Star Trek The Next Generation: Ship of the Line | ||||||
Diane Carey | ||||||
Pocket Books, 320 pages | ||||||
A review by Jim Greer
The book sets out to explain what happened to the crew of the Enterprise-D
between that ship's crash landing (chronicled Star Trek: Generations) and
the Borg invasion shown in Star Trek: First Contact.
The answer to that lies in a three-fold plot line that involves Captain
Morgan Bateman (the character portrayed by Kelsey Grammar in a cameo role),
Montgomery Scott, a holodeck image of James Kirk, and Gul Madred, Picard's
Cardassian torturer. It all gets very complicated but novelist Diane Carey makes it work.
The story centers around the first voyage, the shakedown cruise, of the
Enterprise-E. The senior bridge officers from NextGen (sans Picard) are
assigned to assist Bateman and his crew (time-travel refugees from 93 years
previous, as you may recall) work the kinks out of the new ship. However,
a Klingon captain whom Bateman shamed just before being caught in the
temporal loop sets out to exact revenge on Bateman and hijacks the
Enterprise-E. Meanwhile, Starfleet sends Picard to Cardassia to try
to free Federation personnel that are being held there unlawfully. On
the way there, Picard tries to work through his malaise at the loss of
the Enterprise-D by studying some of Kirk's more famous adventures as
recreated on the holodeck.
One of the more pleasant aspects of the book, for me, is that Carey tries
to look at some of the emotions and relations for the major characters
that arise from the situations depicted in the novel. Bateman and his
crew have been thrown forward in time, essentially ripped out of the lives
that they had. Carey examines, albeit briefly, what this must be like
for them and asks, what must they do to adjust to their new lives?
In greater depth, Carey explores what the loss of his ship must mean
for Picard. Carey asks what is the relationship between a captain and his ship?
What does it mean to be a ship's captain? What emotions, strengths
and understandings does a starship captain need?
Carey even touches on what it would be like to be a dishonoured Klingon
warrior in a society where honour is revered about all. Her answer, unfortunately,
is limited to "unpredictable." Which hints at the major flaw of the book. Carey
has a tendency to take the easy way out, stylistically, in her writing. While
Carey does an excellent job of plausibly tying the three plot lines together at
the end of the book, the resolution for one of the minor characters is trite
and smacks of a need for an artificial happy ending.
Also, Carey falls into the habit of explaining her characters feelings rather
than showing them to us. Too often a character:
Overall, Carey succeeds in delivering a ripping good yarn. The novel strikes a
nice balance between the many actions scenes and its more introspective
moments. Most of the characters are well developed and three-dimensional
(except for Bateman's first officer and Gul Madred's daughter). And the
contemplative discussions are well thought out and well presented.
Most Star Trek readers will enjoy this book.
Jim Greer has been a journalist for 12 years. He is currently doing free-lance work so he can spend more quality time chasing his 2 year old around. |
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