Not the best ENT novel - spoilers | Report this post to moderator
By: sb2004 (Odo's file, contact) @ 05:56:38 on Mar 17, 2006

I'm only 3/4 of the way through the book, but I feel confident enough in my opinion of it to give some thoughts now.

I think the reviewer is being a little generous with his stars. I personally consider this to be one of the weaker Enterprise novels, and nowhere near as good as Stern's earlier work.

It's a very slow read, I'm finding. I can normally buzz through an Enterprise novel in a few days but it has taken 2 weeks and I'm still only at the 3/4 mark, which is never a good sign with books like these. It might also be the frustrating lack of involvement by the 3 main characters. Oh, they're there all right, but as the reviewer suggests, this is Hoshi's book, and Travis and Reed also play a major role. Unfortunately I never really considered Hoshi and Travis to be very interesting characters on their own. (I have the same issue with TOS books that focus on Sulu and Uhura; as part of a larger collective they're great characters, but on their own they're rather dull.)

I had this same criticism with By the Book, the first original ENT novel which also focused more on the "lower decks" characters.

But what makes things more annoying (and minor spoilers follow) is the fact that the book clearly indicates that it takes place immediately after "Bound" (as in the week following), yet there is no follow-up (at least up to the 3/4 mark) to the Trip/T'Pol relationship milestone reached in that episode -- in fact, at one point where you think there might be some sort of reference, the scene shifts back to the lower decks characters. The "historical note" also suggests the Orion women are still in captivity, but again as of the 3/4 mark there's no indication of this in the narrative - so why bother mentioning it? (To be fair they might play a part in the last 1/4 of the book.) There are elements of the storyline that are intended to set up the conference at the heart of the Demons/Terra Prime arc which follows, but remove those and this book could have taken place anytime within the 4th season.

I'm also spotting a few needless and gratuitous references that would have had people screaming had this been a televised episode, particularly the use of a particular style of calendar that isn't supposed to be introduced for about 100 years, and a throwaway reference to a species that isn't really supposed to be known by Starfleet for awhile yet, either.

And although I'm hardly one to demand political correctness, someone is bound to take Dave Stern to task when he indicates the "dominant race" on Earth is ... well, you have to read the book. But I'm personally wouldn't have gone there, particularly in the book where the lead characters are of Asian and African descent, unless his intent was to be ironic.

It's not a terrible book and there are some pretty good moments, including some of the humor that the 4th season (for all its quality) lacked. I like how he addresses one area the series avoided, and that's Hoshi's long-term reaction to being captured by the Xindi. But after 21 months without any new Enterprise fiction and 10 months since the last episode aired, I found myself asking "I waited that long for THIS?" a few times.

Hopefully Last Full Measure will be a better book. Luckily we won't have to wait another 21 months for it.

Al

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