Tag / Star Trek: The Next Generation

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Book 10 (of 52) – Red Sector

Red Sector – Diane Carey

In the latest entry of the Double Helix series, a commander who spent years as a prisoner on a quarantined planet volunteers to go back to help Spock, Bones, and Dr. Crusher find an heir to the Romulan royal family, which has been decimated by an artificial virus, similar to what was seen at Terok Nor and an outbreak the Enterprise had encountered years earlier.

Diane Carey brings us Red Sector, the third entry in the Double Helix series which focuses mostly on the pair from OG Star Trek, with the Next Gen crew playing a bit supporting role.  She deftly avoids the problems I had with the previous installment, with plot overlap trying to investigate and solve for a mysterious plague, by skipping that part of the story altogether.  The disease is a given, with the action focused on rescuing the one person who can potentially cure it from a bad situation.  With three more entries to go, I am cautiously optimistic on where the series is headed.

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Book 25 (of 52) – Vectors

Vectors – Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Fresh from her tour of duty on the Enterprise, Dr. Pulaski is summoned to the Cardassian outpost of Terok Nor (soon to be known as Deep Space Nine) to help diagnose and cure a plague that is affecting both the Cardassians and their Bajoran slaves.  When she arrives, she finds that the cause of the plague looks awfully similar to something the Enterprise had encountered a year earlier.

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch bring us Vectors, the second entry in the Double Helix series.  Now, I can’t say I was particularly thrilled to find out that this was basically a Pulaski solo story, away from the rest of the Enterprise crew, but it turned out better than I would have thought.  There was some plot overlap with the previous entry, but I guess there are only so many ways to investigate and solve for a mysterious plague affecting a population.

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Book 17 (of 52) – Infection

Double Helix: Infection – John Gregory Betancourt

When a virus breaks out that targets mixed species people on a racist Federation planet, the Enterprise is sent to help find a cure while quarantining the system.  When the virus spreads to the Enterprise and takes down Troi, Dr. Crusher doubles her efforts to get to the bottom of it.

John Gregory Betancourt brings us back to the Star Trek universe with Infection, the first chapter of the Double Helix saga.  It certainly wasn’t the best TNG entry I’ve ever read, with an ending that was very rushed.  The other entries look to be spread across the different corners of the Star Trek universe, which is outside of my usual comfort zone, so we’ll see if picking up this series was worth it.

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Book 18 (of 52) – The Body Electric

The Body Electric – David Mack

Nearly a year after finishing the first installment of David Mack’s Cold Equations trilogy, I worked through the third and final book, The Body Electric.  In this tale, the Enterprise encounters two old friends as an artificial intelligence threatens all life in the entire galaxy.

In this trilogy, Mack succeeds in bringing Data back from the inglorious death he suffered in Star Trek: Nemesis, the final film featuring the Next Generation cast.  He sets things up for future novels (are there any?) to bring the character back in to the main cast, if a story needed it.  I’ll need to keep my eyes open for any future Kindle sales, so I can return to the 24th century for future adventures.

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Book 6 (of 52) – Silent Weapons

Silent Weapons – David Mack

Silent Weapons, the middle installment of the Cold Equations trilogy, returns us to the 24th century where Data, continuing his search for Emil Vaslovik, finds himself accused of crimes on Orion, where the president of the Federation is holding secret negotiations with the Gorn.  After reaching out to his friends on the Enterprise for help, Data joins his former shipmates in trying to get to the bottom of the attacks against the Federation delegation on Orion while discovering the true motives behind the Gorn’s attempts at peace.

Picking up a few months after The Persistence of Memory, Mack takes some of the dangling threads from the earlier work to form the threat in this work.  At the end, Data is once again separated from the Enterprise, on his own trying to track down a mystery important to his father.  Which, I assume, is the main thrust of the final part of the trilogy.  I hope that one pulls me in a little easier than this one did.

 

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Book 20 (of 52) – Lost Souls

Lost Souls - David Mack

Lost Souls – David Mack

The final chapter of the Destiny trilogy brings a Borg invasion deep in to the Federation as the Enterprise, Titan, and Aventine, with the help of the now 800-year old Captain Erika Hernandez, try to find a way to save the universe.  While attempting to stop them from attacking the Federation’s core planets, Captain Hernandez learns the shocking truth of the Borg’s origins, and the avenue to shut them down for good.

David Mack uses the fact that Paramount is mostly finished with the original Star Trek timeline to his advantage, giving him free reign to both define the origin of the Borg and then remove them as threats in the future.  He does so by building off of the worlds he has built in the previous outings in the series.  I must say that I enjoyed this three book trip back in to the world of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  If I ever come across another Kindle sale on these types of books, I may just pick up a few more.