Reunion

Star Trek TNG: Reunion
© 1991 Michael Jan Friedman
343 pages
On the cover:  Unknown models as Idun Asmund, Picard's former human-raised-by-Klingons helm officer and Captain Morgen, who looks rather scary.  There's also a little quirk on the cover: the Stargazer is depicted with only two nacelles. This was before the four-nacelle model  became official, I suppose.

Many years ago, fresh young lieutant named Picard saved his ship from peril by assuming command following the death of his captain and first officer. In recognition of his services rendered, Starfleet named him captain of the Stargazer.  Now an officer of legend, Picard commands the Federation flagship -- the Enterprise-D -- and is hosting a Stargazer reunion. The arrival of several Stargazer officers brings back mixed memories for Picard: fond recollections of those days when he was young and brash, before his best friend Jack died under his command -- before Stargazer was lost. The memory of Jack is painful, though, and even moreso for Jack's widow, Beverly Crusher. She and Picard aren't the only persons haunted by the memories of what once was:  after the reunion is troubled by a series of nearly lethal accidents, Picard realizes someone among his former comrades is targeting the Stargazers on by one.  With the ship in peril, Picard and his friends both old and young must find the would-be murderer among their ranks and while striving to prevent a diplomatic catastrophe.

I don't think I've looked forward to any Star Trek book as much as Reunion, perhaps save S.D. Perry's DS9 capstone Unity. I began reading the Stargazer series years ago, and the first two books in it rank as some of my favorites in Trek literature as a whole -- but Reunion invented those characters.  Death in Winter spoiled the mystery for me by alluding to the killer, but even so I had fun trying to figure out why the character in question had 'snapped' -- and was able to use my previous Stargazer reading to keep ahead of Picard and the others.  There's considerable peril to be had outside the potential assassin: while on a diplomatic mission, Enterprise is trapped in a high-warp slipstream that threatens not only the mission, but the  ship itself by throwing it far beyond Federation borders. Characterization is accurate for both the TNG crew and the Stargazers, though Picard is more formal with his old XO than I would expect -- in the Stargazer books, they're 'buddies'.

I expected a great deal of Reunion and come away from it feeling quite satisfied. Like other Friedman novels, this is one I can see returning to again and again.

Stargazer: Three

Stargazer: Three
© 2003 Michael Jan Friedman
247 pages

In addition to beginning the TNG relaunch this year, I also intend to pick up on loose threads in Trek literature that I have either left undone or never examined in the first place.  Encountering Picard's former shipmates from the Stargazer in Death in Winter left me thinking about the Stargazer series by Michael Jan Friedman, telling the stories of Picard's first command as a young 20-something. The first two novels in this series rank among my favorite works of Trek literature, but I've read the series through to completion despite having most of the books. I decided to remdy that, although I did not intend to do so today. I picked up the book at lunch, and...didn't put it down for the duration of the afternoon.

Stargazer: Three is third in the series, if the deceptively dull name is not too big a hint. The title initially disappointed me, but as I progressed deeper into the plot I realized Friedman had more in mind when titling the book than it simply following the second novel, Progenitor. As the story opens, Jean-Luc Picard is young man still in his twenties, commanding the Constellation-class ship Stargazer. Picard is the youngest man in Starfleet history to captain a vessel, an achievement that followed his taking command of the vessel during a crisis that saw the ship's former captain and first officer killed.  Not everyone appreciates Picard's accomplishment, chiefly his commanding officer: Admiral McAteer. McAteer wants to strip the young whippersnapper of his command, but cannot do so without proving him incompetent. In an effort to ruin Picard's name, McAteer routinely gives Picard missions beyond his experience, hoping to see the young man fail. Unfortunately for McAteer, the crew of the Stargazer prove worthy of the challenge time after time.

In Three, the Stargazer is sent to investigate a curious anamoloy on the Federation border with an aggressive, hostile race while its chief weapons officer, Lieutenant Vigo, is attending a security conference unveiling a new disrupter. When the Stargazer draws near the anamoly, a familar but alien face arrives in its transporter -- a woman who appears identical to two of Picard's officers, the Lieutenants Gerda and Idun Asmund. The stranger claims to be a Lieutenant Asmund from a Stargazer in another universe. She has arrived on Picard's Stargazer unexpectedly via a transporter curiosity. Picard must investigate the woman's claims, and find a way to send her back to her proper time while not provoking a nearby alien flotilla which has claimed the anamoly as its own.  Meanwhile, rebels intending to start a revolution on their home planet ambush the Federation conference and attempt to steal the new weapon: aiding them is Lieutenant Vigo's old friend and mentor.

Three develops the backstory for the Asmund lieutenants, who serve as navigator and helm officer respectively. Although biologically human, the two were orphaned as children and rescued by a Klingon captain who took pity on them. He and his wife later adopted the two, and raised them as Klingons -- a story mirrored by one of Picard's officers in the future, Commander Worf -- who is Klingon, but raised on Earth by humans.  The Asmund sisters see themselves as a pair, and Gerda is thrown off her stride by the appearance of this third Asmund, who claims her twin sister died in childbirth. While Idun immediately embraces the third Asmund, Gerda is suspicious and jealous: she does not believe the stranger to be who she says she is.

While providing both action and mystery, Friedman also continues developing his main characters. The crew of the Stargazer had immediate appeal for me when I read the first novel so many years ago, and I appreciate his continuing to spend time on them apart from the main plot. The plot itself isn't quite as interesting as the first novel, but then again it set a high standard for me. There are a few hat-tips made to the Next Generation show, as when Picard -- moving around his cramped ready room -- muses that one day he will have a room big enough for him to display personal items, keep fish, and maybe have a couch for visitors. Trek-lit readers will enjoy this, although newcomers should probably start with the first novel before leaping into this plot.


Related:

• The Stargazer series on Memory Alpha

Tales of the Dominion War

Tales of the Dominion War
Published in 2004, editor Keith DeCandido
370 pages

O'Brien: Engage, retreat, engage, retreat. I tell you, that's becoming our favorite tune. 

Bashir: Well, we'd better think of a new tune fast or the only song we're going to be singing is "Hail the Conquering Dominion". 

Dax: I wouldn't start learning those lyrics just yet. ("Favor the Bold")

If you've ever seen an episode of the original Star Trek series, you know the essential formula for most of the rest: a crew of gallant Starfleet personnel travel through the galaxy, solving a mystery or problem every week amid playful banter and warm idealism. These standard series each have their strengths and weaknesses, but their foundation is the same. Deep Space Nine stands alone: set in an outpost at the outskirts of the Alpha Quadrant, its stories are not weekly events but large arcs. The Dominion War was one such  arc: the series' second season introduced a vast trade federation known as the Dominion, protected by super-soldiers whom everyone feared. The Dominion matured through the show's early seasons, eventually being realized in full as a vast empire controlling much of the Gamma Quadrant -- a region of the galaxy so far removed from the Alpha Quadrant that only a stable wormhole providing a shortcut from Deep Space Nine to the fringes of the Dominion's borders made traveling between the two feasible. A group of aggressive shape-shifting xenophobes known as the Founders created the Dominion to protect them from outside persecution, and they used their empire to establish order by subordinating weaker powers.  In season five, the Dominion set its sights on subduing the various powers of the Alpha Quadrant, resulting in a war that lasted several seasons and culminated only at the series' finale.

Tales of the Dominion War is set during that time, in which the Dominion fights and nearly destroys the Federation as well as the Klingon and Romulan Empires. The book begins with a tribute to Deep Space Nine, crediting it for making Trek literature more varied: in breaking with the format of the original series and The Next Generation,  Deep Space Nine allowed authors to explore the entire galaxy, creating book series about characters and powers not mentioned in the television shows. Many of the characters from various series produced following Deep Space Nine's beginning make appearances here, like Michael Jan Friedman's Stargazer crew and  Peter David's New Frontier cast and ship. The stories here not not just set aboard ships, though; authors take us to Earth, when Breen ships stage a surprise attack and level Starfleet Command; to Romulus, where Ambassador Spock watches as Romulan politicians and generals struggle for command of Romulus' fate, and decide whether or not it shall enter the war; and to a world of the Klingon empire, in which a one-armed Klingon fights off a ship of Jem'Hedar warriors on foot. There's even a story about Shinzon, the foe from Nemesis who led Reman combat troops on special operations, one that sets the stage for Nemesis. Scotty and McCoy also have a day in the sun, although the Voyager crew is excluded -- having spent the war lost in the Delta Quadrant. The collection's captstone story ("Requital") is the only one that includes Deep Space Nine's characters: a young Federation officer assigned to guard the Founder who instigated the Dominion War and the slaughter that follows struggles with his desire for vengeance while reliving in his mind some of the war's most vicious battles.

For my money this book is strong indeed; I've never been able to enjoy New Frontier or Klingon stories before, but the authors of those respective stories kept my interest. David's New Frontier story is one of the few stories in the collection that comment on war itself -- while his comments on the way emotional appeals are used to glorify, promote, sell, and maintain wars, the collection's final story addresses the way individual psyches are warped by battle. The rest simply explore themes common in Star Trek war stories: bravery under fire, idealistic determination, the value of quick wits. This is a superb collection of Trek stories that is an easy recommendation to Trek fans.

Related:

• "Tales of the Dominion War" Memory Alpha article.
• "Call to Arms" video depicting one of the Dominion War's largest battles from Deep Space Nine. The music fits it well, I think, and the video chosen will give you an idea of the scale of the conflict.
• The Dominion War, a four-book set divided between one of the Enterprise-E's most crucial missions during the war and the novelization of DS9's story arcs with greater context. The TNG books are two of my favorite Trek novels. TNG fans may enjoy the inclusion of Ro Laren and several characters from "Lower Decks".
• The Battle of Betazed, set during the Dominion's occupation of Commander Deanna Troi's homeworld, which  she infiltrates in order to rescue a gifted telepath whose abilities might help the Betazoids create a potent resistance. This book integrates with the post-DS9 Relaunch canon. 

Death in Winter

Death in Winter
© 2007 Michael Jan Friedman
368 pages

I've been meaning to dive back into contemporary Trek lit for some time now, but have been somewhat daunted by a shift in the literature: instead of new releases being published as self-contained novels, Star Trek books today tend to fit into a newly-created extended universe canon that roared into existence following the end of Deep Space Nine and the rise of the "Deep Space Nine Relaunch",  a collection of individual books and series set in the post-"What You Leave Behind" era and which gave the show an eighth season in book form.  The Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise soon experienced their own "relaunches", all of these relaunches tied to one another creating the type of expanded universe that Star Wars readers have so long enjoyed. The downside of this is that it increases the amount of background needed to be absorbed to enjoy a given book fully dramatically. I thus posted on TrekBBS and asked for a map of sorts to prepare me to read the newly released Star Trek: Destiny series, and the information I compiled suggested that Michael Jan Friedman's Death in Winter was the place to start.

I could think of no matter, for Friedman is my favorite Trek author: I enjoyed his Stargazer series depicting Captain Picard's first command immensely, falling in love with the characters and eagerly waiting more. Now Friedman tackles Picard in the days following Nemesis: the Romulan empire is in turmoil after the assassination of most of its senate, and most of Picard's command crew has left him. Riker is now the captain of the USS Titan (and has his own book series, along with Troi):  Data is dead, and Dr. Crusher has decided to become the head of Starfleet medical once more, leaving Picard with only LaForge and Worf to help him oversee the Enterprise's extensive repair and retrofitting following its fight in Nemesis.

Of those lost crewmembers, Picard misses Crusher the most:  one of the first season's opening episodes established romantic tension between the two, and they enjoyed a special relationship throughout the series.  Recent events have made their mutual love for each other more acute, making Crusher's departure hard to bear.  While Picard sees to his ship, Crusher is sent on a secret mission to the outskirts of Romulan territory to prepare a vaccine on a plague planet.  Her mission goes awry when the half-human, half-Romulan Commander Sela learns of a Federation officer's presence on her planet, and Picard is tasked with escorting another doctor to the planet and -- if he can -- finding the newly-imprisoned and possibly dead Dr. Crusher. Picard, along with old comrades from the Stargazer, steal into Romulan territory and try to find allies while a political battle for control of Romulus wages. If Picard is not careful -- and if he cannot keep his emotions concerning the doctor from interfering with the mission -- he, Crusher, and their comrades may be used as political pawns by the various senators and admirals who want their voice to guide the battered Star Empire.

Friedman lives up to expectations, doing justice to the TNG crew and handling Romulan politics well enough that I did not tire of it.  I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of Stargazer officers given my fondness for that series. The four threads of the book -- Picard's efforts to find Crusher, political espionage and maneuverering between Romulan factions, Beverly's role in those maneuverers, and Worf and Geordi's struggle to do  their duty -- mesh neatly together to make for a compelling read.