voyagers searching for the cause and solution to the problem, they prevail.
This is an interesting story with viewpoints from different Janeways and their crews. Some of the away teams end up on a different Voyager than their own and one Voyager ends up with two away teams.
February 12, 2021
Once you accept the premise... the concept is an interesting one and is not outside the scope of what you would expect for a Voyager episode. I enjoyed this story and was fully invested in finding out how the crews would manage to work together and save the day.
There are three very different scenarios that are linked in causation and the consequences are inescapably entwined. It took a few rotations to get the hang of switching between the universes but I thought it did work well.
There are no real side plots in this book and as such no time is given to character building but this is probably reasonable considering the triple-thread of the main plot.
The numbers begin to make some sense a few chapters in and the scope of the problem is truly overwhelming. The discovered root cause is not dropped as a big surprise and the story ends with a classic Trek maneuver but this is definitely an enjoyable episodic adventure.
There are three very different scenarios that are linked in causation and the consequences are inescapably entwined. It took a few rotations to get the hang of switching between the universes but I thought it did work well.
There are no real side plots in this book and as such no time is given to character building but this is probably reasonable considering the triple-thread of the main plot.
The numbers begin to make some sense a few chapters in and the scope of the problem is truly overwhelming. The discovered root cause is not dropped as a big surprise and the story ends with a classic Trek maneuver but this is definitely an enjoyable episodic adventure.
June 5, 2018
Kind of derivative as it steals a couple of ideas from Parallels (TNG) and Deadlock (VOY) though this is kind of a sequel of the latter. However, it does a great job of taking those ideas and making it something else which was interesting enough. I did stumble between the universal shifts and I think the authors did at times too. A lot of lines and thoughts were just left dangling and never dealt with again which I guess in the end didn't matter but it made it a little trickier to follow at times. In the end, I did like what the authors did and had an interesting enough read along the way - just wasn't anything TRULY groundbreaking.
February 1, 2020
My first Trek book, I chose this one because it was recommended in a Jessie Gender video. The premise was intriguing, parallel universe stuff is always fun, and I particularly enjoyed the middle section where they investigated the planet, contrasting its populated and depopulated forms.
It couldn't quite stick the landing though, unfortunately. I don't blame the author for hitting the reset button on such a dark, bloody event - that's just what you'd expect from Voyager, isn't it - but near the end it also got a bit tiresome reading every chapter 2 or 3 times. Here's how Torres figures something out... now here's how alternate Torres figures it out (the same way). Lots of ruminating on how similar-yet-different the characters' other selves are, but it never really goes anywhere. Just makes you think "yeah, I get it, what happens next".
On the strength of the first 2/3rds or so, I enjoyed this book. It's easy to read, and extremely Voyager (for better or worse).
It couldn't quite stick the landing though, unfortunately. I don't blame the author for hitting the reset button on such a dark, bloody event - that's just what you'd expect from Voyager, isn't it - but near the end it also got a bit tiresome reading every chapter 2 or 3 times. Here's how Torres figures something out... now here's how alternate Torres figures it out (the same way). Lots of ruminating on how similar-yet-different the characters' other selves are, but it never really goes anywhere. Just makes you think "yeah, I get it, what happens next".
On the strength of the first 2/3rds or so, I enjoyed this book. It's easy to read, and extremely Voyager (for better or worse).
August 25, 2018
Echoes presents a very Voyager-like problem, and fits really well into the structure of a Voyager story. There are some very interesting choices made by the authors that add to the enjoyment. A fascinating science fiction mystery that, while complex, doesn't get too bogged-down with technobabble. Definitely one of the better Voyager stories set during the series that I have read.
Full review: http://www.treklit.com/2018/08/vgr15....
Full review: http://www.treklit.com/2018/08/vgr15....
June 14, 2019
I found this one to be really fun. Predictable, but fun. I did find myself getting confused when we'd change universes at first but I eventually picked it up. This line from Janeway in the spoiler had me tearing up:
May 27, 2021
För mig som gillar Janeway var denna bok en höjdpunkt. För er som inte gillar henne blir det en mardröm. Tusentals, kanske miljoner, Janeway med respektive besättningar som i varsina dimensioner försöker lösa mysteriet som uppstått! Nu får man bara möta en handfull av dem, men ändå. Personporträtt är någorlunda bra, men storyn är så mycket bättre! Alternativa tidslinjer och warpteknologi - allt får sin stund här.
May 15, 2020
Great tale but loses the reader somewhat
Recommended read as strong story. Details can be sketchy and much room to paint a better, clearer picture I think.I look forward to reading more - there was so much more to glean from exploring the innovations and mystery contained here.
Recommended read as strong story. Details can be sketchy and much room to paint a better, clearer picture I think.I look forward to reading more - there was so much more to glean from exploring the innovations and mystery contained here.
July 26, 2020
Well. That was confusing. I wish the writer could have figured out a device to clearly differentiate between the parallel universes, other than “universe two-thousand four hundred and ten,” etc. It was a jumble. Would have made a fun episode.
November 7, 2020
This book was a thrill ride from start to finish. When there are space-time implications the Voyager crew makes the best decision with the data available to attempt to save billions upon billions of lives. You won’t regret this fascinating story from the Voyager crew in the Delta Quadrant.
October 9, 2018
Love the multi-dimensional aspect of this one!
November 21, 2020
It's probably weird that I enjoyed this as much as I did given what the problem is. But I'm a sucker for a parallel universe problem
February 6, 2021
Not my favorite in the series. Since its about multiple universes we get the same story told every couple of chapters from a different universes view. For me the story dragged.
June 25, 2021
There was a time where I almost put this book down, but it got better near the middle, despite the end being unsatisfying.
February 1, 2022
An intriguing parallel universes story of the Voyager crew, I really enjoyed it! The different crews and universes got confusing at times, but other than that, great writing and accurate characters.
April 8, 2024
A book that goes further into depth on one of the episodes.
February 10, 2025
An interesting concept, would've made a good episode. Hasn't really stuck with me, but an enjoyable easy read.
February 10, 2026
Honestly the visual of the planet sized pile of floating bodies is so visual and horrific- it’s really well done. Did read the whole thing in two sittings because I really needed to see how it ended.
September 11, 2021
One of the better Trek novels, actually, despite my main takeaway from it being that in a parallel universe, Tom Paris has green eyes. For some reason.
Also, I can't help getting annoyed at the title's spelling. Apparently it's not incorrect, but 'Echoes' looks right. 'Echos' does not.
Also, I can't help getting annoyed at the title's spelling. Apparently it's not incorrect, but 'Echoes' looks right. 'Echos' does not.
August 6, 2013
First of all, according to my book, this is the 15th Voyager book. Also, the authors are Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Nin Kiriki Hoffman, NOT Greg Cox. But anyway, in my continuing attempt to catch up on the all of my Star Trek reading, I've just finished Echoes. Coincidentally, I finished reading this one at the Star Trek convention called Shore Leave, near Baltimore.
The premise is that Voyager picks up some subspace waves coming at them at regular two and a half hour intervals. Nothing significant and it won't affect Voyage at all, but when they receive a distress call, they investigate. They discover a society that has just set up a new transportation device like Voyager's teleporters, but different. When the new transportation device is used again, Voyager experiences a strange duplication effect--they see multiple planets "echoing" out to their right and left, some with Voyagers in orbit, others without, and even a few where the planet no longer exists. When it ends, on the planet the inhabitants experience strange phenomena, small changes in their society, such as changes in eye color, streets that no longer exist, etc. Janeway sends down an away team to figure out what's going on . . . but at the next activation of the subspace wave, the away team vanishes!
I tried to write the premise in such a way that it doesn't give away the heart of the book, which is the best part of this novel. The set-up and the problem that Voyager encounters is spectacular and really caught my imagination, especially in the way that the authors presented the problem and how they used it to great effect in terms of tension and increasing the stakes as the novel progresses and Janeway and crew figure out exactly what's going on. How they end up resolving the problem is, perhaps, not exactly scientific or even explained in great detail, but I also don't see how else they could have resolved the problem without taking the situation and making it trivial.
I also like the fact that they spend the time dealing with how this situation affected the characters as well. There was a depth of emotion here that doesn't typically appear in Star Trek novels, especially ones like this were there is a solid, cool idea behind the plot. Most of the time, in such a situation, the time is spent on the cool idea and how this cool idea may affect the characters is set aside.
So, a solid Star Trek book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It made me think, caught me up in the characters' plight, and that had a cool idea for the plot.
The premise is that Voyager picks up some subspace waves coming at them at regular two and a half hour intervals. Nothing significant and it won't affect Voyage at all, but when they receive a distress call, they investigate. They discover a society that has just set up a new transportation device like Voyager's teleporters, but different. When the new transportation device is used again, Voyager experiences a strange duplication effect--they see multiple planets "echoing" out to their right and left, some with Voyagers in orbit, others without, and even a few where the planet no longer exists. When it ends, on the planet the inhabitants experience strange phenomena, small changes in their society, such as changes in eye color, streets that no longer exist, etc. Janeway sends down an away team to figure out what's going on . . . but at the next activation of the subspace wave, the away team vanishes!
I tried to write the premise in such a way that it doesn't give away the heart of the book, which is the best part of this novel. The set-up and the problem that Voyager encounters is spectacular and really caught my imagination, especially in the way that the authors presented the problem and how they used it to great effect in terms of tension and increasing the stakes as the novel progresses and Janeway and crew figure out exactly what's going on. How they end up resolving the problem is, perhaps, not exactly scientific or even explained in great detail, but I also don't see how else they could have resolved the problem without taking the situation and making it trivial.
I also like the fact that they spend the time dealing with how this situation affected the characters as well. There was a depth of emotion here that doesn't typically appear in Star Trek novels, especially ones like this were there is a solid, cool idea behind the plot. Most of the time, in such a situation, the time is spent on the cool idea and how this cool idea may affect the characters is set aside.
So, a solid Star Trek book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It made me think, caught me up in the characters' plight, and that had a cool idea for the plot.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews