Star Trek: Being Human (New Frontier #12) by Peter David

    I actually finished this one awhile ago and didn't get around to writing the review. Indeed, I actually read this and the sequel back to back so it's doubly problematic. Thankfully, though, that means I can do their reviews simultaneously. For those wondering what the long delay of about a year and four months was, it was due to my niece moving in. Which obviously disrupted a lot of my online time. However, I'm getting back to writing my Space Academy books so I might as well get these done since I'm definitely in a humorous space opera mood.

    This book introduces the revelation that Mark McHenry, the guy capable of flying a starship in his sleep, is actually a demigod. Indeed, he is the descendant of Apollo from Who Mourns Adonis?. Peter David has a fantastic love of TOS and makes the proper decision of attempting to weld the "Wild West" days of ST into the more stately and dignified TNG era to hilarious effect. It's part of why I love this series as I admit to being someone who enjoys the goofier side of Trek with all its whales, gangster planets, and more. People harp on the holodeck episode but I actually note it's when TNG was able to cut loose.

    Ironically, I think Being Human was when Peter David started to enter his "Dark Period" of New Frontier. The series lasted far longer than I expect he knew and probably was intended to potentially end with the destruction of the Excalibur way back when. Star Trek: Stargazer is one of my favorite Trek series but it only lasted five books with a couple of side-stories involving the cast as well as a much-appreciated coda in The Buried Age. Here, things kept going and that meant a lot of plotlines started getting traumatic and merciless. Seriously, the cast gets cut down like Post-Claremont X-men with less resurrection.

    As much as I love New Frontier, I can't say the Dark Period is my favorite part of the series as the characters start getting trimmed with the Reaper's scythe and often go through hellish circumstances to rival Miles O'Brien. In this case, the set ups for the deaths of Si Cwan, Morgan Primus, and more. The characters don't remain static in the New Frontier novels but the changes are going to be something that will put both them as well as the reader through the ringer.

    There's some questionable choices mythologically like the fact that McHenry's designated love interest (and abuser--which Peter David touches on tastefully) is Artemis, the Virgin Goddess. I think it was a weird choice and I think one of the other goddesses would have been a better choice like Aphrodite or even Athena (even though she is a virgin goddess as well--Ancient Greeks man).

    Oddly, my favorite part of the book was the Si Cwan parts after he accepts the help of the Danteri in rebuilding the Thallonian Empire. It was a bad idea, Calhoun knew it was a bad idea and Si Cwan knew it was a bad idea. However, Si Cwan is one of those characters I like ala Tyrion Lannister who thinks they're worse people than they are so they underestimate the level of stupidity as well as narcissism that makes evil people do things even against their own self-interest because pragmatism isn't actually a quality of the worst. Basically, Si Cwan can't comprehend the idea of giving up power to a master because toadying is antithetical to someone with genuine self-respect.

    Basically, you can't win the game of thrones by being smart because a lot of the people with power are just genuinely stupid. 

Available here

Star Trek: Restoration (New Frontier #11)

 
    This is the Western installment of the New Frontier series and I mean that in the most direct TOS sort of way. There's a big desert planet, an evil cattle baron, and Captain Calhoun comes down to become the new Sheriff in town. I actually love when Star Trek does this sort of stuff because as nonsensical and weird as it is, it is fully the kind of genre-bending I enjoy. It also doesn't take place in a holodeck and I give props for that.

    I don't really have a problem with Star Trek being on the sillier side of things, blasphemy as that may be. I am happy to have our protagonists visit Wild West Planet, Medieval Planet, Gangster Planet, Cyberpunk Planet, or whatever else sort of planet we need for this weeks budget. Contrivances be damned. It's one of the major appeals of New Frontier that they're willing to put a bunch of TNG-era characters in TOS sort of situations and really is the ethos of the entire series.

    But is the story really good for Mac? Surprisingly, I'd say so because there's some very interesting character development for him. His single-target sexuality (Kat Mueller aside) to Shelby is challenged by the possibility of falling in love with the Girl-of-The-Week but the big difference is that it leaves him with huge consequences: a son that he chooses and raise as his own. I thought that was a brave decision of Peter David and it leads to some very interesting encounters along the way as Mac is forced to confront his biological son seeing his adopted one.

    Random aside, I actually liked the romance of Mac and Rheela because Peter David writes the former as a man capable in all areas except romance. Mac has been with, as far as we can tell, three women in his life with his awkwardness extremely apparent when he's in a romantic situation. There's the girl he lost his virginity to, Shelby, Kat, and now the "determined homesteader" archetype. Mac is confidant everywhere but here and it's really rather sweet to see how they bond while she struggles to deal with the fact he's uncomfortable with her overtures.

    The story goes in a very odd direction with the fact that Rheela had an affair with Odin and her rain-making son is the result. That'll come up later but is the kind of absolute batguano insanity that reminds you that Peter David is a comic book writer even when he's writing novels. It's also what contributes to making New Frontier so unique.

    Even more so, I like Shelby's plot in the book and her proof that she is worthy of being a Star Fleet captain who is going to save an entire race from genocide. Even more so, she works to try to prevent a war. The Prime Directive looms over this one a great deal but understandably so. I also feel like her First Officer really shouldn't ever be a captain by the way they act regarding Shelby's decisions. Basically, they just tut-tut about the rules and constantly miss anything deeper, which is exactly the opposite of what a captain is supposed to do. To sit in the big chair, you have to interpret them in a way that goes beyond rote repetition.

    In any case, this is a good "ending" for the series with the reunification of the crew as well as Shelby accepting they're her family even if she has her own command. I'm going to have some "issues" sadly with where the story goes from here. 

Available here

Star Trek: Picard: Firewall by David Mack review

    Star Trek: Picard is a controversial spin off in my circle as it draws out very strong emotions from its viewers. Some people love it, some people hate it, and some people's feelings change between the seasons. On my end, I think the Picard show was of varying quality but came up with some of the best ideas the franchise ever had. Also, I think that it has consistently produced some of the best novels that Star Trek has ever produced. THE LAST BEST HOPE by Doctor Una McCormack and ROGUE ELEMENTS by John Jackson Miller are two of my all time favorite Star Trek novels ever. FIREWALL by David Mack is now up there as well.

    The premise is that Seven of Nine has found herself adrift after the ship's return to the Alpha Quadrant. Starfleet has made the possibly justifiable decision to exclude her from Starfleet based on the idea she might be a danger. Which becomes considerably less justifiable when you remember that if she could be remotely hacked or was going to taken over by the Borg, would have probably happened during the show's seven year run. It becomes even more spiteful and prejudice-filled when you find out they've also denied her Federation citizenship. Which doesn't actually prevent her from living there but exists purely to make her feel unwelcome.

    I wasn't a big fan of "Ad Astra Per Aspera" from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds because it depicted a Federation that was engaged in hate crimes and ghetto-ization of a large chunk of its population in the Illyrians. I like to believe in Roddenberry's future, we may not be perfect but we've moved past Nazi/Terran Empire behavior. I'm more inclined to accept Seven's treatment, though, because it is far more isolated and we see pushback from Janeway and others. It's also practiced only by a handful of individuals in the Federation which, sadly, include people of power.

    Anyway, Seven seeks to find herself by living on the fringes of Federation society that are also pretty dystopian and seem capitalist despite the fact they don't have money. This is a pretty common issue in many works, though, so I don't mind. That's when she's offered a chance to get her membership in the Federation and possible Starfleet commission if she infiltrates an organization called the Fenris Rangers.

    Like all prequels, the actual destination is less important than the journey. There's a lot of interesting character beats in this book like Seven coming to terms her bisexuality and also analyzing the idea that the Federation's Romulan Rescue Plan resulted in a total collapse of necessary humanitarian relief in other parts of the galaxy. It makes the question to cut their losses after the destruction of Mars seem more justified.

    Some fans were offput by Seven's attraction to women but I think it results in some of the more interesting parts of the book. We also get a relationship that is surprisingly drama free and one that I feel like will resonate with queer reader. I really liked the character of Ellory Kayd and hope she shows up in future Star Trek material. I understand that David Mack envisioned her as played by Jessica Henwick and I think that helped my mental picture a great deal.

    The Fenris Rangers are actually given a backstory and we get a sense of what they are, other than having a cool name and fighting crime. Apparently, they were once a legitimate law enforcement/security company (for lack of a better term) contracted to protect the Qiris Sector. When the governments collapsed, they continued carrying out their jobs of enforcing the law of the previous regimes. Frankly, Starfleet labeling them vigilantes in that respect is a sign of Federation arrogance as who else would qualify as a legitimate government in that situation?

    The villains of the book are also interesting because they're some of the vilest ones in Star Trek, up there with the Cardassians, but some of the most easily understood too. General Kohgish and Erol Tazgül are guilty of horrific crimes against sapience but their motives are both believable as well as extremely petty. General Kohgish just wants to make as much bank as humanly possible while Arastoo believes that he's able to keep the Romulans out of the Federation by making a buffer state via any means necessary once the Neutral Zones collapses. I also appreciate Erol isn't a part of Section 31 as that would be the "easy" way to do it. No, he's just a guy who got fired for his extreme politics.

    Admiral Janeway gets something of an off kilter performance and why I put this book as a 9.5/10 instead of a 10 out of 10. Well, that and because I feel like some of the locations like Starfield are a little too like capitalistic intolerant Earth than the Federation should be. Basically, Janeway seems awfully naive throughout the book. She doesn't seem to understand how much pressure and prejudice Seven is getting or that Starfleet's opinion on the Rangers are wholly unjustified. I wonder if those blinders are just something every Federation citizen has or it's because she wasn't in the Dominion War and saw how fallible the Federation's leadership could be.

    In conclusion, I find this to be a fantastic novel and one I really enjoyed. Seven of Nine has always been one of my favorite characters in Star Trek and this is a great bridge between her VOY and Picard personas. I really liked the Fenris Rangers as a concept and hope they eventually invite David Mack to do a sequel or perhaps even a series of novels set between this one and Season One of Picard.

Available here

Star Trek: Resurgence (PS5) review

    Star Trek is a deceptively hard franchise to adapt to video games despite the fact there's been dozens of games that have adapted it. There's good games, good Trek adaptations, and very rarely good Trek adaptions that are good games. Usually, the video games content themselves to try to do one thing very well like Elite Force where you are a bunch of Space Marines shooting up other universes on VOY or Bridge Commander where you single handedly eliminate the entire Cardassian Navy (Commander Saffi Larson, shut up!). Star Trek: Online is like a heart monitor for quality with some missions versus good and others just killing the entire population o the Beta Quadrant. As you can tell, a lot of these games don't fit into the spirit of utopian peaceful cooperation even if they're fun as hell.

    Star Trek: Resurgence is not a perfect game but it manages the mixture of exploration, investigation, diplomacy, and techno-babble mini-games better than the vast majority of Star Trek games. A lot of reviewers say it is close to a Telltale game (and had several developers who used to make those for a living) but that isn't a very good description. More precisely, it feels like one of the BETTER Telltale games before they just started churning them out and removed all interactivity from them. The game has multiple endings even if the story is mostly linear and you can choose whether some characters live or die based around your actions. A sequel is unlikely, which is a shame, so they do let you make some significant changes.

      The premise for Star Trek: Resurgence is that you are two characters on the U.S.S. Resolute. Random aside but I think Star Trek: Resurgence is a pretty awesome title by itself and it get a little confusing to have the two similar words in the game. Anyway, you are either alien-human hybrid, Commander Jara Rydek (Krizia Bajos) or engineer Carter Diaz (Josh Keaton). Both of them have defined personalities but ones you can choose the leanings of. Jara is cool and professional but torn between being loyal to her captain or the ship's crew. Carter is an amiable lower decker who either wants to do what's right by his friends or do his job professionally. The "right" decision in the game isn't always the immediately obvious one too.

    The Resolute is a ship that just underwent a refit after half the crew was killed in one of those horrifying events that happen to every ship that isn't the Enterprise. Jara is the replacement first officer and notices immediately everyone is on edge and the captain is a lot more conservative than is typical for Starfleet. He demands absolute loyalty and is petty if he doesn't get it. They're on a mission to a planet which recently had a revolution and is between the exploitative overclass versus the exploited laborers. Should be pretty easy, right? Well, it would be if EVIL wasn't involved. 

    I won't spoil the plot of the game but it is full of little adventures spread throughout what feels like an entire season of a Star Trek series that never happened. "Episode" happen with a continuing story throughout from picking up Ambassador Spock to investigating weird technology to dealing with ancient precursor races of the kind that had been mentioned in the franchise before. You do flying, shooting, science, and diplomatic missions throughout the game. Whenever you think you're done with new mini-games, a new one is introduced.

    This is one of the flaws of the game, however. Basically, a lot of the game is made up of busywork. The real appeal of Star Trek: Resurgence is the storytelling, characterization, and fidelity to the Star Trek universe. This really feels like the TNG era of Star Trek and it is as bright and optimistic as Star Trek usually is while balancing it against drama. I rapidly came to care about a lot of the characters and that's something I rarely say about Telltale games except for rare exceptions (The Wolf Among Us, Game of Thrones, and the original The Walking Dead).

    Of the two protagonists, I have to say I like Jara Rydek a lot more than Carter Diaz. It's not that Carter is a bad character, it's just I'm all about those smooth confidant Number Ones. The fact she's an alien-human hybrid also is a nice change of pace from the usual collection of humans. I wouldn't mind having her as the star of a sequel if this game manages to find enough of a following to warrant one.

    I like the simple set up of the Hotari versus the Alydians. The Hotari have been mining dilithium for centuries on behalf of the latter because they were a Pre-Warp civilization that couldn't take advantage of it. Now, they've seized the means of production and are ready to join the galactic community on their own terms. However, the Alydians aren't one-dimensional villains and are more interested in a negotiated settlement versus a military one. 

    Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation will eventually get to see the return of a very popular alien race that was not explored very heavily in the series. They become the central antagonists of the game and a galaxy-level threat. Without spoiling, I would have preferred a bit more variety of antagonists but I understand why they wanted this to be a big epic fight against a single foe.

    In conclusion, Star Trek: Resurgence is something that fans of Star Trek will probably get the most out of. It's a very fun game that manages to embody the spirit of the franchise. However, the game tries to insert a lot more gameplay even when it's not necessary. They should have focused on making things like the phaser fights and flying more fun versus throwing in mini-games that, well, aren't.

 Available here

A dedication to Peter David

    Peter David made me as an author.

    This is something that occurred to me when I was looking over the reports of his multiple strokes and Go Fund Me request. It was always vaguely on my bucket list to attend a convention or somehow make it a point to find Peter David someday so I could thank him for it in-person. I only began being an author in 2015 and became comfortable referring to myself in that professional capacity around 2020 but really, truly, wanting to make the effort to meet one's idol was kind of put on hold by the cataclysmic events of the past few years.

    Now this is something I'm probably never going to be able to do. His condition is something that hit me as someone who has never met the man but was still profoundly affected by his works. I encourage people to donate to his Go Fund Me as a man who has made such incredible art that has brightened the lives of millions deserves better than to have to do this in America's health system: https://www.gofundme.com/f/peter-david-fund

    I hope Peter David is able to make a dramatic recovery but it puts it into perspective he's probably not going to have time to shake hands with yet another fanboy. So, thinking about that and hoping for the best, I decided to share this article about what Peter David's writing has meant for me.

    It's really hard to narrow it down as to what exactly I should even focus on because he's actually been a constant presence in my life. I didn't even always know it but very often, throughout my childhood, I was either reading or watching something that he created. I watched Space Cases when it was on Nickelodeon, I read Spiderman 2099 when I hadn't yet realized cyberpunk would be a massive part of my life, and I recall how his Aquaman single-handedly redeemed the character from the Super Friends joke he used to be. It's why I prefer Arthur Curry with Dolphin over Mera and created my love of pretty white-haired girls before Daenerys Targaryen solidified it.

    Hell, it was a neck and neck contest over whether or not I should talk about his Supergirl run versus the subject I did decide to talk about. His version of Linda Danvers is one of the most formative media discussions of religion and morality that lives rent-free in my brain. It, along with Star Wars, helped create my version of Christianity and is a helluva lot healthier I imagine than the rather nasty people in RL who tried to force an intolerant authoritarian version on me growing up. Not naming names but I mean you, Pastor Todd.

    No, for this article, I'd like to thank Peter David for Star Trek: New Frontier. Bluntly, I would not be a writer without this book series and even if I somehow was, I would not write the same way. Every writer can list someone who had a formative effect on their style. Someone who you can say, at some point, you read the prose of and it dinged in your head, "I want to write like this." Tolkien, Raymond Chandler, Stephen King, and so on.

    This isn't about my writing but Peter David's and it's not even his signature style but it was the style for this series. Star Trek: New Frontier is a comic space opera that is full of rapid fire dialogue, absurd situations, fantastic characters, incredible wiseasses, constant lampshade hanging, and self-referential humor that only a truly dedicated Star Trek fan could appreciate. Kevin Smith, Jim Butcher, Joss Whedon, and now Mike McMahan are all people to think of when talking about the story.

    Running from 1997 to 2015, Star Trek: New Frontier deals with the adventures of Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the crew of the USS Excalibur. It is a wholly original set of adventures unrelated to any TV series save for some minor characters from various episodes. Inspired by the fall of the Soviet Union, the Thallonian Empire has collapsed and our heroes are there to offer humanitarian relief in the feuding warlord states that have emerged.

    The crew is fantastic with the straight laced first officer, Elizabeth Shelby (of TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds"), the hermaphroditic Burgoyne 172, the literal rockman Zak Kebron, half-Romulan half-Vulcan Soleta, Robin Lefler (also from TNG), and later some refugees from Star Trek: The Animated Series back when it was still exiled from continuity. Mackenzie Calhoun, himself, is sort of an human-ish alien William Wallace who liberated his planet as a teenager but found out he had no taste for ruling.

    It's a beautiful series with over a dozen novels, multiple spin-off tie-ins, a comic book series, and a few nods in Star Trek: Online as well as Star Trek: Prodigy. It often goes in unexpected directions with the pathos of tragedy striking right after its funniest moments. The series ended with The Returned in 2015 but, I admit, I always hoped we'd get one more book out of the author. That was selfish of me but they became good friends over the books twenty-odd-year-life span.

    I strongly encourage you to pick up a copy of these books if you have any love of Star Trek or even just space opera in general but any of Peter David's works carries some of his awesome talent. Certainly, the Supervillainy Saga and United States of Monsters wouldn't exist without his writing. Space Academy Dropouts absolutely wouldn't exist and has more than a little New Frontier in its DNA, perhaps driven by my desire for those more books that will never come. But most of all, say a prayer or nod your head in appreciation for Peter David.

    He made magic happen with his pen.

    So sayeth the Great Bird of the Galaxy and Xant.

Star Trek: Renassiance (New Frontier #10) review

    Basically, this continues the three-book Excalibur plot that follows the crew as they're separated from each other by the events of Requiem. In this case, it is Burgoyne, Doctor Selar, Robin Lefler, her mother, and a certain part of Thallonian royals. I'm not actually a fan of the crew being separated like this and feel like it should have been one big huge book but this came out in 2001, so I'm not exactly in a position to complain.

    Part of what I like about the book, though, is that it does tackle very un-Trekkian sort of things like a custody battle with Burgoyne and Doctor Selar. Frankly, it hasn't aged well as a plot, though. In addition to Burgoyne sexually harassing the Doctor for the first few books, their desire to involve themselves in the life of a child conceived during Pon Farr that he has only a biological link to hasn't exactly aged well.

    Basically, I'm going to be blunt that I think the relationship between these two is probably my least favorite part of New Frontier as a whole. I never liked the two of them together and they sort of make each other look worse, even with child on the way (especially with a child on the way). Which is a shame because Bugoyne is a character that has become more relevant with the introduction of non-binary people.

    Really, though, the best part of the book is definitely the Risa story. I don't know what it is about Risa but I find it a place where some of my favorite Star Trek stories are set. Yes, even the one where Worf becomes a terrorist. I think it's just the juxtaposition of the fact there's a vacation planet and everyone loves this world with the fact that it is apparently also a place no one can ever get any decent vacation time in. Perhaps also the fact that the utopian Federation is so nice that you kind of wonder why a vacation planet even exists.

    Mind you, I hope what I heard that Risa was based on Hawaii isn't true, though. Because, really, tourism is such a colonialist awful influence on that island and its natives that it becomes in incredibly poor taste.

    But the real appeal of the book is SCOTTY! Yes, James Montgomery Scott himself, now tending bar on Risa and enjoying his retirement in a way that I think sounded a lot better than him going off to a nursing home planet. Certainly, it has a lot more dignity and the fact that "Relic" suffered from a lot of ageism (the idea that old people didn't have anything to contribute in a futuristic world) was a pretty awful one. Here, at least, I think he's having fun and while I'm glad later books put him back in engineering, I think being a bartender isn't the worst thing he could do in his elder years. It's a shame he and Morgan Primus didn't hook up, though.

8/10

Star Trek: Lower Decks season three review

     STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS is my favorite of the Nu Trek installments. I'm including the Abrams movies, Discovery, Picard, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds in that list. It's a pretty impressive array because I really did enjoy Star Trek: Picard and Strange New Worlds. I'm also very fond of the early seasons of Discovery as well as two out of the three films. However, if you do notice some caveats, that's because there are some caveats. Still, Lower Decks is by far my favorite and that's because it is squarely within my wheelhouse or warp core if you will.

    I've always loved comedic mash-ups of genre fiction with it being my bread and butter as an author. I'm especially fond of continuity-heavy humor like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While references is the lowest form of humor aside from pun, that doesn't mean it's not funny. Fans loving having their knowledge of a franchise rewarded and it sends a little signal to their brain that triggers our happiness glands.

    Season three of Lower Decks followed my favorite of the franchise so far with Season Two's fantastic Pakled arc (which is itself a funny thing to say). Captain Freeman was put on trial for reason against the Federation and genocide, someone having blown up Pakled planet. It proceeds to follow a mostly loosely connected series of low-key events before an exciting finish to the season.

    Honestly, I'm going to say this season lacked most of the standout episodes of previous seasons like "Crisis Point", "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie", "wej Duj", and more. The closest it came to a really classic episode was "The Stars at Night" and the very base-breaking "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption." I didn't dislike any of the episodes, with the possible exception of "Mining the Mind's Mines" and "Room for Growth" but the humor seemed pretty hit and miss this season. Also, the wacky yet serious Star Trek stories the show has been known to do were less noticeable this time around.

    I believe Season Three was interested in doing a "reset" of the show's stakes. Gradually, our Lower Deckers have started to become more competent and less bungling in their handling of the galaxy's weirdness. This has occasionally run into the Harry Kim problem of why they remain Ensigns despite this but has been satisfying in terms of character growth. However, the show mostly dealt with almost trivial issues throughout and the difference between Billups needing to avoid having sex in order to be king versus getting a better set of rooms on Deck 1 are pretty apparent in their comic potential.

    The character who most benefited from this season is undoubtedly Rutherford as we finally give him some much needed character development. "Reflections" gives him a past as a delinquent and rebel that contrasts nicely against his vanilla nice guy present persona. Unfortunately, that side of him chooses to die and leaves Rutherford without much character development. 

    The next character to benefit most would be Beckett Mariner who finally is forced to behave as a proper Starfleet officer by being put under someone other than her mother. This wildly sensible idea turns out to be a good one but I think a lot of fans expected another shoe to drop. Her actually shaping up ends up being something of a surprise by episode "Trusted Sources." 

    Tendi and Boimler get less interesting development with little coming from Tendi's assignment to become a science officer. She seems to be largely doing the same thing as she's always done. We do find out she wants to eventually become a captain, though. I also was interested in "Bold Boimler" but he was already showing alot of improvement after his return from the USS Titan. I'm not sure we've seen some real improvement there and he also makes some strange out of character decisions like ignoring fawning fangirls as well as wanting to travel in a sidecar.

    It feels like much of this season was just running in place. "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption" may be primarily about bit-character Peanut Hamper but I really enjoyed it for the fact that it had such a mean-spirited twist. That's why I liked it and yet suspect many other people won't. "The Stars at Night" is also the best episode of the season by far, fully playing straight what was normally done for laughs.  I liked the DS9 homages of "Hear All, Trust Nothing" but it didn't go very deep into it and I wanted to see more Mariner explore the station.

    "Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus" is the episode I have the most mixed feelings about because it does some genuinely on-point and fascinating parody of the "other" kind of Star Trek movie. There's two basic Star Trek movies, IMO, with room for hyperbole. There's the Khan clones that the original "Crisis Point" parodied and then there's TMP clones that amount to a search for God/Heaven. Which is The Final Frontier and Generations but three times is a lot.

    In conclusion, I feel like this season was certainly okay but is roughly on par with the first season in terms of both humor as well as writing. There's just not enough "meat" to the bone here. Still, Lower Decks is one of my favorite Star Trek show period.

8/10

Star Trek: Picard: Second Self by Una McCormack review

    STAR TREK: PICARD is something of a broken base for me. It's one of my all-time favorite time periods in the Star Trek chronology for the world-building set up in Season One: the Romulan supernova, the Synthetic Ban, the destruction of Mars, and the lawlessness of the former Neutral Zone. However, the simple fact is that Season Two had no interest in any of this and thus I must turn to secondary canon in order to get my fill. So far, I've very much enjoyed all of the books in the setting but just wish for more. MOAR.

    The premise of this book is Raffi Musiker getting some much needed spotlight. I admit that I've already listened to PICARD: NO MAN'S LAND and enjoyed that exploration of her character as well as Seven's relationship with her. It was too short but I very much enjoyed it, so this already started with a heavy hurdle to overcome. Another heavy hurdle is the fact that this is a bridge novel between Season 1 and Season 2 when so many changes were betwene the finale versus the season opener.

    So how does Una McCormick handle this? Well, she doesn't focus on a lot of the issues but does tackle one or two very well. Raffi has been offered a position back in Starfleet Intelligence due to the fact, well, she proved that THE DESTRUCTION OF MARS was a Romulan plot and that the head of Starfleet Intelligence was a double agent. 

    I'm going to come back to this but NO KIDDING she should be allowed back into Starfleet Intelligence. However, she's not sure she wants the job and Elnor is feeling aimless because he succeeded in the doomed cause he was supposed to not succeed on (if I understand my Romulan truth nun religion). Maybe he'll join Starfleet, maybe he'll do something else. Raffi instead recruits him on a mission to hunt a Cardassian war criminal that is suspiciously unnamed for half of the novel.

    I admit I guessed the identity of the "war criminal" fairly early and am glad for their appearance in the story, though they did kind of steal the story from Raffi. I really enjoyed the focus on a smaller Bajoran/Cardassian/Romulan/Cardassian world, though. It kind of neatly tied together the various fallen empires and their interrelationships with one another. I also liked the ending, which I was surprised the Star Trek editors allowed Una McCormick to do since it writes such an important character out. 

    On the positives, I definitely like this depiction of Raffi and its interesting to see her in her younger idealistic days before she had her spirit broken by the Romulan Crisis. We get to see her confused and angry about so many people getting hooked on Space OpiumTM to cope with the horrors of the Dominion War while another character confronts her later about her own addiction. Personally, I don't think Raffi ever did anything harder than Space WeedTM and I don't think we have to worry about her doing that. I'm pretty sure that's considered a harmless treat in the 24th century. I'm with Seth MacFarlane there and I rarely am. I also loved Elnor's use in the story and he got some much needed character development. 

    If I had a problem with the story, it's that I really kind of feel like Raffi's situation is unchanged for what should be dramatic revelations. Starfleet Intelligence acts like she made them look foolish and my response is, "Yes, that's what being fools generally results in." She made the biggest intelligence coup of all time and exposed the worst security breach in Starfleet since TNG's "Conspiracy." They should be falling over themselves to apologize because they antagonized and belittled their comrade for years before the truth was exposed. The fact they don't is believable in the 21st century but marks them as complete scumbags by the 24th century. Hell, it marks them as such in this century too.

    I also feel regretful we don't get to see her have a conversation with her son, Gabriel, who at the very least should at least acknowledge that his mother wasn't a crazy anti-Romulan bigot. No, I don't think it would repair their relationship because he was upset with her for the fact she was saving refugees instead of spending time with him (which, honestly, is not a good look either). However, I really would have liked them to have had another conversation on-page because I think that would have been good. Really, these are some particularly scummy and selfish 24th century types as they're way more concerned about their own feelings than the fate of millions.

    One final bit of commentary is the book does something similar to James Luceno's TARKIN novel in that it does actually bring the broad strokes of a now-defunct canon back into, well, semi-canon. I saw a lot of nods to the DS9 relaunch material and while we don't mention specifics, I think it was all good to see. I hope the authors will continue to throw in such nods whenever possible. 

    I love Una McCormack's writing in general and while I didn't care for this as much as THE LAST BEST HOPE, I still felt it was a great Raffi novel AND the guest character novel. A fitting send off for them even if it's also sort of an ironic hell for him (I can think of no job he's less suited for than the one he ends up spending his twilight years stuck with). But what war crimes WAS he charged with? 

9/10

Available here

Star Trek: Requiem (New Frontier #9) review

    I am a huge fan of NEW FRONTIER and the series by Peter David is among there with the Dresden Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for some of the biggest influences on my writing. No one can quite combine genre fiction, humor, and rabid fire quips with dedicated use of continuity quite like these books. Star Trek: Lower Decks comes close but I feel the world of New Frontier is a bit better at managing it all.

    REQUIEM is the first of the three EXCALIBUR books that follow up a bold and perhaps strange choice by Peter David to break up the entirety of the Excalibur crew. The Excalibur is destroyed, Captain Calhoun is presumed dead, and the crew is scattered across the Alpha Quadrant. These are both some of the best stories in the series and also the end of what I feel is the "classic" New Frontier stories as well since the series starts becoming darker after these are complete. For all intents and purposes, the "Five Year Mission" period of exploring Thallonian Space is over and a tighter continuity is imposed with events bound to get darker and darker.

    I think my favorite part of the book is the opening where the crew is gathered together to mourn the Excalibur and discuss their future career prospects. Commander Shelby has the opportunity to command a new vessel and get the band back together. It's a shocking but believable twist to the tired and true formula that, no, she doesn't want Calhouns' ragtag band of misfits to join her on a new starship. I also really enjoyed Soleta confessing her Romulan blood to Shelby in order to draw out a racist reaction, only to find that Shelby may not want to work with her but still considers her a close friend.

    However, there's also other subversive and interesting stories in this book that carry Peter David's usual wit and interest. Soleta attempts to meet her biological male tissue donor (and mother's assailant) who seems to have repented of his crimes. It could have been a saccharine story about her finding out anyone could be redeemed but the ending really threw me for a loop. Sadly, I don't think it fits with Soleta's later actions in the series and just flat out confuses me in how they relate.

    There's also a parody I didn't realize I needed with Zak Kebron and Mark McHenry of the Men in Black and X-Files. They go to a Pre-Warp Drive world to investigate a series of alien abductions being conducted by rambunctious teenagers and Starfleet cadets that they have to put a stop to, only to get an even more strange set of company. It reminded me of an episode of Farscape and it was all the more entertaining for it.

    Finally, we have a Si Cwan and Kalinda story that is straight out of martial arts epic but sadly it isn't resolved in this book but another. Basically, they're no longer in Thallonian Space so there needs to be a reason to have them leave it and seeking to murder a man who killed his master like Kill Bill's subplot is as good a reason as any. I kind of think that Peter David should have just written Si Cwan out of it or have him realize Thallonia has outgrown him, though.

    The books biggest failing is the fact that it really does not cover everyone and it feels like a spin off rather than a proper sequel to the series. Part of the issue I have with Requiem is it feels like part one of a much-much larger book that I kind of wish it had been. It's a weirdly wacky Game of Thrones-sized one in my head and broken up for space. Basically, it should have been one large book than three small ones.

    Still, if you love the characters of New Frontier then you will enjoy this diversion. Sadly, it still feels like a diversion and we never get back to the adventures of the Excalibur as we knew them.  

9/10

Available here

My Star Trek time travel theory

    I admit I am a huge Star Trek fan, no duh, but I also am a huge fan of continuity. So I did this interesting little write-up for my Star Trek Adventures campaign where the player characters were time cops who were trying to figure out what had happened to the timeline. They came up with this information that explained away inconsistencies in the shows, which didn't NEED to be explained, but I was amused to do anyway.

The Original Series 

    Historically, the original timeline of humanity was TOS and that was how the Enterprise appeared before time was altered. Starships were big, blocky, and while sturdy they were not seemingly as advanced or visually appealing as before. Furthermore, Starfleet was significantly more militant and harsh. 

    Minor changes to the timeline happened during this period that were, despite Kirk's reputation with the Department of Temporal Affairs, relatively inconsequential to the timeline. The hobo phasering himself in "City on the Edge of Forever", the stealing of whales during Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and so on. The timeline's progression is largely without interruption, Edith Keeler's brief disastrous presidency in an altered timeline aside, despite Captain Kirk discovering time travel when he accidentally traveled three days back in time in "The Naked Time."

    Yes, in the original timeline, time travel wasn't discovered until that moment and was still in the realm of the theoretical. At least in the original timeline.  Events continue onward to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.

Divergence 1# (First Contact)

    The first divergent point in Starfleet history is First Contact where Zephram Cochrane met Starfleet and became a significantly more idealistic figure who helped influence the United Earth Probe Agency to become more focused on exploration versus conflict. 

    This event actually has much larger ramifications but set the stage for the second divergence point (see below). Nevertheless, already things are changing greatly as the human race encounters the Borg much earlier in "Regeneration." While the episode hints at a predestination paradox, it's much more likely to me that it is an example of how the timeline has already been greatly altered by events and will only get much worse.

    Ironically, the biggest consequence of this event seems to be the fact that in an alternate reality, Zephram Cochrane was so impacted by events of First Contact that he slaughtered the Vulcan landing crew and stole their technology to build the Terran Federation ("In a Mirror, Darkly").

Divergence 2# (Enterprise)

    The second divergence point is far more dramatic due to the Temporal Cold War when the Suliban ROYALLY screwed up the timeline by accidentally diverting a Klingon to Earth in "Broken Bow." In the original timeline, Jonathan Archer was known as a test pilot and warp engineer who failed to get the NX-01 off the ground and the first Enterprise would not launch until the Constitution-class decades later.

    Due to the Klingon's arrival, Archer gets his chance and suddenly the Earth enters space decades earlier and mucks with the timeline. This is why Daniels is so surprised the Federation ceases to exist in "Shockwave" if Archer is removed because Archer SHOULDN'T be that important. Originally, he was just a random NASA guy but is now elevated to George Washington as well as Neil Armstrong.

    History proves robust and the Federation still unfolds much the same way as it did in normal history even with things like the Xindi War and a much friendlier relationship with the Andorians. The Federation forms out of mutual interest instead of a reponse to Romulan aggression. Technology gets a few decades leap ahead of itself and the USS Enterprise is now a much more advanced exploratory vessel with less focus on militancy.

    This notably affected the Kelvin timeline as well.  

The New Trek Timeline

    Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are the result of this new and revised timeline as is the first Klingon War that happens before the events of "Errand of Mercy." Events are still eerily similar and ironically are probably due to Daniels and other time cops trying to make sure things still are broadly the same. This sadly includes making sure Christopher Pike ends up crippled by his experiences.

    Note: If you absolutely need an explanation, Robert April's father married another woman in changing timeline as well but is functionally the same man historically.

    Notably, in the original timeline, Michael Burnham's family lived a perfectly normal life due to the fact the Federation (or Section 31) never developed an interest in time travel or stealing Klingon time travel crystals. The theft of the time crystals that triggered Michael's parents' murder happened only because Archer discovered time travel a century earlier than Kirk and widely advertised it. This resulted in Sarek adopting her and her sudden appearance in Spock's life, resulting in him being slightly more comfortable expressing emotions.

Divergent 3# (Picard season two, Averted) 

    The second season of Star Trek: Picard seemed like it was hinting at a massive revision of the timestream but, in fact, actually doesn't change anything. Admiral Picard and his merry band of misfits are taken out of time when an encounter with the Borg goes disastrously wrong and transplanted to a dystopian version of the 25th century.

    This "Confederacy" timeline only exists for the time that Captain Picard and his company are removed from the timeline by Q due to the fact that their adventure in Season 2# *IS* a predestination paradox. Admiral Picard notes that the bullet holes from Borgified mercenaries are things he remembers from his childhood. As such, all of their actions in the past help lay the foundation for the Federation in the future.

     Does this mean the Confederacy timeline is the "original" timeline? Probably not. It is more like a bubble timeline that exists like the one in "Shockwave" where Captain Archer is briefly removed from time and a post-apocalypse Earth replaces it. It exists only as long as Captain Picard has been removed from the timeline until he goes back in time to save his ancestor.

     Some questions exist but Q's powers can paper over most and presumably Doctor Jurati-The Borg Queen want to avoid a paradox by interfering with the Borg timeline leading up to the 25th century.

     I hope this was educational!

Star Trek: Picard season 2 review

    STAR TREK: PICARD Season Two is something that I was deeply looking forward to from the moment it was announced as I was a huge fan of Season One. My impression of that season was that it had an extremely strong start but stumbled due to episode length. We didn't get enough follow up on events and were left with more mysteries than answers. Basically, I wished they had done THE LAST BEST HOPE by Una McCormick as a two parter to open it and added an epilogue to follow up on what happened after the events of the tenth episode.

    Still, I was very excited for the return of the cast and seeing how they would deal with the consequences of the first season. Unfortunately, the answer to that is generally: not at all. I think Doctor Jurati being cleared of murder charges due to mind-control was the only subject matter that got addressed. What about the Zhat Vash? What happened to them? What about Admiral Oh? Narek? Is the Federation going to work with the Romulans tracking down the terrorists who burned both of them? How about the ex-Borg?

    Instead, the series focuses much more on an entirely new storyline. After rejecting his employee, Laris (Orla Bradly) when she attempts to start a romantic relationship, Admiral Picard (Patrick Stewart, duh) is requested by the Federation to help with a First Contact scenario: a new race wants to join the Federation. Except, it's not a First Contact scenario, it's the Borg and things end disastrously with Picard blowing himself along with the rest of the heroes up.

    Like a script editor, this will not do for Q (John De Lancie) and he restores Picard as well as his merry band of miscreants to life. He proceeds to put them in what appears to be a dystopian version of the Federation and from there, Picard must take Seven (Jeri Ryan), Raffi (Michelle Hurd), Rios (Osvaldo Ríos Alonso), and Doctor Jurati (Alison Pill) to the 21st century in order to somehow prevent things. Due to contrived but entertaining circumstances, they also bring the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching). Characters Sonji (Isa Briones) and Elnor (Evan Evagora) have vastly reduced roles.

    Generally, the show swerves between zany comedy reminescent of Star Trek IV (with several homages) to that story and deep traumatic introspection, which is not always consistent. Captain Picard remembers his father as an abusive monster to his mother and her as a saint but there's a trick his memory is playing on him. I feel like the episodes might have benefited from picking a lane as it sometimes feels like they undermine each other's tone. There's also some areas where the actions on screen contradict what we're later told. For example, Q seems to be trying to achieve one thing in one episode before revealing that he was doing the exact opposite later (which is, admittedly, not out of character for Q).

    On the positive side of things, I think John De Lancie has lost absolutely none of his touch and preserves all the things we love about Q. He's Loki, Satan, and God all in one with a wide eyed grin as he destroys everything for the greater good or saves everyone for his own twisted amusement. The few scenes he and Patrick Stewart have are fantastic and he's also a bright spot in episodes where he deals with Adam Soong (Brent Spinner) or Kore (Isla Brione). Speaking of Soong, he is a bright spot in the show once they cast aside any moral ambiguity and just make him a straight-up Bond villain. Not every Star Trek antagonist can be misunderstood and this transformation gives some higher stakes when the story has perhaps too many moving parts.

    Indeed, the storyline is a labyrinthine web akin to one of Fox Mulder's conspiracy boards and we even get an homage to said character in one episode. "We have to go back in time with the Borg Queen's help to find the astronaut who needs to be on the mission that will create the Federation but Q is causing her to doubt herself. If she doubts herself, this will create the Confederacy in which Adam Soong will be their spiritual leader. Oh and the Borg Queen is playing both sides. All of this is related to Picard's traumatic childhood. Somehow. That's not getting into every individual character's subplots." It actually is 99% explained by the final episode but weirdly reads like a George R.R. Martin plot despite being written for television not a book.

    Thematically, the story is all about trauma and how we can't lose hope that things will get better. That the current troubles we face in 2022 will be things that we eventually overcome and make a better world from as long as we're understanding and willing to forgive. Except Silicon Valley tech billionaires. Don't forgive or try to understand them because they're completely awful. Borg Queens can be persuaded and negotiated with but not those guys. It's an argument that I'm actually pretty okay with.

    Negatively, is just about anything to do with time travel. This is a mess even by the standards of Star Trek and I can't help the season would have benefited from stripping out a lot of the extraneous fluff. "Picard goes to bed one day with his crew and they wake up in Evil Federation. Q then meets with them and says he's let them keep his memories because it amuses him to see them try to fix things Days of Futures Past style. Someone how has gone back in time to muck with the past. Maybe another Soong creation or Borg victim. Stop him. *snaps fingers*). Ito Aghayere does a good job as young Guinan but it's confusing to explain away Whoopi Goldberg's aging but not hers. Also, the change from "Time's Arrow." I mean, it's an easy fix. "My people go through periods of aging and de-aging due to our life cycle."

    Overall, I liked Picard season 2 a bit less than season 1 but still significantly more than a lot of Star Trek. The overcomplexity of the plot and "prestige television" format is something that I feel is hurting the shows, though, because they don't have enough episodes to resolve all the plots. I also was disappointed with the ending for some of the characters. While I didn't always like what they did, I say that the crew of the La Sirena is the one I like the most since Firefly's. I wanted a spin-off show with Rios or Seven as captain. Instead, most of them are very likely no longer going to be doing Star Trek by the end and that's a shame.

7.5/10

Star Trek: Rogue Elements by John Jackson Miller review

 

    I am a huge John Jackson Miller fan from the days when he was writing the KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC comic book. He is a writer that manages to carefully walk the balance beam between high comedy and aggressively serious depressing moments. I have yet to read something by him I didn't like and was compelled to pick up this book to read what he was doing with the Picard timeline.

    I'm a huge Picard fan but I can't say that Cristobal Rios was my favorite character of the series. I felt he was just too similar to so many other tramp freighter captains I've seen over the course of my decades of science fiction fandom. JJM smartly plays into this with the fact that the story has Raffi Musiker arrange for him to become one while ignoring the fact that Rios doesn't want to be. He doesn't find it to be a romantic, exciting, or entertaining pulpy adventure as seemingly everyone else does. It makes a nice difference from Han Solo and Malcolm Reynolds even as the story does become a romantic exciting entertaining adventure.

    The premise is that Rios has just been kicked out of Starfleet for the crimes of his supervisor and he's lost all of his friends but one. Raffi decides to set him up with a tramp freighter and the life of a Han Solo-esque rogue but this proves to be significantly less glamorous than the movies show. I also got a huge kick out of finding out that JJM was going to make extensive use of the Iotians from "A Piece of the Action" with them being Rios' version of Jabba the Hutt. Still gangsters after a century of contact with the Federation, they are both ridiculous as well as very good at thriving in a galaxy that has largely forgotten how to deal with criminals.

    Part of the book's fun is how miserable Rios is dealing with the loss of his Starfleet career, how disordered life is on a tramp freighter, and how angry he is about Starfleet's betrayal vs. the fact that he is going on a series of increasingly wild treasure hunts. Rios is a terrible businessman, fitting from an Earth Hu-Mon (to quote the Ferengi) and probably would have just given away his ship in a weak if not for new character, Ledger, forcing him to pay a debt that is obviously meant to never be repaid.

    JJM's experience in Star Wars clearly shows as he makes the transition a bit better than other writers might. It reminds me of the old Brian Daley Han Solo novels that I felt were the best of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. JJM envisions a seedy underbelly for the galaxy that has always been there (Harry Mudd anyone?) but has never been given particularly much attention. I also appreciated the return of a TNG villain that was underused too and won't spoil the surprise of. I will say it was kind of amusing to note that this book brought them back just as they used as an inspiration for Lower Decks too.

    While I rarely comment on this element, I also give the book's handling of romance props. Rios is a very dashing protagonist who manages to handle relationships with no less than three women in the book but somehow doesn't come off as skeezy over it. I also appreciated that one of them is with a significantly older woman and it's not treated as the least bit weird. I actually regretted that at least one couldn't continue because, of course, he's alone at the start of Star Trek: Picard. I also regret we'll likely never see any more of the Klingon merchant lord Verengar--unless we get a sequel series to this!

    So, top marks and people should really buy this! Some of the funniest most entertaining Star Trek fiction I've read in years and I've read over a hundred Star Trek novels. Hell, probably closer to two hundred. I have maybe a few minor complaints that are almost insignificant to mention like some of the goons getting away with their crimes when I felt a more final fate would have been better but forget it, Rios, it's Iotia. It's still a very solid and fun book that makes me like the Rios character a lot more.

Available here

Star Trek: The Dark Veil by James Swallow review

    I am a big defender of the STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, PICARD, and LOWER DECKS series. However, if I had to choose between them then I'd probably say that Picard is my favorite of the three. It has the most interesting premise and ideas to develop. Indeed, my biggest issue is that I felt the first season was far too compact and that it needed another few episodes to detail all the various concepts it was dealing with.

    I was a big fan of THE LAST BEST HOPE and felt it really could have been the basis for those extra episodes. Una McCormack took the time to expand and explain the political situation and build-up in a way that helped the story breathe. I was wondering if something similar could be done with THE DARK VEIL as James Swallow (who I mostly know from his Star Trek: Titan novels) follows the U.S.S Titan into the events of Picard.

    The premise of this book is that the U.S.S Titan with Captain Riker and Counselor Troi are dealing with the fact a Federation ally, the Jazari, are suddenly leaving the Alpha Quadrant in a generation ship. Something has horribly spooked them and the Federation is left clueless. This is also just a year after the horrific Mars attacks, Synth Ban, and failure to evacuate the Romulan homeworld. After a space disaster leads to the Titan rescuing the Jazari ship, an unexpected alliance occurs between them and a Romulan warbird. Everything promptly goes to hell afterward.

    The Dark Veil feels like a combination of the Titan novels and the Picard era, which is an interesting fusion that I would be interested in seeing more of. Certainly, novel character Christine Vale shows up and I've always supported her in more properties. I'm still hoping she'll be canonized by Lower Decks. Really, it feels like a mixture in ways both subtle as well as overt.

    The Jazari are the kind of species that feel very much like a Titan creation. They are alien and "big" in a way that novels can do in ways that television can't (or is very hard pressed to) as well as alluding to past history that the shows rarely do these days. I figured out their secret fairly early and it's a bit on the nose but Star Trek has rarely needed to be subtle about it's themes. Arguably, Picard could have done more with its themes like this.

    I also appreciate the use of the Romulans in this book as we get a nice mixture of "honorable soldier", "sneaky KGB Loyalty officer", and "insane death cultist." Some people had issues with the Zhat Vash when it was introduced in Picard but seeing how the Admonition utterly breaks someone's mind like a Lovecraftian Cthulhu cultist actually helps underscore what the show only hinted at.

    The book also effectively uses foreshadowing and canon to hang an ominous cloud over all of its events. Thaddeus Riker is an adorable child that we know for a fact is not going to reach adulthood. The fact the Romulan system has about a year left before 900 million residents die is also something that hangs over the heads of each of its residents. Using that helps elevate the material as we know there's no good ending to all this. The fact the Jazari choose to make the decision they do also underscores just how badly the Federation has screwed up.

    In conclusion, this is a good Star Trek novel and would be appreciated by both U.S.S. Titan as well as Picard fans. I preferred The Last Best Hope but that was more due to the fact that it got heavier into the politics of the event. This is a more pulpy space opera adventure that I also like but not quite as much.

Available here

Star Trek: The Way to the Stars by Una McCormack review

    STAR TREK: DISCOVERY: THE WAY TO THE STARS is a Young Adult novel based in the Star Trek universe. I have been enjoying the Star Trek: Discovery spin-off novels starting with Michael Burnham and Spock's adventure in Desperate Hour and continuing in works like Drastic Measures. They're a great mix of Star Trek: The Original Series lore with a new perspective on the life of characters from the 23rd century as well as their culture.This book follows Cadet (later Ensign) Tilly of the show and discusses her backstory prior to showing onboard the U.S.S Discovery.

    Tilly is easily my favorite character and is a bundle of bright energetic fun in a very dark show. This story begins with Tilly's sixteenth birthday on Earth and the fact she is the bitterly unhappy daughter of a high-ranking Federation diplomat. Pushed into going to an offworld boarding school she hates, Tilly decides to rebel against her upbringing by running away to the colonies.

    Tilly is a tremendously lovable as well as believable character. One thing the book does well is that it never raises the stakes too high in what is really just a story about a teenage girl coming of age. Tilly's idea of adventure is just going on a trip to some non-Earth Federation worlds in what is only about as dangerous as backpacking in Europe during the present day. Sure, she gets robbed at that point but even that crime is not violent.

    I've always loved stories about "finding yourself" and Tilly is someone who doesn't want to be a rich society girl but work as a mechanic and possibly astro-mycologist. Not the sort of thing that would be useful in the upper crust of the Federation (that isn't that important in their society but thinks it is). Her mother, Siobhan, loves her but clearly has no idea about how her daughter thinks since she's of the mind Tilly has the makings of a diplomat. Tilly not only has "foot in mouth" disease but doesn't actually like socializing and doesn't really even understand why diplomacy is important.

    I really love the glimpse into the lives of Federation citizens during all of this. It's generally a world without want, scarcity, hatred, or prejudice. It's not a world without drama, though, as Tilly's relationship with her mother shows. Personal troubles remain and the differences between generations are universal. Tilly wants to assert herself but her mother is used to seeing her as an extension of herself. I know Gene Roddenberry envisioned humans to be too evolved for the kind of problems Tilly's family have but I feel the book is all the stronger for them being so relatable.

    Part of what makes the book so effective is the fact that everyone in the book is genuinely nice. There's no brutish Klingons, scheming Romulans, or mad Starfleet Admirals. The closest thing to a villain is Tilly's overbearing mother, an ornery captain who hates stowaways, and some misguided natives. Tilly's ultimate desire is to also make something of herself and shows that in the future, people really want to do labor for the value of doing it rather than material possessions.

    In conclusion, The Way to the Stars is a really good book. As much as I love Star Trek, very few of the books can be said to be relaxing because they're full of explosions as well as high adventure. It's why we go to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants week after week, book after book. This is a very relaxing and comfortable book. Tilly is my favorite Discovery character as I've mentioned and this book is an excellent tribute to her. You don't even need to be a fan of the show to enjoy this nice little "slice of life" science fiction.

Available here

Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack review

    Babylon Five was our last best hope fo...oh wait, wrong franchise. It's actually an Abraham Lincoln quote but that's what the title of this book reminded me of. I should note that I am an enormous Star Trek fan. I am enormous Star Trek fan that is also a fan of Star Wars. I am a double-agent of both franchises and cannot be trusted because I have violated the sacred taboo of loving both. However, I will say how much I love the fact that both franchises are still going strong. While not without its flaws, Discovery was awesome and I was tickled when I got to see Picard. I watched that television show three times.

    Star Trek: Picard is a sequel series to era of TNG, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. It's been decades since Star Trek: Nemesis both in and out of universe with the supernova of Star Trek (2009) forming a major part of the plot. Romulus has been destroyed, the Federation didn't do much to help its refugees, Data is dead, and synthetic life-forms have been banned after the Federation's equivalent of 9/11 that ended up destroying Mars. It's a solid series and while people think I'm criticizing it by saying it reminds me heavily of Mass Effect, I love Mass Effect and enjoyed its complicated plot of secret societies, synthetic lifeforms, and post-War on Terror politics.

    There's a lot of unanswered questions about Picard, though, that are primarily the result of how we got from Point A to Point B. As much as I loved the series, I felt like the best possible opener would have been a two part episode that pretty much depicts this book's exact series of events. I wanted to see Admiral Picard at the top of his game, evacuating Romulans by the thousands, and non-sentient synth labor on the verge of automating Federation labor to the point the Singularity was one step closer. I wanted, somewhat sadistically, to see all of that torn down in order to lay the foundation for the events of the show.

    This book delivers and more.

    I'm a huge Una McCormack fan and consider her Cardassian novel, The Never-Ending Sacrifice, to be one of the highlights of all Trek literature. She had a really formidable task ahead of her with the job of addressing all of the questions that fans of the show had about events. She had to detail the politics of the Federation, Romulan Empire, and the galaxy as a whole while telling an interesting story. In a very real way, this is a novel that consists entirely of running the logistics of a large-scale evacuation. There's no pew-pew and it's almost entirely characterization that show-watchers will know is destined for the mother of all downer endings. The fact she also has to keep track of continuity across movies, series, and a few books makes the task seem nearly insurmountable. Yet, she manages to pull it off.

    The very concise and not at all spoilery summary of the story is as follows: The Romulan star is going to go supernova. This is a slight retcon from Star Trek (2009) but simplifies the physics tremendously. The Romulan Empire has an incredible effort ahead of it but is, begrudgingly, willing to let the Federation assist in the evacuation of some of the citizens. Well, close to a billion of them. Captain Picard, overwhelmed with the sheer scale of the problem, reluctantly accepts a promotion to Admiral in order to supervise the effort. This means saying goodbye to the Enterprise but will allow him to do as much good as virtually anything else he's done in his lifetime. Unfortunately, the Federation barely has the resources to evacuate a billion people even if it throws everything at the problem. This is, after all, an organization that lost virtually its entire fleet at the Battle of Wolf 359. Starfleet does not possess the ships to move all the refugees and even if it did there's the matter of finding a place to settle them.

    Jean Luc is confidant that everything will work out for the best with sufficient grit and determination. For the most part, he has no real reason to think otherwise. The Federation isn't entirely happy with the Romulan Free State and there are people upset about having to empty their pockets to help a billion "enemy" refugees. However, the Federation is not the people of 21st century Earth nor are the Romulans the war torn refugees we too often turn out backs against. Unhappy as they may be about emptying their pockets, empty their pockets the Federation does. Geordi and Bruce Maddox also set out to find a science-based solution to the infrastructure problems they face as is typical in Trek. There's a couple of scheming politicians and Romulan nasties who stand in the way in the greater good but it's nothing our heroes haven't dealt with before.

    But it's all going to go horribly-horribly wrong. The greatest twist of this book is that it is not a twist at all. Star Trek: Picard is based around Jean Luc Picard's greatest failure. Even moreso than being taken by the Borg really. Both times, it's not really his fault but the end results are catastrophic beyond belief. It's essentially that moment when Kirk fails to raise the shields in The Wrath of Khan because he's handled this a dozen times, only a thousand times worse. It's not that the Federation didn't try to do its part, its not that the heroes of the book (using the term loosely with professional creep Bruce Maddox) didn't do their best, it's just that the scale of the disaster is beyond anything that can be dealt with before the supernova goes off. To crib from Babylon Five again, "It was our last best hope for peace. It failed."

    I really liked the depiction of Romulus in this book as it doesn't really shy away from the fact it's a totalitarian dictatorship. Trek fans are naturally optimistic but real life has unfortunately shown that authoritarian governments are disinclined to deal in good faith or surrender any power for the benefit of others. The Romulan government would benefit greatly by sharing the data about how screwed they are with its people. They would benefit greatly from not just asking the Federation for help (which they never do, they just reluctantly accept it) but asking everyone else in the Alpha as well as Beta Quadrants. Grand Nagus Rom would only charge slightly above cost, much to the horror of his people. Martok might even lend a shuttle. However, that would mean showing weakness and the Romulan government would rather most of its race go extinct than allow that. Real life shows that this is all too realistic.

    If I had any complaints, I would say that I do kind of wish there was a way that this could have been reconciled with novel continuity. That is impossible, though, because the events of Star Trek: Destiny preclude any reconciliation with Picard. The Romulans in the books are also in a far better place alliance and leadership wise than the ones who stupidly lead their people to ruin in the books. Still, I really would love to see how the Typhon Pact would deal with the sudden destruction of Romulus. Another issue is that we don't see how Spock was dealing with the issue or how his use of Red Matter affected things. I like to think he saved countless billions of lives on the Romulan colonies but I think both the homeworld as well as Remus are out of luck. Bruce Maddox is also a creep, as mentioned, and I would have much preferred Doctor Jurati's perspective on all this.

    In conclusion, if you have watched Picard then you should read this book. If you haven't watched Picard and are planning to then this is a great book to read beforehand. It's a darker and grittier Trek but not because of the characters. They're as idealistic and good as they've always been. It's just this time it isn't enough. I feel Una also cleared up a lot of mistakes from the 2009 movie and created a realistic (for a bid budget sci-fi universe) problem that is a marathon rather than a race to solve. I could rate this a 4.5/5 for the Bruce Maddox parts and lack of Spock but I'm giving it the whole enchilada because it affected me that much.

Available here

Star Trek: Picard season one review

    Picard was a series that I was tremendously excited about. Like a lot of Trekkies my age, I grew up on the adventures of Captain Jean Luc Picard rather than Captain Kirk, Sisko, Janeway, or Archer. I watched him and the Galaxy-Class version of the Enterprise deal with everything from Q to the Borg. The Next Generation may not have always been amazing. I slightly prefer Deep Space Nine, but it was a classic that stands alongside the best of the original series or movies. Captain Picard was a stuffier, more idealistic, and less action-focused leader than Captain Kirk. Well, at least when he wasn't hooking up with Vash or doing Die Hard like in "Starship Mine."

      I was a bit iffy about Patrick Stewart coming back to do a sequel show to Star Trek: The Next Generation, though. No offense to a classically trained actor and someone healthy for his age, but he's seventy-nine years old and that's an odd time to take on a major career project unless you're going to do the majority of it sitting. Also, I wasn't sure I trusted the current holders of the Star Trek IP to deliver a satisfying look into the future of Roddenberry's vision. Was there still room for that sort of idealistic science fiction in the 21st century? Well, yes and no.

    The setting for Picard is a wounded Federation. Some people have said it's a darker Federation but I don't think that's the case. Synthetic life-forms have been banned in the Federation after the Mars colony was destroyed along with its entire population in what appeared to be a robot revolt. This happened during the destruction of Romulus via supernova. As such, 900,000,000 Romulans were not evacuated who might have been during the backstory of the 2009 Star Trek reboot. Worse, Romulan refugees are not appreciated within the borders of the Federation.

     I say wounded instead of darker despite the uncomfortable similarities to 9/11, Brexit, and the Trump administration that the creators have said they were dealing with because I don't think it's actually malevolent. It's made some questionable decisions but no overtly evil ones. The Federation has always been slightly behind, sometimes even antagonistic to our heroes, even when they are still the most enlightened people in the Quadrant.

    Aside from the endless parade of insane Admirals, there's a never-ending stream of horrifying events that the Federation was willing to let slide because of the Prime Directive. Really, I'm honestly surprised they were willing to evacuate any Romulans given it seemed the definition of an "internal matter" but perhaps they were planning to do Khitomer Accords 2.0. Kudos if you get that reference and aren't on the Star Trek BBS.

    The premise homages "All Good Things" with Captain Picard having been forced to retire on his vineyard with no sign of his marriage to Beverly Crusher (though that doesn't mean it didn't happen). He's suffering from the same condition he was there and is living a half-life with only his Romulan workers for company. He also has dreams of Data, still dead after all of these years, that lead him to helping a mysterious young girl named Dahj. Romulan troopers soon attack and he is soon sent on a quixotic quest to find Dahj's sister Soiji.

    Picard gathers a small crews of oddballs and misfits from the fringe of both the Federation as well as Romulan space. It's distinctly different from other Star Trek stories because they all have the reserved and professional feel of Starfleet. This is much closer to something like Firefly, Farscape, or even Star Wars to an extent as a ragtag band of misfits is something we haven't really seen in Star Trek before. That isn't to say it's bad but it's something that we haven't seen before in a canon work.

    I like Picard's crew of the La Sirena with Alison Pill as Dr. Agnes Jurati, Evan Evangora as Elnor, Santiago Cabera as Cristobal "Chris" Rios, and Michelle Hurd as Rafaella "Raffi" Musiker. They are a robotocist in over her head, a Romulan samurai, Han Solo, and a substance abusing Space Marine. I also appreciate Isa Briones as the android twins Dahj and Soji as she feels like the most "typical" Federation citizen ironically enough. Some people may dislike that the crew seems to have so many problems in the post-scarcity Federation but I feel like this isn't too far from what we saw in Deep Space Nine or the Original Series.

    Perhaps the biggest surprise is the large role played by Jeri Ryan, reprising her role as Seven of Nine. She's changed from the emotionally stunted and repressed to becoming Commander Shepard of Mass Effect. She's an butt-kicking, hard-drinking, and utterly take no prisoners action heroine that is also something we've seen before in Star Trek but not from a man. I think of her as probably how Tasha Yar might have been if not for network standards and practices of the late Eighties. Still, it's going to contrast with the memories of many fans.

    The villains of the series are a somewhat generic brother and sister pair of Romulans, Narissa and Narek, who are overtly evil. Harry Treadaway does a decent job making Narek seem like he has depths but Narissa is a bit scene chewingly evil. They're both very-very pretty people and that makes them watchable even in their most Cersei and Jaime Lannister-esque moments. The Zhat Vash is a "Tal Shiar within the Tal Shiar" and I don't really think that was necessary to add to Romulan lore.

   The plotline is, unfortunately, overly convoluted. There's a story about the banning of synths, a secret Romulan conspiracy, Data having daughters created from his neurons, Borg harvesting rings, a captured Borg cube, and an ancient prophecy that is built around a precursor race's marker. It comes together surprisingly well, much better than either of the two Discovery seasons, but it feels overly packed. Amazingly, I might have thrown out the couple of nostalgia episodes (despite those being the most entertaining in the series), to give the regular cast a chance to breathe.

    The show does suffer from an attempt to be darker and edgier. There's gratuitous swearing, sex, and violence. However, honestly, it's not that bad and I do think Star Trek could have been a little less sanitized regarding personal relationships. There's hints Seven of Nine is bisexual, for example, and that nicely retcons away Rick Berman's insistence homosexuality didn't exist for his decades of control over the franchise. In fact, I was kind of annoyed that it wasn't more overt that she had past romantic relationships with women.

    The action, special affects, and acting were all solid in this show. Indeed, I think the decision to hire excellent character actors I recognized from other programs was a solid decision. There's perhaps a bit too much reliance on past Star Trek incarnations but Trekkies are the original continuity fanatics. Overall, I really enjoyed this season and while I think they really need to stop being so overproduced in their episodes, I have a real strong hope for Star Trek's future.

8.5/10