Keith R. A. DeCandido: A Time for War, A Time for Peace

The final book in the Star Trek: TNG A Time to… series.

Publication year: 2004
Page count: 344 + an excerpt of Star Trek: Titan: Taking Wing
Format: print
Publisher: Pocket Books

The year that started in A Time to Be Born is finally over. Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E are finally back in the good graces of Starfleet, if not the fleet’s finest as they once were. This book almost feels like an episode of TNG.

The book starts in Qo’nos, in the Klingon homeworld, where Worf is unhappy with his job as an Ambassador because, once again, the job has required him to compromise his honor. Then, a group of Klingon terrorists attacks the Federation embassy rounding up almost all of the staff and visitors, Alexander among them. Unhappily for the terrorists, Worf is the only one who manages to stay free.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise is full of more frivolous story lines, which is almost a relief after the previous books which were so full of death and war. Riker and Troi have finally decided to marry and Troi’s mother immediately decides that the wedding will be on Betazed and that she will micromanage it. Riker has accepted the captaincy of starship Titan and he’s looking for his first officer. His first choice is LaForge who spends a lot of time thinking about it. At the same time, Starfleet Command is sending an inspection team to the Enterprise. Scotty has learned about it and is worried that the team has only people who have a personal grudge against someone on the Enterprise. So, he managed to include himself in the team.

I was delighted to see that the Enterprise part of the book starts with a poker game! The poker games were one of my favorite recurring events in the TNG series so it was great to see them back. Perhaps it helped to create a lighter mood to the book. The Klingon terrorists turn out to have information which could trigger a war between the Klingons and the Federation (again). However, this feels like pretty standard TNG stuff.

We also get to see a vote for the president. At the start of the book, the previous president and his chief of staff were force to resign over the fiasco at Tezwa. Publicly, they just said that it was time to get the Federation a peace time leader. In this book, two candidates are struggling for the presidency. (Really? Billions of planets and just two candidates?) However, we don’t see them enough for this to be really a book about politics. In fact, we barely get a glimpse of one of the candidates, Fel Pagro, who wants to stop Klingons from acting like, well, Klingons. The other candidate is shown in much more detail and with more moderate opinions. The outcome wasn’t really in doubt, for me at least.

This book sets up a lot of things, such as the Titan books. The final chapter is the start of Troi’s and Riker’s wedding in the movie Nemesis and the epilogue is set after the movie. A great way to tie up the loose ends from the series.

 

David Mack: A Time To Heal

The seventh book in the “A Time To” Star Trek: TNG series.

Publication year: 2004
Format: print
Page count: 341 and an excerpt from the next book
Publisher: Pocket Books

Enterprise-E and three other star ships are on Tezwa, supposedly to keep the peace on a planet torn by terrorists who are lead by the power mad former prime minister Kinchawn. In reality, the Starfleet ships are there to prevent the secrets on the planet to see the light of day. A small group of Federation politicians, who are now the president and his chief of staff, hid powerful new nadion cannons on Tezwa and if that became public knowledge, the Klingons would start a war against the Federation. Unfortunately for said politicians, La Forge and his engineer are already suspicious of their findings.

The military is still loyal to Kinchawn and they are using guerrilla attacks against the Starfleet officers, Federation relief workers, and even against their own people who of the “wrong” ethnic origin. The crew of the Enterprise-E has to fight a desperate battle against the well-armed and numerous guerillas.

This book has lots of graphic scenes of people fighting and dying. Most of the secondary characters introduced in the previous book die gruesomely. To me the relentless violence felt very depressing and unlike most Star Trek books. Also, we’re constantly reminded that Starfleet is crippled by their moral rules of war when confronted by an enemy who doesn’t follow them. I think we already saw that with the Dominion war. The aim is, of course, to show how brutal and pointless war is. Again.

Sadly, the characters also lose their faith in their leaders. Pretty much all of the politicians in the book are corrupt and willing to sacrifice other people’s lives to further their own agenda. If the true goal of the conspiracy is to avert a war with the Klingons, surely president Zife could have gone to Martok on his hands and knees and confessed to being the only one to blame and to subject himself to the Klingon justice system. But no. He had to sacrifice the lives of thousands of people whom he’s supposed to lead and protect. Bah. When are they going to elect Picard or Janeway as president? Surely admirals and star ship captains should be public figures and so someone should suggest it, at least.

A more appropriate name for this book would have been “A Time for War” or “A Time to Kill”. No healing here.

 

David Mack: A Time to Kill

The sixth book in the “A Time To” Star Trek: TNG series.

Publication year: 2004
Format: print
Page count: 338 and an excerpt from the next book
Publisher: Pocket Books

The planet Tezwa near Klingon border was one of Federation’s secret weapons in the Dominion War. Fearing that the Dominion would either infiltrate or conquer the Klingons, a few Federation officials get the Tezwan Prime Minister Kinchawn massive weapons to build on the planet in exchange for material aid to use for the whole planet. Unfortunately for the officials, Kinchawn turns out to be a power hunger despot. He has replaced many of the leading Tezwan military men with his supporters and has also a majority vote in the planet’s ruling body, the Assembly. He’s afraid of the Klingons and decides to challenge them. He declares that Tezwa takes over a Klingon border colony. Not surprisingly, Chancellor Martok sends an attack force to show his displeasure. The Federation officials don’t want their secret weapons dealings to come to light and they send the Enterprise-E to negotiate. During the negotiation, Kinchawn kills the leader of the Klingon force and takes Picard and Troi captive.

The Klingons retaliate and the Enterprise is able to rescue the Starfleet captives. Unfortunately, Kinchawn uses the pulse cannons and destroys the Klingon fleet. Klingon retaliation is imminent and even with the cannons and a secret fleet of starships, Kinchawn is likely to loose. Also, the debris from the destroyed Klingon fleet has created an ecological disaster to the planet.

Federation’s president Zife orders Captain Picard to destroy the cannon’s planet side firebases by any means necessary. If the Klingons conquer the planet, they will find out about the cannons and will declare war on the Federation. Picard is dismayed but has no choice but to obey. He sends several four person strike teams to the planet. He also needs help from his old comrade, Ambassador Worf, to disable the Klingon fleet.

A Time to Kill moves at a good pace with short chapters. There’s plenty of action with the strike teams but also a lot of political maneuvering. We get to see Kinchawn plotting his rise to a dictator and the way his Deputy Prime Minister Bilok with his allies are trying to oppose him. Federation’s leaders are agonizing over their past decisions, some of them are covering their tracks, and a shadowy group of people are keeping an eye out on everyone. I’m guessing that they are the infamous Section 31 whom I don’t really care for. Worf also has to, again, choose between his loyalty to Picard and the greater good, and his own honor. The poor guy can’t get a break.

Characterization is spot on. However, Troi’s contact with Riker is curiously muted from the previous books where she could not only sense that he’s alive but if he’s in danger from orbit while he’s on a planet. Now, she can’t. Crusher and Troi seen only in a few scenes while they had big roles in the previous books. Also, some of the ongoing plotlines were ignored in favor of the Tezwan crisis.

It’s mentioned that the Federation is in a middle of an economic crisis because of the Dominion War. I’m not sure how they can have an economic crisis without a money based system but I’ve never been able to figure out just how Federation’s economics work. (I just know that I’d really, really liked to live in one.) It seems to me that, to some degree at least, their economy must be based on available energy for the replicators, but wouldn’t that be an energy shortage, then?

The politicians are a great contrast to each other. Federation’s president Zife and his aide Azernal are ready to cheat, kill, and lie to prevent a war between Federation and the Klingons. Admittedly, Zife is reluctant to sacrifice lives to that goal but he does it anyway. Meanwhile, Martok is determined to avenge everyone of his warriors and do it honorably but ruthlessly. And Kinchawn will do anything to further his personal goals, even sacrificing his own family. Which one would you like running your country?

 

Robert Greenberger: A Time to Hate

The fifth book in the “A Time To” Star Trek: TNG series.

Publication year: 2004
Format: print
Page count: 279 and an excerpt from the next book
Publisher: Pocket Books

The story continues right from the previous book, A Time to Love.

Enterprise-E and her crew are on planet Delta Sigma IV where two species, the Bader and the Dorset, have lived in peace for decades and now have become aggressive towards both each other and Starfleet personnel on the planet. The people are rioting and fighting, and Picard sends his security people to try to pacify the situation but the Starfleet personnel are vastly outnumbered. Also, the Bader and Dorset are not used to aggressive behavior and so they don’t have effective local police forces.

Doctor Crusher has found out that the reason why the two aggressive people have been living so peacefully side-by-side, is that a plant life on the planet is drugging them; subduing their violent tendencies and also their creativity. Crusher is working on a cure and wondering if she has a right to change a whole species. She’s also (still) thinking about leaving the Enterprise and taking position as the head of Starfleet Medical again.

Kyle Riker, Will’s father, has been on the planet but disappeared when the violence started. Will searched for him during the previous book and has now found him. However, Kyle doesn’t have answers for his son. Kyle is determined to find the man who started the violence and he also wants to solve the whole problem himself. He convinces Will to join him. Will is pondering about his own life, a possible promotion and his possible future with Troi.

In addition to the regular crew, Engineer Anh Hoang is significant POV character. She’s struggling to continue with her life after her family died in the Dominion War.

Unfortunately, the plot depends on people not using standard Starfleet technology and behaving otherwise stupidly. Kyle has a way to block Enterprise’s sensors from tracking himself and Will. Security personnel constantly rush into burning buildings to look for people rather than use tricorders and transporters. They also engage in hand-to-hand combat rather than use phasers. There’s a lot of repetition and the two books could have easily cut down to one. Kyle’s actions also don’t make sense. He’s supposed to be a tactician and yet he thinks that he can alone solve problems that the whole Enterprise crew can’t.

Unfortunately, the Bader and Dorset weren’t very sympathetic and so their problem isn’t engaging. They blame Federation constantly, even when a crowd of them can see that the people bombing the hospital are they own people and not the Starfleet security officers who are trying to *rescue* people from the burning hospital. Maybe their intelligence and cognitive abilities were over ridden by the aggression, or something. Their leaders are a joke who don’t get anything done and about halfway through the book I was ready to leave them to their fate.

(The repetition actually worked in my favor this time because I had a very stressful time at work when I was reading this and had trouble concentrating.)

 

Robert Greenberger: A Time To Love

The fifth book in the “A Time To” Star Trek: TNG series.

Publication year: 2004
Format: print
Page count: 263 and an excerpt from the next book
Publisher: Pocket Books

The crew of the Enterprise is still suffering from the aftereffects of the disaster at the Rashanar Battle Site, as seen in the first and second books in the series, A Time to Die and A Time To be Born. Even their help with the Dokaalan, as seen in A Time to Sow and A Time To Harvest, or their defense of the Baku, in Star Trek: Insurrection, weren’t enough to redeem them. Starfleet Command is still suspicious of Captain Picard’s abilities and sends the Enterprise on another mission where the crew is expected to fail. On top of that, the rest of crew has picked up on the command crew’s mood and the Starfleet scuttlebutt is calling Enterprise a doomed ship. Many of the newer crew members are requesting transfers off the ship. Riker and Troi are determined to talk at least some of them out of that decision.

Starfleet Command sends the Enterprise to Delta Sigma IV. Two races have been living in peace there for about 150 years but lately violence has broken out. A woman has been murdered and even though another man was clearly responsible, Kyle Riker, Will Riker’s father, fled after it. Picard is sent to minimize the mess.

Will and his father Kyle have a difficult relationship. They haven’t talked in years and Will didn’t even know about Kyle’s assignment. Of course, Will agrees to hunt down his father.

The humanoid races Dorset and Bader colonized the lush planet of Delta Sigma IV at the same time. Even though the races had had a violent history against each other and inside their races, too, on this planet they started to live peacefully side by side, and have lived so since the colony’s beginning over a century ago. Then they noticed that the lifespans of both races have been shortening. Starfleet offered to help and three Dorset and two Bader volunteered to be tested. After a year of research and testing, Starfleet medics were able to develop a cure. However, when the volunteers came back to the planet, one of them murdered the other in plain sight. There are protests against Starfleet and some people think that Starfleet had somehow caused the murder.

At the same time, Beverly Crusher is still thinking about the job offer she had for the head of Starfleet Medical. She and her team goes over the medical side of things, looking for anything which might have caused the sudden violence. Meanwhile, the engineering department is suffering from a supply problem; there are fewer ships and less supplies to go around after the war. So, Geordi LaForge decides to do some old fashioned trading. I found this amusing and a good counterpoint to the rather depressing main plot. However, they have state of the art replicators. Why don’t they just replicate the parts?

The book is pretty intense with the Bader and Dorset population starting to riot and Enterprise’s medical and security staff try to deal with them. At first, Picard wants to just advice the planetary Council (of eight people) but it quickly becomes clear that they aren’t used to anything like the protests and riots. Meanwhile, Riker is looking for his father with the planetary protocol officer. They travel to various villages and even meet the officer’s family. To my disappointment, they turned out to be very much a Western type family with the father working long hours and the mother staying home to raise the kids. The family and the officer himself are quite sympathetic characters.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of small inconsistencies in the book, such as people who had left the scene were suddenly back and the murder victim being first a woman and then a man. Also, this planet is part of the Federation and it clearly uses money. Apparently, they were able to sell food to other, presumably Federation member planets, for a tidy profit and so were in turn able to spend the money on the planet’s infrastructure. Riker is also thinking about buying local jewelry to Troi. The twist in the medical plot is also easy to figure out.

I find the overall storyline weird; no matter what Picard and his crew does, they can’t redeem themselves. If Picard is supposed to be so incompetent, why is he still the captain? Since the Enterprise is the flag ship why would Command leave it in the hands of a captain they don’t trust? There is a short scene in the book where two admirals ask this exact question from the admiral who sent Picard on this mission, but infuriatingly, the admiral doesn’t answer. It seems to me that either the admiral in question (Upton) is an infiltrator sent to sow chaos or incompetent. Or possibly has something against Picard for personal reasons but since we haven’t seen him before, that seems weird. At any case, the series seems to be aimed at dirtying Starfleet from the utopia it was seen in TNG. I don’t really care for that.

The book ends in a big cliffhanger.

 

Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore: A Time to Harvest

The fourth book in the A Time to… Star Trek: TNG series.

Publication year: 2004
Format: print
Page count: 332 plus a short preview of the next book
Publisher: Pocket Books

In the previous book the Enterprise-E was sent to explore a region of space where the Admiralty though they would find only the ruins of a dead civilization. Instead the crew found the Dokaalans who had survived their homeworld’s destruction and are now living in a few mining colonies among the asteroids near their former planet. Because the asteroid field had has lots of radiation, Enterprise’s systems aren’t working properly. Still, when the crew noticed that one of the colonies was in danger, they sprang to action and tried to save as many as they could. The Dokaalans were grateful even if some of them were suspicious of the mighty starship which had technology the Dokaalan’s haven’t even dreamt about. Since then, Picard and his crew have tried to help any way they can. The Dokaalan’s have shared their most ambitious project: to terraform a nearby planet to suit their needs as a new homeworld.

However, an alien race has infiltrated the Dokaalans using holographic suits. The infiltrators have subtly sabotaged the Dokaalan’s colonies and even the terraforming effort. Now the aliens have even infiltrated the Enterprise and are reading to destroy it if needed.

This book continues the somber mood that the three previous books had. New characters are introduced only to be killed off, Picard is second guessing himself, and the already beleaguered Dokaalans face problems everywhere. The characters also angst a lot over previous decisions which I thought was unnecessary, especially for such experienced officers as Picard, Riker, and Crusher.

The Dokaalans seems to be very resilient species. Most of their race died when their homeworld was destroyed by a natural disaster but the survivors managed to build lives on the asteroid mining colonies which had been meant to be temporary. Their resources were limited and their space technology is rudimentary, and the Enterprise crew compares it to Earth’s early 21th century technology. Still, the Dokaalans have started the terraforming project which would take centuries to finish. They seem to accept the Enterprise crew pretty easily considering that until the Enterprise showed up, they had no idea other people than their own even existed. However, the Dokaalans have to be very practical. There’s some mention that the more religious thought that the Enterprise had been sent by their god but this wasn’t explored further.

Picard and his crew try to help the Dokaalans as best they can. However, because the radiation limits their technology’s usefulness, they are often frustrated with how little they can do. For example, the teleporters don’t operate and sensors have only limited range. The crew rescues large groups of wounded Dokaalans twice, so the medical staff is featured more than is usual.

We get short chapters from the POV of the infiltrators. The alien aboard the Enterprise is actually unusually moral for his profession; he doesn’t like killing and avoids it. On the other hand, he would destroy the Enterprise if ordered. He also doesn’t expect to be able to leave the ship before that. However, his primary mission is to destroy Data and he manages to shut down the android at the start of the book. These chapters are very effective at bringing the tension level up.

Unfortunately, there’s again a lot of repetition. Previous plot point are told again when the characters mull them over or talk about them, and a couple of times even a couple of previous paragraphs is summed up again which seemed a bit weird.

Like in the previous book, there are a lot of references to earlier TNG episodes and when the crew finds out that there’s an infiltrator in the ship, they muse about the Dominion war and the Founders. This is, of course, a treat to long time fans. Unfortunately, sometimes they slow the pace down and interfere with the story.

The ending wraps up the story nicely.

 

Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore: A Time to Sow

The third book in the A Time to… Star Trek: TNG series.

Publication year: 2004
Format: print
Page count: 315 plus a short preview of the next book
Publisher: Pocket Books

The Dokaalan are facing disaster: their planet is experiencing a series of earthquakes which are only escalating until they are threatening to destroy the civilization. The Dokaalan have a very limited capability for space travel and while they have a few mining colonies on nearby asteroids, they can’t evacuate their whole race. The people in the colonies can only watch with horror. As a last attempt, they send probes to space, pleading for help.

Decades later, a Vulcan vessel finds one of those probes but concludes that it’s too late to do anything. Earth Admiral Forrest suggests sending the newly commissioned Enterprise of the NX class to investigate but it would take a long time to get to the Dokaalan’s planet in an unexplored region of space and so the Enterprise is sent elsewhere.

A couple of hundred years later, Enterprise-E is in a political hot water and the Federation decides to send Captain Picard to investigate what happened to the Dokaalans and to explore that region. The experienced officers and crew aren’t happy about it but they have to obey.

In the wake of the previous books’ mess, some people think that Picard’s best days are behind him and that he might have succumb under the weight of all the tragedy and torture he has endured during his career. His crew and Admiral Nechayev still support him and he’s still in command of the Enterprise-E. But the Enterprise is sent to essentially a milk run and some of the officers grumble about it. Still, the voyage alone will take almost a month and take them to an unexplored region of space which might be dangerous. However, nobody mentions the possible dangers or rewards of exploration which I found a bit odd considering that ordinarily exploration is Federation’s main thing.

The book has a lot of references to previous events from the First Contact movie and various TNG episodes which was great. Picard is even reading a fictional book about first contact between humans and Vulcans, and thinks that it didn’t go like that. We also get to see a couple of familiar secondary characters: Lieutenant Taurik from engineering and nurse Alyssa Ogawa. Ambassador Worf is thinking of a way to help his former crew mates and the EMH program is needed later in the book. This is very much a fan friendly, or even fan geared, book.

Beverly Crusher has been offered a job as the head of Starfleet Medical and she’s seriously considering taking it. On the other hand, she feels that she can’t abandon Picard before he’s back in the good graces of the Admiralty. Picard himself resents that his crew is under suspicion because they are innocent, and on occasion he doubts his own decisions afterwards, because he knows that the Admiralty is watching him closely. Riker is again thinking about getting his own command and LaForge is resentful to the Admiralty because they took away Data’s emotion chip.

The book starts with a translation from one of the Dokaalans. He lives in a mining colony and is writing a journal about the events during the earthquakes. It’s pretty grim reading. There are short chapters of the journal from time to time throughout the first half of the book.

The pacing is pretty slow and contemplative. This is, by the way, an observation and not a complaint. I really like it when Trek has different types of episodes. One can be a contemplative episode about the nature of humanity or meeting of two different cultures and another can be a spy mission and third an action adventure.

Compared to the first two books, the new characters don’t take over the same way but the pacing is much slower and there isn’t an overall tension in the book until near the end. There are a couple of twists in the book after the half way point and they are all left open for the next book.

This is an interesting contrast to the previous books and the writing style is some what better. However, there’s a lot of repetition which can get tedious.

 

John Vornholt: A Time to Die

The second in a nine book series about Star Trek: TNG crew before the movie Nemesis.

Publication year: 2004
Format: print
Page count: 296 plus an excerpt from the next book in the series
Publisher: Pocket Books

At the start of the book the crew of Enterprise-E is in a bad place after their return from the disastrous tour on the Rashanar Battle Site. Captain Picard has been relieved of command and is in the custody of Counselor Colleen Cabot of the Medical Mental Health department. Riker is the acting captain but he’s unable to keep the crew’s spirits up and many have requested reassignment. LaForge is thinking of retiring and Data has been ordered to hand over his emotion ship because the Admiralty is afraid that the chip will unbalance him. The Ontailians want Picard to admit to murder or they will leave the Federation.

Picard is stationed on the Medical Mental Health’s holodeck where he has lived like a recluse. He accepts a deal so that he won’t be sent to prison and that Starfleet will avoid a public trial. However, Wesley is determined to help with his Traveler powers. Wesley visits a few key people and tries to convince them that Picard did the right thing and that something very dangerous is lurking in the Rashanar Battle Site. Wesley is concerned that his meddling will cause the other Travelers to strip him of his powers but he can’t just observe dispassionately. He goes so far that he takes Picard’s accuser at the inquiry, in the previous book, to Rashanar to show him what is going on there. He also takes Cabot to a similar journey and soon enough they persuade the Admiralty to send the Enterprise back to Rashanar to investigate it, unofficially. However, Riker is still the acting captain during this undercover operation and Picard is just a passenger. Cabot is also going because Picard is still her patient.

The Ontailians aren’t happy to see Starfleet, or especially the Enterprise, to return to the site, so the crew must disguise themselves. They end up getting an old shuttle and sending four people in it to scout the site. Picard, Cabot, tactical officer Vale, and Wesley in disguise as Ensign Brewster put on civilian clothes and try to blend in with the looters on the battle site. It’s very dangerous.

There’s also a side plot with Data. One of the admirals wants to insert a chip in his head to replace the emotion chip. The Admiral doesn’t tell Data what the chip will do and it’s all really fishy. LaForge is rightly very concerned and Wesley interferes to get Data out of the Engineering section intact. Maybe this will be explored further later.

Cabot has a passionate romance with one of the established characters. She’s also a significant point-of-view character to the point that she seems to be the main character. She starts out the book as a competent Counselor who doubts Picard’s story but not his sanity or capability as a captain. As far as I can tell, she’s never left Earth. However, once she’s on the Enterprise, she quickly shows a strong adventurous spirit and she has no trouble handling the suspicious and rowdy looters of various races. This seemed quite abrupt change to me. I had no problem with the romance but I wished to see more of the regular cast.

I tend to love stories where the (highly capable) Starfleet officers are out of their element (such as Gambit 1 and 2) and this was definitely such a book. Picard and Vale disguise themselves as looters and try to get information out of the other looters. I enjoyed this even though Cabot steals their thunder somewhat. I also enjoyed Wesley’s reluctance to show himself to his friends because he feared that the more he showed himself, the sooner his powers would be gone. In that respect, the ending wasn’t satisfying.

I was a bit surprised that the Ontailians apparently got no trial and no punishment even though they destroyed a Starfleet ship in the previous book. It just wasn’t mentioned and somehow Picard got accused for that. We did get to know more of the Ontailians in this book and their culture seems to be, for once, quite different from the modern Western one, which was a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of them.

The plot is wrapped up in this book, except possibly the issue with Data’s emotion chip.

 

John Vornholt: A Time to be Born

The first in a nine book series about Star Trek: TNG crew before the movie Nemesis.

Publication year: 2004
Format: print
Page count: 284 plus an excerpt from the next book in the series
Publisher: Pocket Books

The book starts with Wesley. He will have to choose for the final time if he will be a Traveler who will witness things but not get involved or he can return to his mortal life. He chooses to be born again as a Traveler, but afterwards he sees a vision of Enterprise-E’s destruction.

Enterprise-E has been assigned to the Rashanar Battle Site which is a veritable graveyard of star ships and their crews. One of the most fiercest battles in the Dominion War was fought there and now some unexplained phenomena happen there. The starship Juno has been assigned there for the past year and her captain Jill Leeden warns Picard that the site is far more dangerous that he had been told. However, Picard is confident that his experienced crew can handle it and is looking forward to puzzling out what is really happening. Juno’s job is to retrieve the dead for proper burials and identification but the looters are a constant problem so they haven’t had time to research the strange gravity anomalies or floating antimatter which also make sensor readings unreliable.

However, Picard soon finds out that Captain Leeden was right. A whole race of human-like looters, called the Androssi, are determined to steal what they can get, in addition to the Pakleds and some other races. Picard chooses to investigate personally the husk of a Galaxy-glass starship. He takes Data and LaForge with him on his captain’s yacht. Unfortunately, the husk has been occupied by a pair of looters who manage to poison Picard and steal the yacht. Captain Leeden is not impressed and things only go downhill from there.

The second half of the book is a court room drama where Picard has to defend his actions. The book ends with the whole crew in dire straights but from their own Starfleet and not so much from an outside threat.

The book introduces a new non-humanoid race called the Ontailians. They have only recently joined the Federation and their world is closest to the Rashanar site. Four of their vessels are patrolling the site against the looters. They look and move like sloths which was an interesting idea but we don’t get to know much about them.

The main point-of-view character is Captain Picard but other Enterprise crew are also point-of-view characters, as is one of the looters. However, we don’t get a glimpse into the Ontailians.

The book is pretty grim for a canon Star Trek: TNG book with just a couple of Starfleet ships fighting desperately against a whole fleet of looters and other weird thing happening on the battle site. We’re also told that several worlds are withdrawing from the Federation because they’re unhappy about how badly the Dominion War went. The Admiralty is also shown in less than flattering light.

Unfortunately, I found some of the characterization to be a bit off. For example, I’m very surprised that Riker let his captain go to the unexplored husk in a clearly dangerous area, even with Data and LaForge. Also, Crusher should have insisted on seeing Picard immediately after he got back on board instead of meekly waiting until he came to see her. Both of these are plot points later which is unfortunate because now it felt that the writer had to resort of a plot which made the characters idiots.

For some reason Vornholt tried very hard to avoid repetition, including such standard repetition as characters’ names and the verb “said”. I also really didn’t care for the use of “skipper”.

The Rashanar site was pretty exciting and there was a constant feeling of danger when the crew can’t rely on their instruments as usual. We also get to see quite a few familiar secondary characters such as Admiral Nechayev, whom I like a lot, and Admirals Ross and Nakamura. I was also happy to see Wesley again.

Everything was left wide open in the end.

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Enemy Unseen

The comic book collects two miniseries and one one-shot.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Perchance to Dream is a four issue miniseries.

Written by Keith R. A. DeCandido
Artists: Peter Pachoumis, Lucian Rizzo
Publisher: Wildstorm
Publication date: 2000
The story starts with Data experiencing a vivid dream about being alone on the Enterprise when it’s on a collision course with a planet. The starship is destroyed and Data wakes.

The Enterprise is called to the planet Damiano which has only recently joined the Federation. The new Governor-Elect Ra’ch B’ullhy’s sexual orientation is different from the mainstream and she has been receiving death threats. The Enterprise has been sent to help the Governor-Elect’s security. While most of the Damiani apparently couldn’t care less about the Governor-Elect’s private life, there is a group which cares a lot and have vested interest in killing B’ullhy before her inauguration. B’ullhy’s chief of security is not happy about the Enterprise staff but once Worf finds a bomb in an area which should have been secure, the Damiani security chief is happy for the help.

Worf and his security team manage to block some assassination attempts and the main villain is so frustrated that he takes out his last ditch weapon: a psychic weapon which uses the victims’s own fears against them so that they dream only nightmares and see hallucinations when they are awake.

A few people come to Deanna about their nightmares but she doesn’t have time to investigate it. The last issues focuses on Captain Picard and a side of him which is hardly ever explored, and I enjoyed it more than the rest of the story.

The Damiani look like humans, except that they have horns growing from their heads. We are told that they have three biological sexes and that the norm is to have three sex partners at the same time. B’ullhy has just one and the traditionalists resent that, calling her a pervert.

I didn’t really care for the art and one of the reasons was that it was very hard to tell the various Damiani apart. There are a lot of Damiani with different agendas running around and all have the same skin color, green, the same hair color, black, and even the same hair cut, a crew cut. Also, most of them wear the same formfitting uniforms of black and blue. I understand that the security people had to wear them but the civilians wear something similar, too! When they are among the Enterprise crew with different skin tones and hair colors, the contrast is striking.

The story is about what fanaticism can drive people to do.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Embrace the Wolf is a one-shot.

Written by Christoper Golden and Tom Sniegoski
Artists: Dan Hoover, Troy Hubbs, Jason Martin
Publisher: Wildstorm
Publication date: 2000

The Enterprise has been ordered to investigate the situation of Encoh 7. The Enochians are known for their peaceful and harmonious society but recently there has been rumors of extreme violence. When the Enterprise arrives, the crew finds out that the rumors are true: the world has been almost decimated and the people have turned against each other. An away team beams down to investigate.

The minister of interior, who has killed a lot of fellow Enochians, says that there was a cold presence in his mind. Unfortunately, the others think that he’s just raving.

Soon, Dr. Crusher beams back to the Enterprise and inside her is an energy being who has taken control of her. It moves into the computer and takes control of some of the systems.

This was a good story and the most memorable scenes were in the Holodeck. The being recreates Sherlock Holmes’ London on the Holodeck and the crew try to outwit him. Data appears as Holmes and some other bridge officers get to play in London, too. However, the story is rather bloody.

It’s a continuation to one of the classic Star Trek episodes but I haven’t seen it. The art is serviceable but it didn’t wow me.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Killing Shadows is a four issue miniseries and set on Enterprise E, after the series ended.

Written by Scott Sienin
Artists: Andrew Currie, Bryan Hitch, Chris Chuckry
Publisher: Wildstorm
Publication date: 2000

Several hidden Starfleet science bases have been attacked without any survivors. However, now Starfleet knows that the attackers were the legendary assassin group called the Bodai Shin and they have targeted another Starfleet scientist. The Enterprise is orders to keep Dr. Norugi safe. Unfortunately, the doctor refuses to come on board, fearing that the isolated environment of a starship would make it easy to kill him. So, a team has to beam down to the planet Nydaris to protect him. Data and Picard meet the doctor and try to persuade him but the doctor will not change his mind. Instead, they are attacked in a crowded restaurant. Fortunately, Picard has a few allies on the surface. One of them is quite familiar but the other is unexpected. At the same time, the Enterprise is attacked by several smaller but powerful vessels. Also, the Bodai Shin can beam aboard the Enterprise, through their shields.

The story centers around a huge team of assassins called the Killing Shadows, Bodai Shin. They are feared around the galaxy but most believe that they are just a legend. Quite soon, they are said to be modeled after the ninja. I agree that ninja are cool; however, as far as we can tell, the members of aren’t human. Why would a non-humans species copy the ninja? I’m also in the dark about the motivations of the unexpected ally although I was delighted to see that person. The secondary story line is about Data getting used to his working emotion chip. He explores various human feelings, such as grief and anger.

I would have liked to know more about the small planet where the story is set. Nydaris has a rotation which keeps one side of the planet to the sun and the other towards space at all times. The city where the story takes place is on the night side and it’s said in the story that the city never sleeps, that while some colonists are sleeping, the others are working normally. Without a day cycle, this makes sense to me. The away team also uses civilian clothing instead of their uniforms.

In my opinion, this story has the best art; most of the characters are easily recognizable.

Overall, this was an ok collection but nothing special with the possible exception of the last issue of the first story. Travis Charest did some gorgeous covers for the first miniseries and the one-shot.