Dr.Selar goes through Pon Farr in this novel.
The trouble is as everyone who has been watching
Trek for a long time knows only MALE Vulcans
expierence Pon Farr,Dr.Selar is FEMALE.So how
could she have gone through Pon Farr?
For references check:TOS:AMOK TIME,STAR TREK III:
THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK and VOY:BLOOD FEVER,all
seem to suggest that it is the MALE and not the
FEMALE that is affected by Pon Farr.

I disagree. She was bonded with that Voltak guy before, remember? When the male is in ponn farr the female has it too (think of the Voyager episode Blood Fever). And remember that bond never really broke, so its quite conceivable.

So why didn't T'Pring get it?

It's been quite a long time since I read this one... but wasn't the reason Selar suffered through it something to do with the trama she suffered when the male she was bonded to died?

Yes, Anon, the Ponn Farr was only partially completed when her mate suffered a heart attack during sex.

Isn't that a male Vulcan thing?

I am a little over halfway through the second New Frontier omnibus, subtitled Prometheans, containing Martyr & Fire on High. The first omnibus, simply titled New Frontier, which held the first four short stories, was quite good IMHO. While the setup was a bit drawn out to me, I came to really like the characters and the mission they've been sent on. Book five however, made most of these characters annoying and extremely un-Star Trek like.

I figured this would happen eventually, but the series became soap opera-esc quite fast. I could potentially understand the change if this was a SF Academy story, but I'm pretty sure all of the main characters are experienced officers, so why is everybody so sexually frustrated and whiny? That didn't bother me as much as Kebron punching people unconscious and Shelby choking someone when they didn't tell them what they wanted to hear. While funny given the situation, it was not only out of character, but also well across the line for behavior in Trek.

I've done a little looking ahead, and one of the main antagonists for this series is a group of religious zealots known as the Redeemers, who make their debut in Martyr. For one thing, their description is so cliched I got dizzy for how many times I rolled my eyes. Also, to keep the worlds they conquer in check, they created a virus that is released at a certain moment that can kill a planet’s entire population. You can say a lot of things about ST, but it at least tries to retain that 'hard science-fiction' reputation that's been present since the 1960s. A virus that kills everyone on a planet in 60-some hours? That's just plain silly and completely unrealistic. However, I’ll take that implausibility over the dull and contrived climax any day!

I'll read book six, Fire on High, but I'm questioning continuing this series after that.

Scott M: The trouble is as everyone who has been watching Trek for a long time knows only MALE Vulcans experience Pon Farr...
I consider myself one of those people, and I never thought Pon Farr to be a male only experience. It's never been explicitly stated that it's only men, simply who we've witnessed... and frankly it would make more sense for the females to experience it anyway, am I right

I never followed this series.

Is it any good?

Hi Tim. By many accounts I've come across, New Frontier seemed to be quite popular when it came out, starting in the late 90s I believe. I only recently decided to check it out due to a short story in the Tales of the Dominion War collection of stories... which is a somewhat similar situation to your Gateways post not long ago. I found that the first four stories were comprised in an omnibus and decided to give it a go.

The first 4 short stories were an excellent set up to the characters, as well as their purpose for getting together. There were a few familiar faces, mixed in with new and interesting ones IMHO. I quickly found myself liking the... eccentricities of the characters and was eager to continue the story with the next omnibus of the next two books.

As you can probably glean from my post above, Martyr felt a bit off to me. Definitely the lackluster one of the bunch so far. I'll finish Fire on High today and it is a vast improvement. So overall I'd say the first six out of... 14 or something have been entertaining for the most part. Other than a some typos and a need for cliched drama, Peter David is a decent author and seems to have a good handle on Trek.

He and Greg Cox are two of the best Trek authors, IMO.