Sally Malcolm’s Stargate Atlantis: Rising adapts the pilot episode of the television series that spun-off from Stargate SG-1. In the story, Dr. Elizabeth Weir, Colonel John Sheppard, Dr. Rodney McKay, Dr. Carson Beckett, and Lt. Aiden Ford are part of the expedition team to the Ancient’s city of Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy. The story begins on Earth, with General Jack O’Neill and Dr. Daniel Jackson helping to discover the city’s location and prepare the expedition team. When the team arrives in Atlantis, they discover the city is under water, protected from the crushing ocean by a slowly weakening force shield. As they begin to check out other planets for a possible emergency relocation, they discover human settlements left by the Ancients.

On the planet Athos, the team meets Teyla Emmagan, leader of the Athosians. They work to befriend her and, while exploring, encounter a deserted city. Entering the city alerts the Wraith to their presence. Wraith darts come through the stargate and capture Athosians and Atlantis expedition members alike, including Teyla and Colonel Marshall Sumner. Sheppard leads the remainder of the team and Athosian refugees back to Atlantis, where their presence triggers a program causing the city to rise to the water’s surface. Dr. Beckett studies a dead Wraith and learns that they’re a parasitic organism capable of long life. When the Atlantis expedition dials the Wraith stargate, they discover that it orbits a planet.

Near the gateroom of Atlantis, the expedition finds ships capable of flying through the stargate. Using one of these, Sheppard, McKay, and Ford go to rescue their people. They manage to find both the captured Atlantis expedition members and Athosians, but cannot save Sumner, who was aged nearly to death from a Wraith feeding upon his life energies. In fighting the few Wraith guards, Sheppard and crew discover that their actions awoke the remainder of the hive, which was hibernating. They successfully return to Atlantis, the Lost City of the Ancients, but face a new enemy in their new galaxy.

In her author’s note, Malcolm cautions that her novelization of Stargate Atlantis’s pilot episode will differ from the episode as broadcast due to changes that occurred during shooting and editing, particularly as such a tie-in novel will follow the original script and occasional story notes, while further changes to the episode itself may occur during the filming process. Her warning remains largely unnecessary, as the story follows the episode as aired fairly faithfully with the addition of characters’ inner perspectives typical of a novelization. The only difference worth remarking is the spelling of Athosians, here spelled “Ethosians” (pg. 202), though this would only be noticeable to ardent fans. Though the story will be familiar to fans of the series, as the starting point for Stargate Atlantis and the first novel in Fandemonium’s tie-in series, it will appeal to fans looking for a thorough collection on their bookshelves. The book contains twelve pages of black-and-white photographs from the episode. ( )

A quick fun read ( )