A quick introduction to this series of posts: I have two distinct "first" memories of the Star Trek literature universe from childhood. I can still see and smell the tobacco-stained TNG paperbacks my dad read and piled under the nightstand next to my parents' bed. I don't remember ever seeing him reading one of these breezy adventures, nor do I remember ever picking up one of them myself. But I can still picture the cover of TNG #29, Sins of Commission, with a Ferengi Marauder flanked by Riker and Worf's renderings. I always found these covers interesting, as if I could recreate a new story based on the familiar characters and mysterious elements on each cover.
My other memory of the literature came when I was in sixth grade. For one week in March, all sixth graders in Ohio were required to take the state proficiency tests--key word, "proficiency." With the underwhelming goal of merely demonstrating proficiency, I found myself with hours of extra time to kill on the first day of testing. That night, I told my mom I would need to bring in a book to read while the required time was allowed to expire, so she took me to the bookstore. I eventually chose The Way of the Warrior, a novelization of a DS9 episode. I'm guessing I was sold by the cover art of a Klingon attack cruiser (Vor'cha class, I presume) firing on the U.S.S. Defiant.
But at some point in the past decade or two, the Star Trek franchise committed the same mistake as that of my other childhood passion, sports cards. Originally, Star Trek literature, like sports trading cards, came in a few, tidy series, rarely crossing over or complicating. Just as TOS, TNG, and DS9 ran in distinct paths, Topps, Upper Deck, and Donruss made an annual series for each sport that could realistically be completed. Eventually the industry saw opportunities to target more distinct segments in each market, and as a result, there were dozens of series that left the casual hobbyist overwhelmed.
And yet, I still love the characters and universe of Star Trek more than any other fictionalization (and probably most of the real) world. I met Jean-Luc Picard in very formative years of my life, and to this day, I find more to admire in his professionalism and personal ethics than I probably should. I cannot think of a single show I would be more excited to find more episodes of than my beloved TNG.
Therefore, I have decided to leap into the franchise's literature series, attempting to place the dizzying collection of arcs since Nemesis into some logical order. I am starting with this very helpful flowchart as my guide, and I will read and review the TNG and DS9-related post-Nemesis or "Relaunch" fiction. This will of course include the Titan series, where Commander Riker finally gets his first command.
Lastly, my reviews of the stories will assume deep knowledge of the characters. The writers of these novels assume their audience is fans, so I am reacting to each novel as if it were an episode in a series. In addition to my thoughts on the story itself, I will also try to address its context in the increasingly complex Star Trek lit universe by placing it on a growing diagram of the stories. If anyone has hesitated to pick back up with these beloved characters because the novels seem so difficult to attack in any order, I hope these posts encourage you to boldly go.
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TNG Post-Nemesis 1, Death in Winter
Or Romulan Ails, on the Rocks
If there's one thing Michael Jan Friedman wants you to know, it's that Jean-Luc Picard is bummed. Throughout Death in Winter, from its very title to its climax, we are reminded that the old crew is no longer together to cover each others' backs. Riker and Troi have finally moved out of Picard's basement and into the U.S.S. Titan. Data, as you may recall, gave his life to save his crewmates' at the end of Nemesis. And Beverly Crusher, that ginger tease, has left Picard's Enterprise to become the head of Starfleet Medical on Earth.
And yet, the book is consistently bogged down to references to TNG episodes, as if the actual plot of this novel were an amalgamation of the Enterprise-D's greatest hits. "The Best of Both Worlds," "Chain of Command," and "Yesterday's Enterprise"--easily three of the most popular episodes in the series--are all alluded to at some point. The writers almost beg you to remember all the good times we had back when even though this novel marks a turning point in the series.
In a plot that is executed to average success, Crusher and then Picard are both forced to improvise as their undercover humanitarian missions crumble. And yet, the entire outcome hinges on Crusher identifying one of her alien cooperators by his coat in a driving snowstorm. Forget all of the rehashed allusions; if there is one TNG relic that felt most familiar, it was intergalactic deus ex machina.
I give Death in Winter something of a pass for its choppy narration, given the immense task of setting up a new canvas for future encounters from one graffitied by years of canon. The novel is clearly a new starting point for the franchise, knowing full-well that it will never again take TV or movie form. But where I cannot forgive Friedman is his conception of Jean-Leverly. In just a few horrific final pages, Friedman rewrites his hard-earned themes of change and metamorphasis with Crusher entering Picard's ready room like some bad romance novel.
I always appreciated the TV show's restraint in pairing Troi and Riker or Picard and Crusher as couples in the show's present day. Clearly either could have plausibly (and now have) happened, but the idea of two senior crew members being openly together drains credibility, especially when one is the captain. The appearance of "the boss and his woman" suggests a less professional operation, but probably more importantly, it's just not the kind of thing for which we come to Star Trek.
In all of its incarnations, the franchise is about independence and the spirit of discovery. For its various missteps early on, TNG always righted itself when it was concerned with "what's out there." As much as I love the characters, none of them really engendered my desire to see them personally gratified. For all of them, I primarily cared how they dealt with that nasty bitch called "the universe," romance be damned.
This is the novel where the reboot starts, and its most critical contributions are maintaining the commitment that certain characters really are never coming back. But it would have been nice if a grown-up story could have been told at the same time.
2.5 bars of gold-pressed latinum out of 5
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