Don't buy the book; watch TNT instead.
586052
The pace is extremely slow, and the author is showing off with seldom used vocabulary. I think he'll make more selling the TV rights for a story that only tangentially resembles the book. The TV show has a more intriguing plot; the book plods along in a post apocalyptic setting. The captain is very philosophical and erudite, but the action moves along, like the USS Nathan James, at a snail's pace of 8 knots.
3075713
The good? Pretty well-written and highly believable concept. Characters are more than 1 dimensional though development could be better. Bounces between places and characters in a natural and easy to follow manner.

The bad?  The book (and supposedly tbs series to come) is too good to try old movie "cliffhanger" techniques to get readers to buy the next in the series. Character reaches destination only to be blindsided by a blow to the head and everything goes black. Really? Write a good book that stands out (and stands alone) and I will read the next and the next. Pull this crap and I am done. I wouldn't read the series for free or even for a fee.
3491320
I actually enjoyed the tv show better than the book. Just my opinion, but I felt that the book was all over the place. Crazy and scary world. I guess it doesnt help that in 2018, there are people who believe this would be an ideal world.
2366219
"Mission to the Stars" is notable as the only piece of tie-in merchandise for "Jason of Star Command," a live action science fiction series which was part of CBS' Saturday morning schedule for three seasons, from 1978-1981.

Unfortunately, that's all it's notable for.

As a tie-in novel, the overall presentation is lacking. For whatever reason, the show's title is in smaller type than the book's title-an oddity in this sort of literature. There's no copy identifying this as "based on the CBS-TV series." Series creator Arthur Nadel isn't credited. Neither are the writers of the four individual episodes which form this book's foundation. ("Mission to the Stars" is used here as an umbrella title for the first four episodes of Season 2, which comprised one story. Aside from the same-titled premiere, the other episodes in the arc are "Frozen in Space," "Web of the Star Witch," and "Beyond the Stars!") And there's a half-hearted photo insert comprised of publicity photos of the second season's cast, which are poorly reproduced due to being printed on the same paper as the text.

Said text isn't all that great, either. Writer Ken Sobol seems to lack knowledge of either science fiction in general or the show he's adapting in particular.

The book opens with a scene, apparently of Sobol's invention, in which would-be galactic conqueror Dragos kills an alien. This flies directly in the face of the series' producers' efforts to keep deadly violence to a minimum, given the show's Saturday morning timeslot. This lack of understanding continues later in the book, when Sobol states that Star Command kills only when necessary. It seems the series creators knew their audience better than Sobol did.

A distasteful bigotry also permeates this book, again due to a lack of understanding of both science fiction and this show's audience. Sobol chooses to emphasize the mistrust that Star Command in general and Jason in particular have for aliens-a jarring mindset for a spacefaring culture seemingly dedicated to exploration, and very off-putting in a novel intended for young readers. Throughout the book, Sobol uses the term "alien" to describe hostile lifeforms, while referring to non-hostiles as "creatures." This bigotry is particularly jarring in light of the fact that Star Command's commanding officer, Commander Stone, is a blue-skinned native of Alpha Centauri.

What really sinks this book, though, is Sobol's weak attempt at fleshing out the overall story beyond adding "he said" and "she said" to the scripts. For whatever reason, he decides to discard the series' entire first season and cast Dragos as an ancient evil from Star Command's far-distant past. To that end, he portrays the initial confrontation between Jason and Dragos as their first meeting, even though they fought each other in the aforementioned first season. In the televised version of this story, Jason was surprised by Dragos' return at the beginning of Season Two because he thought he'd defeated Dragos-who was written and played as an old-fashioned would-be dictator, proving that the simplest way is the best-at the end of Season One.

In brief, Sobol apparently wrote this book simply to cash a paycheck from a publisher equally disinterested in anything more than making a few bucks off this show. Which is too bad, because both the series and its fans-of which I am one-deserved a far better book than this.
1065705
Men in Trees is a show of high caliber which unfortunately, has been cancelled.  I was saddened and baffled as to how a show that is so well-written, with a cast of obvious talent, has been taken from viewers.  I have been a faithful viewer of the show since its beginning (although it was hard to keep track of with so many changes in its schedule).  I am very much looking forward to the release of the DVD as I now find (again) nothing worth watching on network television.  I'm sorry, am I to think that Super Nanny (which is now on MIT's Wednesday night timeslot) is a viable replacement?  Please network executives, realize that your viewer population is not completely dumbed down by reality TV, and that many of us refuse to watch it.  Your taking of MIT off the air was a huge mistake.  It could have brought your network many accolades if only you had provided a consistent time slot for it.  Thank goodness for DVD players, as now my only way to watch quality television is on disc.  How sad.
3121688
cwldm "cwldm"  who wrote the review `Less than the original' (and who only gave this book 2 stars) would have you believe that the use of the word 'God' in this book is an oversight on the part of the author, due to the fact that the religion of the Colonials is polytheistic in nature and the word used should be 'gods'.

However, if the reviewer were a true fan of the show, he/she would realise that the opposing religious views of the Cylons and Colonials was not actually officially introduced until Season One. If you watch the Miniseries, you will see that the word 'God' is used several times (by Cylons and Colonials alike) and the word 'gods' does not appear at all.

In fact, the only slight reference to polytheism in the Miniseries is to the 'Lords of Kobol', and Ron D. Moore himself has admitted that at that point, the Lords of Kobol were only going to be historical figures in Colonial history (like the saints in Catholicism) and not any sort of deities.

There are other aspects of the Miniseries which were changed in actual series in order to make more sense (i.e. changing the Astral Queen from a freighter to a prison transport and changing the number of prisoners from 500 to 5,000), and is to be expected.

In short, it is the job of the author to write a book that is true to the specific subject material, in this case, the Miniseries. In this, I believe that Jeffrey Carver has done his job, and done it well (hence the five stars).

It is not however, the job of the author to attempt to fill in every plot-hole, contradiction and continuity error made by the show's creator's. And considering the fact that most books based on television series are never truly considered to be `canon' by either the fans or the powers that be, any changes made by the author would be futile, as the 'official version' (the Miniseries) despite being contradicted later, will always be considered to be the `correct version`.

The Miniseries is the starting point for every other story about the Galactica, and it makes sense therefore, that the first book Tor would release would be a novel of the Miniseries. Anyone who has not seen the Miniseries in a while should get this book before reading any other Galactica novels (released in the latter half of 2006), if only to serve as a reminder of the events that led to the situation in which the Galactica now finds itself.
4824280
I can sum up my review of this book rather simply: don't buy it, but do read it; borrow it from the library instead.
A fun romp through the fabulous Brat Pack movies of the 80s, Bernstein's book is a little too short on analysis, a little too full of plot, and offers tantalizing teases of trivia and behind the scenes information but never delivers a whallop punch. It's fun, light reading, and entertaining enough, but it doesn't truly serve as a reference material to the subject, and as such, I wouldn't recommend it as something worth purchasing for your book collection. By all means, take a copy out from the library and spend a fun weekend flipping through its pages -- I wish I had done that, instead of spending money on a copy that now gathers dust on the shelves.
4219939
I agree with most of the other reviewers- this book was just created for money- not for the story and fans.

I only read a few pages and got bored. Simon is not Jace and ought to have remained human. What happened to humans beign heros. Anyway, whatever, it wasn't worth reading.

======================

***WARNING*** What should be considered a plot hole and a violent distortion of the Bible - Nephilim were NOT good soldiers fighting for humanity. In fact God ordered them to die. Although I'm not Christian I am uncomfortable with false information. It's also unfair on Christians.

more details on plot holes relating to the biblical references on this website:

[...]
423944
This movie is awful. The acting, the script, the way it was adapted from the book (scenes cut out, adapted). I listened to the audiobook and while I found the content kind of cheesy, the writing was decent and made it a worthwhile read for the commute home. The movie, however, included all of the terrible parts of the book and left out all of the promising aspects. Two stars because if you are really bored, it will at least help you kill time; if you are looking for something to equal the experience of the book this movie is not even palatable.
3774092
For a time Larry Niven was my favorite SF author.  He was imaginative and entertaining.  I was walking through our town library and saw this and verified I hadn't read it so I thought "What the heck.  This will probably be good."  Boy was I wrong; it was terrible.  There's no plot or story worth mentioning; it's all a vehicle to carry sexual innuendo and anti-science.  I checked and apparently Niven is still a global-warming denier.  No one who pretends to science should have been doing that in the last fifteen years.  That he does is sad.  Since he may influence the teenage boys who'd enjoy this pretentious, light (very light) comedy his denial is also dangerous.  I'm very glad I saw this in a library rather than a book store.
2480761
Forget bottom-of-the-barrel production values (doors that pop open after they are slammed, operating rooms with pitch-black walls(!), cameras that appear in the shot, and perhaps the worst robot costume in the history of television in "Read To Me Herr Docktor."

Forget the gaffes from the actors delivering their lines (this was filmed live, unedited.) Forget the jarring insertion of commercials, also live. Forget the collection of grade D actors that couldn't carry off their parts.

At bottom, the problem with this series lay in the fact that there were no decent scripts. The old theater adage applies: "If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage." And in this season, most of the blame goes to Frank De Felitta, as he wrote the lion's share of the scripts. There were other offenders, but he seems the most egregious. Stories range from jaw-droppingly bad ("Seeing Eye Surgeon," in which the denouement questions the whole premise) to mediocre ("The Window.") And the allure of seeing some future stars in early performances quickly wears thin.

Leslie Nielsen's constant befuddlement in "Another Chance" is tiring, and Rod Steiger's rootless performance in "The Evil Within" is at times shrill, twitchy and just plain wearing. Joanne Woodward does a creditable job in "The Bitter Storm," but the premise is so ludicrous that even her work can't save it. Had I paid considerably less for this, I would have been happy with my purchase simply for the nostalgia value. But for the going price, this just ain't worth it. With all the great sci-fi stories being printed in Galaxy magazine at the time this was being filmed, there was excellent and sufficient material available. In comparison to this, "One Step Beyond" is Shakespeare. I just can't recommend this.
583151
I bought this set based on the reviews I read on the site, here, on Amazon.com. I guess I was so eager to watch more nature documentaries after viewing all the BBC stuff..(Planet Earth, Life, and others) . I also watched Great Migrations, a recent NatGeo production and release. I thought, wow, I will get this set for more viewing thrills, even though the reviews I read here hinted that the video was not as good as the BBC stuff but still left the impression that at the very least it was good.
In my humble opinion, this set is way overpriced at around $ 70 if you factor in tax and shipping. Problem is there is no way you can tell how bad or good video is without watching and opening the package. I watched all six discs in the set. I honestly felt I was watching DVD quality material. The material itself seems to have been put together with no rhyme or reason.there was no particular theme to the pack. The claim that this was high definition, was laughable. The extras were all in Standard definition and looked bad when projected on a small screen. Really, let's face it, the BBC really knows how to put a set together.  As I said earlier, Great Migrations a NatGeo recent release was excellent with Great video and  very nice coherent themes. The narration was top notch.
This release (Nat Geo. Ultimate High Def. Collection) was very disappointing to me. I really regret buying it. Oh well, I can always use the pack as a bookend or a paper weight.
148008
i can't believe what they did here! i have read the book and i loved it. so i figured i would watch the movie. it was one of the worst mistakes i have ever made when it comes to entertainment. this movie starts at like page sixty of the book changes some of the things around(like how the people got the gold, how terl dies, etc.) and ends it at about page 330. this wouldn't be too bad except that the book is over 1000 pages long! they left out over two-thirds of the story! and those are really important parts. so if you really want good entertainment read the book. if you want a short thrill that destroyes a great work of sci-fi, watch this. it's your call.
2039926
I hope Marion Zimmer Bradley made good coin for the rights to her amazing book, because the movie stinks. The costumes are great, the music is great, the acting is ok, but the adaptation is horrible. Morgaine is entirely changed in her focus and drive, which spoils the whole story. Your time and money would be much better spent on the book - It is amazing.
4671994
Imagine my sense of serendipity when, having just finished reading Jack London's classic "Call of the Wild" with my 9-year-old, I found this DVD release on sale for a dollar!  (Some company called Double D has just released a series of "classic" films, TV shows and cartoons at this rock-bottom price.)  Well, let me say it was worth the buck (pun not intended), but just barely.  My son enjoyed watching it, but mainly because he's just finished the book.  He had fun pointing out the incosistencies with the book, too.  (It only took a 9-year-old to figure that out.)  First and foremost, John Thornton becomes the main character throughout the story, rather than near the end as in the book.  (I guess Heston wanted a bigger part.)  But enough about that.  If it weren't for Heston (not my favorite actor, but by far the best one in the film), this wouldn't be worth the plastic it was burned on.  The "international cast" (I've learned to beware of that label ever since watching those Robert Halmi miniseries fiascos on TV) are unknowns, and rightfully so, and the dubbed-in dialogue for the foreign-speaking actors is even worse.  The soundtrack - early 70's bad electronic - is atrocious.  And the DVD was apparently copied from a scratchy print.  Lastly, as mentioned by other reviewers, this is not a film (or story, for that matter) for very young children.  There is mild profanity and moderate violence, particularly the dogfights, which were so vicious that I hope "no animals were harmed in the making of this picture." It desrves at least a PG.  But it is, apparently, the only version of the story on DVD (or VHS?).  So if you really want a rather bowlderized version of a classic story for a dirt-cheap price, or if you'll watch Charlton Heston in anything, by all means buy it.

(P.S.: If you want to see a Jack London tale done well, buy or rent the 1991 film "White Fang", starring Ethan Hawke and Klaus Maria Brandauer.)
2440495
I loved Hunter Thompson's book, but the movie was an enormous disappointment. It is just a two hour, uninterrupted drug binge that misses all the points of the book. Sure, there are plenty of drugs in the book, but also commentary on the "American Dream" and a good deal of humor and insight. None of that is in the movie and you might as well skip the second half--it's just more of the same. The blurb on the front says "Excruciatingly funny," but I would say just "Excruciating."
4568515
If you watch a fair amount of TV, you'll probably like the series.  If you don't, you probably won't.  I rarely look at TV, and this series reminds me why.  Unlike nearly everybody else, I thought the casting of the women was poor, and the dialog not believable.  Too bad, I was hoping for something a lot better.  Too many F-bombs, a complaint not because it's offensive but because it reduces the story to silly outbursts.  And finally, as for Page Eight's story line, the notion of secret sites run by the Americans is hardly news, so the episode seems like it could be 15 years old, right off the bat.