Rating: 
Summary: Many pro's but also some Kahn's...
Review: I would actually give this a 3.5. I find the first audiobook to be better and I gave that a 4. The reason for this is primarily as follows:Pro's: Well, for starters we get a further look at everyones favorite Star Trek villian, the backstory, the scope of his making is done very well. Getting to see the creation (I see it in my mind!) of the DY-100 class starship that launched Kahn is truly a great moment. All the little interjections from the past truely spark some great memories(Gary 7, Roberta, etc). The sound on the audiobook is also done well, ie; effects, music, etc. I liked the reader from the first audiobook more but the "new" reader here, Rene Auberjonois does an good job. Kahns: Right away I wonder, why not get Ricardo Montalbon to read the Kahn parts? Or at least give cameos like Nimoy does in other Trek audiobooks? It adds TREMENDOUSLY to the feel of these books. And Ricardo has one of the best and most recogniseable voices around plus the fact that the voice of this particular character (Kahn) is practically a character in and of itself! Coupled with the fact that, while I think Rene does a good job overall, the ONE voice he never really hits is Kahns. I find it difficult to picture Kahn when he speaks, the voice is very un-Kahn. The story on this book also flounders MUCH more than the previous book. Zig-zagging between Amazon women and hill-billy generals with mirrored sunglasses I find it hard to keep track of whose-who and what precisely is going ON! And there are always many new people popping up that you have totally forgotten about or have no idea who they are, and after the story is over have difficulty remembering what happened to them... I would have preferred less characters and more character development. In "Shadows on the Sun" by Micheal Jan Friedman there was much more emphesis on a small number of characters (McCoy vs. Shrill Androcis? Great sparring), here it is the opposite. All tolled, this is a good story set to great artwork and far above average sound with a very endearing ending. Even though I feel there is a hole in the middle where a story could have been, I give them an A for effort but it's fairly rough around the edges at times. However, the question is: Was this worth my money? I say doubly so.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad man rising
Review: We get to see the continue evolution of Khan from wide-eyed kid to evil super freak. In this story Khan is building a shadow kingdom and is bent on world conquest. His biggest obstacle is Gray Seven and and his other super being sibilings.
You see how Khan wants the world to be a better place but naturally in his own image. He will do whatever is necessary but in the end things go wrong.
We see some cameos of various people from the Trek world. People that appeared from TOS to Voyager. During this story we also have a side story where Kirk is trying to figure out if the Federation should accept a new world that is involved in making humans superior.
Overall a great story and I enjoy how Cox gets current events that happen in the 1990's and make it part of the story. I can't wait for his 3rd story in this Khan adventure.
Rating:
Summary: As good -- or BETTER than Volume 1...exceptionally fun.
Review: I was really blown away by The Eugenics Wars volume 1...big time. I just wasn't expecting a Trek novel to be SO different, so creative, so GOOD. This was an exceptional example of creative juices on overload. Kirk and Spock take a backseat to a few characters from the past, that normally wouldn't command even a 2nd glance -- but Greg Cox's fertile imagination has brought new life to the Trek Universe in ways that brought many smiles to my face as I read through book's 1 & 2. Volume 2 picks up shortly after vol 1 left off, plus a few years.
Gary Seven failed to stop the Chrysalis Project from creating a few genetically engineered children before he was able to derail the Project from progressing further...but some damage had already been done. Gary & Roberta scattered the children all over the globe in hopes of keeping them from some supreme scheme to take over the world. Gary even attempts a valiant effort to recruit Khan to assist him and Roberta in helping us wayward earthlings from killing ourselves prematurely. A noble idea, but with Khan's impossibly overblown ego, a gesture which was destined to fail...miserably. Before we know it, Khan has himself an island near the equator and has regrouped the children of Chrysalis and has devised a plan to force the world under his iron rule, which he is convinced is the best way to save mankind. What I found most interesting aside from the clever way Mr. Cox managed to take existing history and mix it up with Trek Lore, was how he managed to give Khan's character depth. We have to remember that he isn't responsible for his own existence, we can thank the Chrysalis Project for that. I never would have thought that his character could be as deep as he was written in these two novels. We all know that eventually Khan and his minions end up aboard the SS Botany Bay, which The Enterprise will encounter a few hundred years in the future, and again in Star Trek II, The Wrath Of Khan (still one of the best movies). This book fills in the gaps of his life on earth and how the Eugenics Wars started, how they end, and how events we have come to know about have a connection to Star Trek that at times evokes outright laughter, not because they are silly, but mostly because of how clever they have been woven into the plot. Greg Cox has written an amazingly creative story that shows his obvious love of the series. Aside from Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens' who write on a level that just about nobody can reach, Cox has gone in another direction which has made this series fresh in a way I never would have thought possible. You have many choices in the world of Trek, and some would say most are not worth the price of a paperback, but The Rise And Fall of Khan Noonien Singh Volume's 1 & 2 are most definitely worth the price, even in hardback. Pick this one up and savor the incredible journey that Mr. Cox has pieced together for us. It is a journey well worth taking, and worth taking more than once.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but room for improvement.
Review: This book continued where volume one left off, in that the average Trek fan can learn more about some of the more popular guest stars on Star Trek. I was a little disappointed in that it seemed to speed by Khan's development a bit too fast, but that didn't detract too much. The left-wing preaching also bothered me some, but I was able to ignore it for the most part and concentrate on the Star Trek stuff. There were also some fun moments in that some Trek guest stars, in addition to Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln and Khan, make cameo appearances in this volume. I recommend it if you are a Trek fan.
Rating:
Summary: The wrath of Doctrine!
Review: I have this audio cassette along with book 1. I like all the characters such as Khan Noonien Singh, Roberta Lincoln, Gary Seven, and the British scientist Dr. Williams. I cannot believe that there would be the name of a rocket... Morning Star. Morning Star? Please! What kind of name is that? Where did that name come from? I know it came from Khan's own mind in the story, but where exactly does the name of Morning Star come from? I also like how the author tells about the horror of Khan's Tiraney with things like nerve gas, and Streptococcus. I still like the story! even if it is science fiction. This was the first time I've heard about the Ujenics Wars on these 2 audio books. I highly recommend this to future Star Trek fans.
Rating:
Summary: Assignment Earth: The Eugenics Wars
Review: Lets make this very clear: this is a Star Trek novel. Like most Trek novels, one does have to have some familarity with the characters and concept. So, when talking about this novel, let's keep it within the context it's about. It's Star Trek, and like many others, I have a fondness for Star Trek.
Based upon both the classic television series and the second Star Trek movie, the novel tells the continuing tales of Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln, and the rise of the tyrant Kahn in the late 20th century.
The story flows smoothly, keeping the consistant development of the characters from which have known and are used too. It does whallop you with cameos from every series ('Enterprise' inculded) but that just for excessive continuity. It continues the tale of Kahn, how he took over one quarter of the planet, and lost his empire to his and other own egos. (You don't ahve to be superhuman to have an excessive ego.) Hey, its fun. It is interesting to see that Eugenics Wars were conducted covertly, and although I was not surprised with the way Kahn was portrayed, although at one monemt in the passages, Kahn did seem concerned about humanity, briefly. I was both interested and annoyed with the development of his super brothers and sisters. The Romainan butcher was acceptable, the yankee superman was stretched, but the Amazon women was pushed too far.(Someone's DNA molecule was dropped one too many times while gestating). I think, as the story flowed, we learned a great deal about Kahn and why he did (and the author stayed witin character. See the portaryal of Kahn by the actor in the episode 'Space Seed'. NOT The Wrath of Kahn.) what he did but we also saw what happened to two other characters we liked as well. While Gary Seven and Roberta were not played out a two diemnsional cartoons, I would have liked to have more development with them. They were there as the protagonists against Kahn's antagonist / rebellious protagonist. I was intriguied by the way the story unfolded. I already knew Kahn fled Earth. I liked learning how it happened.
To that, the author doesn't disappoint.
Isis was expected, I give it that, but I won't tell more as to ruin it for the reader. As a Star Trek novel, it fills the historical 'Trek' well. It is good reading, not cumbersome and overtly detailed, and the author handles the concept while blending in current events very well.
If you've read Book I, finish the tale with Book II. Its a fun, nicely written, action adventure tale with interesting characters. It fits well with the incredible amout of 'prequel' concepts we seem to be going through at this time. It's also interesting as the background or secondary story deals with Captain Kirk's crew in the 23rd century with 23rd cebtury supermen. And that stroy takes place BEFORE The Wrath Of Kahn.
Again, it Star Trek based; the author shows his like for the Star Trek mythos and in no way dishonors it. You can tell the author enjoys Star Trek.
And that's what a Trek novel should be, a fun, action paced adveture. Give it a shot, both Book I and Book II are really enjoyable and trek fans of all ages with appreciate it.
Maybe, we'll finally get more stories about Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln as well...
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent continuation
Review: This novel takes up where volume one left off. Roberta Lincoln has taken over from Gary Seven for the most part in dealing with Khan's attempt to dominate the world and gather together other genetically enhanced humans. Author Greg Cox has woven together incidents from the 90's into the clandestine eugenics war. A nice touch is the inclusion of characters introduced in TOS and other trek series. There are some minor flaws with some science facts the ozone hole and with when the internet was available but most people will not be aware of those and they dont distract from the story in the least. I recommend this book to all fans of Star Trek.
Rating:
Summary: The Wrath of Cox!
Review: There's a couple of grammatical errors in the book which should have been fixed but overall this was an enjoyable book. Even though the timing may be off and the science of it may not be 100% as one reader mentioned it is still just a story. He portrays Khan perfectly and even makes the story seem realistic in many ways. Too bad that he didn't get Ricardo Montalbahn (Khan from Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan for those who don't know)to do the audio version of this story. There's a charactor from Star Trek IV in this story which surprised me along with Area 51, and the ozone layer twist. I have always been fascinated with the charactor of Khan and curious as to how he got aboard Botany Bay. Thanks Greg for letting us know. Also what would happen if Khan actually beat Kirk in Star Trek 2? Why not right a story about that?
Rating:
Summary: Worth the wait ?
Review: It's been a year since Cox's first installment of the epic Rise and Fall of Khan hit the shelves, but now Volume Two is here and it's been worth the wait.
Picking up from where the previous book left off, with the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, Volume Two skips ahead to 1992. Khan, using stolen data from Gary Seven's Beta 5 computer, has begun to track down his genetically engineered "siblings," scattered around the world in the aftermath of the ill-fated Chrysalis Project. But as the young superman and would-be world leader attempts to put together a global coalition of superhuman operatives, he finds that he has more to worry about than Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln interfering with his self-appointed destiny as savior of humankind. For starters, certain powerful individuals of his own genetically superior ilk refuse to submit to Khan's leadership, and even vow to fight against him: a Romanian dictator, an African warlord, an Asian "Amazon," even an American militia leader and a berobed cult figurehead of questionable sanity turn their backs on Khan's vision of a unified and enlightened planet Earth. A series of internecine power struggles results, as supermen face off in the dark margins of world affairs. Earthquakes are triggered, nerve gas is released, ethnic tensions are manipulated; the world's would-be savior finds himself embroiled in a game where ordinary humans are mere pawns whose lives are lost by the hundreds while the struggle for global domination (and resistance against it) roars onward. Meantime, Khan faces problems at home. After declaring a chunk of India to be his own fiefdom, Khan begins to wrestle with more mundane (but ever so much more complex) problems like unemployment, economics, and human discontent. With his destiny always in retreat and just beyond his fingertips, Khan's anger and disappointment begin to feed his sense of superiority until finally, by degrees, he's been transformed from idealist to boiling megalomaniac determined to save the world by unleashing a doomsday of his own engineering against it. To this end he has two options: an ozone-destroying satellite, which will serve as his last resort and vengeance if all else fails; and a fast-acting strain of streptococcus that will eat the flesh right off the bones of ordinary mortals, leaving the world an emptier and more agreeable place for beings like himself, with planet-sized ambitions and a built-in immunity to necrotizing fasciitis. Times are equally tough for Gary Seven and his "blonde amanuensis," as Khan likes to refer to Roberta Lincoln. Seven himself is an enhanced human being, the result of an alien program of training and selective breeding, but the years are catching up to him and the stewardship of planet Earth becoming an ever more complex and difficult assignment. Even as Seven finds ways to prevent Khan's ultimate rise to power, Khan arranges for catastrophes and crises around the world to keep Seven off balance and busy. The bulk of the heroic action thus falls to the sharp, sardonic Roberta, who undertakes covert actions as diverse as assaulting an Ariadne rocket set to deploy an orbital menace, infiltrating a private army, and slipping crucial scientific information to NASA engineer Shannon O'Donnell who is, respectively, part of a secret team at Area 51 to construct a spaceship, and Captain Janeway's centuries-distant ancestor. The ship, a "sleeper" vessel designated DY-100, is fated, of course, to become the S. S. Botany Bay, Khan's escape vehicle from a world that decisively rejects him and his ilk. That the Botany Bay is also part of Gary Seven's plan for humanity is a thrilling piece of secret history, and the task of bringing those discordant aspects of the ship's origins together forms the linchpin plotline of Cox's book. O'Donnell, familiar to viewers from the sixth-season Voyager episode "11:59," plays a small but distinctive role in Cox's novel, which, like its predecessor, is an ingenious blend of actual history and Trek mythology. Other notable references abound throughout the story, from all five of the show's incarnations (and even some of its adventures in print). Guinan, Jackson Roykirk, Shaun Christopher, Walter Nichols, Jeffrey Carlson, and Claire Raymond all make appearances; a bottle of Chateau Picard wine makes its way briefly to center stage; the Roswell contact between humanity and the Ferengi (from the fourth season DS9 episode "Little Green Men") is handily referenced at several points. It would all be a bit much if Cox hadn't done even more research into the real-world events he incorporates, with stunning equilibrium, into the fabric of his fantastical tale. Plus, of course, Cox doesn't simply limit his references to Star Trek: he manages to cite the eerie British sci-fi series The Prisoner, and even the movie The Wicker Man, in the course of the story. (One suspects that, if not for the impossibility of reconciling its central moon-be-gone motif with Star Trek, Cox would have found some way of incorporating Space: 1999 into his tale; or, perhaps if he had an even larger canvas with which to work, Cox might have cited The X Files more extensively than having one character reflect on how he never watches the show on television.) The author brings a generous sense of fun and humanity to his work, especially in the form of Roberta's off-center wisecracks and Khan's purple vilifications - to wit: "Fools! Peasants! Inferiors! ... Can they not see that I have the best interests of them all at heart?" Khan is a more than the garden variety superhuman out for world control; Cox shows us his horror at human suffering, cheek-by-jowl with his ineradicable sense of entitlement. From his anguished episodes of railing against a world too ignorant to treasure his benevolent and, he believes, inevitable rule, to his musings on quotations from Shakespeare and Milton, Cox's Khan adopts a voice that speaks from a great and tormented heart - in Ricardo Montalban's accent, to be sure, especially when Khan comes out with proclamations like, "Welcome ... to Chrysalis Island!" The framing device from the first novel - Kirk and his crew attend a meeting on Planet Sycorax to hear a petition from a group of genetically engineered human beings who are contemplating becoming part of the Federation - is in place here again, and Kirk's adventure on Sycorax is also brought to completion, though not without a fair amount of soul searching and words of counsel from a logical (if unexpected) source. Volume Two is an audacious, fast-moving conclusion to the Eugenics War duology, one-upping the considerable dramatic intensity and inventive accomplishment of the first volume, and bringing the story to a remarkably smooth, coherent conclusion, complete with an unequivocal (if surely controversial) morale. Even so, one cannot help but hope that Cox has plans, however rudimentary, to continue his saga past the era of the Eugenics Wars and to the Saturn mission of Shaun Christopher, perhaps even up to World War III and Zefram Cochrane's invention of the warp drive engine. There's plenty of history, real and Treknacious, left to explore, and Cox's electric, fun-loving style of storytelling is the perfect medium to take the reader into the twenty-first century and beyond, building bridges between our troublesome, struggling contemporary world and a hopeful future of heroes and galactic adventure. Jon Reid
Rating: 
Summary: I've read worse, but this one was lame
Review: First of all, this Cox guy is way too politically-correct! I'd be willing to bet that he has autographed posters of Al Gore and Fidel Castro on his wall! Was there any left wing cause he DIDN'T promote in this book? He also needs to do a little research on the times before he writes. He has militias with websites back in 1994 (before websites existed in the format he described), and no one knew a URL from a genome then. Websites didn't appear until 1995 because the average modem before then was (at best) 9600 baud and modern browsers were just appearing. I've been using computers for decades, and the first browser I saw was in March of 1995 (Netscape... then $49.95.). He describes a satellite that "increased the size of the Antarctic ozone hole by twenty percent" when there is NO OZONE HOLE. There is a thinning in the ozone layer (82% of norm) but that is caused by the absence of LIGHT! The summer of 1992 (as he calls it) is the WINTER time in the southern hemisphere! Ozone reverts to oxygen in the dark, and the poles are dark for months during their respective wintertimes. Do the math. Mt. Pinatubo's eruption threw more particulates into the atmosphere than a GIGATON of ground-burst nuclear weapons could, and he has this satellite punching a hole in ozone hole? What powered this satellite? Antimatter? Does he have any sense of scale? Has he ever taken engineering classes? How about basic science classes? Ozone is created when oxygen is bombarded with UV light (three oxygen molecules (3O2) become two ozone molecules (2O3), the frequency of light his satellite is supposed to use to destroy ozone! Now there's blackmail (Give me what I want or I'll create ozone... smirk!) I hate it when science fiction authors know nothing about the basics! Also, all modern submarines have double hulls (the inner hull is called a "pressure hull") and have for over 40 years. I'm sorry if some think I'm being too picky, but I do write for a living and am very picky about facts... as are real science fiction readers. What did I like about this book? Not too much. I did like his recalling of Jasper Maskelyne's use of lights and mirrors to confuse the Nazis. I liked how the DY-100 was hijacked. Not much else. I thought this would be an improvement on the first book (which was so-so), but I was wrong. Anyone want to buy my copy? Only read once, and probably never again!
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