Peaceable Kingdoms

Star Trek, The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms
384 pages
© 2013 Dayton Ward

Nearly two months have passed since the most popular and widely respected president in Federation history was publicly assassinated, but in that time her temporary replacement has not been standing strong, offering a  reassuring presence to a troubled people.  Instead, he's been losing friends and alienating people in a misguided effort to renew the Federation as a galactic superpower. With a declared object of making Starfleet a force to be reckoned with, he has instead begun corrupting it by ignoring the chain of command, creating black-ops squads and playing hell with Starfleet schedules by using them for his off-the-books wetwork. Frustrated and wary of his commander in chief's motives, Fleet Admiral Akaar has recalled Captain Riker, promoted him to admiral, and is relying on him to be the one trustworthy man in his office. Riker has thus become the point man in an effort to find out what el presidente is up to. Together, he, Captain Picard, and their respective crews will unearth a few skeletons and put the Federation to rights again. A tale of action and intrigue, Peaceable Kingdoms takes The Fall out on a good step, if not one as strong as previous titles in the series.

The Enterprise has been hovering out of sight for most of this series, consigned by the president to keep station at Ferenginar. It's an obvious misuse of the Federation flagship and its most seasoned captain, not to mention a fairly crappy place for shore leave. Who wants to take their liberty on a swamp-planet? Now the Big E is entering center stage, however, dispatching Dr. Crusher and a few others on a secret mission to an abandoned world where some secrets are buried, there to follow up on one of Riker's leads. They'l have to contend with the president's schemes, though. A welcome relief here is T'Ryssa Chen, who since the Borg War books has added some humor to the Enterprise . She's an oddly irrepressible half-Vulcan with a smart mouth, who a mellowing Picard tolerates with paternal affection. Given the tension of these books -- what is with that title, anyway? Are we anticipating the fall of the Federation? The Typhon Pact? -- her sass evens things out a bit. The series as a whole has been good about leavening the drama with laughs, though.

Peaceable Kingdoms is an enjoyable end to a great series, and its end is a hopeful one -- assuring readers that after the bloodshed and horror of the Great Borg War, and the constant tension of the Cold War in Space, Starfleet is about to commend another grand era of exploration

The Poisoned Chalice

Star Trek the Fall: The Poisoned Chalice
© 2013 James Swallow
395 pages

Without warning or reason, the starship Titan – specialized for deep space exploration – has been recalled and ordered to patrol…Earth. Captain Riker has been promoted to admiral and shoved in an office, while several members of his command crew have disappeared on secret missions that not even the Fleet Admiral knows about. Who’s giving orders around here? It’s a troubled time in the Federation, with one head of state assassinated only weeks before, and the president pro temp acting in ways that make Chancellor Gowron look compassionate and conscientious. More mystery and more stress are not what the Federation needs….but they do make for another great novel in The Fall series.

Schemes are the name of the game here, as everyone is Up to Something. The fleet admiral suspects the president is up to something, Riker suspects the fleet admiral is up to something, and the crews of two starships suspect Riker is up to something. Commanders Tuvok and Nog know they’re both being put up to something, because they and a few other officers have been ordered to the middle of nowhere to meet a group of mercenaries who are obviously up to no good. But what is going on? All these secret goings-on are the ripples around the schemer in chief, President Pro Tempore Ishan Anjar. Anjar was chosen not for manifest competence, but to assure Bajor – in the light of the Federation’s growing ties with Cardassia – that Bajor’s history was not forgotten, and its place is secure. Throughout this series he’s proven himself to be petty, mean, obnoxious, and other sundry adjectives, prolonging crises for political gain. That is coming to a head, however, and things are unraveling.

The Poison Chalice brims over with intrigue and terse conversations, with a healthy bit of action and a little comedy as well. I was spellbound, still enjoying the drama of Starfleet officers wrestling with questions of conscience and duty, and can’t wait to see how this ends. I hope it involves Anjar getting a right sound lecture from Picard.  Or a right sound backhand from Worf -- I'm not particular.

A Ceremony of Losses

Star Trek the Fall: A Ceremony of Losses
© 2013 David Mack
353 pages

"I'm a ship captain, doctor. Risk is my business."

"...you're an un-armed, one-man freighter."

"Okay, delivering cargo is my business. But I'm trying to diversify."

Now this is a way to start 2018!   When Julian Bashir's vacation is interrupted by a Ferengi delivering a message from an old comrade in hiding, the good doctor has no idea his finest hour is  upon him. He is asked to receive stolen biological data, and from the noise therin produce a pattern that might save a people from extinction.  It won't be easy:  the data is considered highly sensitive by three governments, one of which might kill Bashir for trying to use it, and even if he finds a cure, his career with Starfleet will be over.   Still struggling with his conscience over his actions in a sanctioned but bloody bit of intelligence work (Zero Sum Game), Bashir knows responding to this forlorn plea is both the right thing to do, and an opportunity for personal absolution. If he can obtain the missing pieces and coax some of Starfleet's finest geneticists into helping him, a  people might be saved -- and if it costs him his career, his freedom, or his life, Bashir is determined to deliver.  A Ceremony of Losses is  the best Trek book I've read in years, a thriller that smartly combines political  and personal drama, humor, and action in a tight story full of moral dilemmas.

A little backstory is required to fully enjoy A Ceremony of Losses, but that's to be expected in the third book of a series. The Andorians are an odd species in that they have four sexes, all of which are required to produce a single offspring. Even Treklit published in the Enterprise era hinted that the Andorians were drifting toward extinction, their reproduction woes magnified by a buildup of recessive genes that were causing chronic miscarriages.  Between the Borg War and the ordinary passage of time, the Andorians have come to a crisis point: they'll be extinct in a generation if something isn't done.   In Paths of Disharmony, the revelation that the Federation's ban on genetically engineering sentient lifeforms, and its sequestration of any data that would aide such a project, had hidden information and tools that might be used to help Andoria resulted in that planet -- one of the original founding worlds -- seceding from the Union.   Now, in The Fall, Andoria is under an embargo by the Federation, who suspects its leadership is being manipulated by the Typhon Pact, a confederacy of villains.  The banned information and tools are what Bashir needs, but it will take more minds than his to find a cure, and even when he does the political leadership of both Andor and the Federation are playing games.  Bashir has to find a way to obtain the data and do lab work without triggering any security measures, and once he's exposed he may have to burn a lot of bridges trying to get the results to the right people on Andoria.

One of the greatest aspects of this novel is its persistent moral drama. Bashir and his comrades aren't civilians, they're Starfleet officers who have sworn to obey their orders, even if their orders come from an absolute ass of a president .  Bashir, Captain Ro, Captain Ezri Dax, and others all have to decide how far they can toe the line, and when they'll step over the edge. It makes for fantastic drama because characters readers know and like are working in opposition to one another,  each trying to follow their conscience as best they know how, wrestling with themselves as one another. Creating believable, sustainable drama in this fashion is a lot more challenging than using obvious Bad Guys to provoke the plot, though most of the politicians here are decidedly unsympathetic antagonists.   What makes it even better is that there are real consequences for these characters' decisions: this isn't like one of the shows, where some stern admiral pops on to lecture Kirk or Picard for being naughty, then gamely allows that the results have been worth it.  Some characters will have to face the music with only a clean conscience at their back.

Oh, and this book is only .99 cents on Amazon, along with the other books in The Fall series.

Crimson Shadow

Star Trek the Fall: Crimson Shadow
© 2013 Una McCormack
352 pages

After ten years of reconstruction, the Federation is preparing to leave Cardassia. Not all the locals gathering outside are there to wish its engineers and social workers a fare-thee-well, however. A new political movement representing the old Cardassia is growing in strength, and styles itself "Cardassia First". Infiltrating civil institutions and orchestrating riots,  it promises to field a candidate against the Federation-friendly administration and disrupt Cardassia's growing relationship with the Federation and its allies.  Worse yet, a high-profile political assassination puts both powers on the edge of falling away from one another.   Assassinations and unruly mobs, with the fate of Cardassia hanging in the balance -- this looks like a job for....Garak, Intergalactic Man of Mystery!

No longer the mere mysterious spy-turned-tailor of Deep Space Nine, Garak is Cardassia's ambassador to Earth, having previously served in other Reconstruction governments.The Garak of Crimson Shadow has grown much from the Garak of the television show, who was already complex.  Garak's past association with an organization so ominous that it chills Cardassian spines fifteen years after its demise has left him with blood on his hands that cannot be rubbed out. His conscience was once becalmed by the thought that he was acting for the good for Cardassia, in the service of the State, but witnessing nearly a trillion deaths and the obliteration of so much of what he loved has broken Garak's faith. Now,  ever wrestling with his conscience, he hopes to help Cardassia find a new way -- one that includes more engagement with the rest of the Quadrant --  and gropes for how to fight monsters without again becoming a monster himself.   Garak hasn't hung up his cloak and dagger for good, though, as he proves to have a few tricks up his sleeve that don't involve discretely killing someone. This quandry is also present in the stories of several police officers, who are trying to establish and protect their Constabulary's integrity after past versions of it were co-opted by the State to hurt the people.  One of the few non-Cardassian characters here is Jean Luc Picard, who with Garak has to somehow mitigate the damage that each man's civil superiors threatens to wreack in the wake of both books' events.

I enjoyed The Crimson Shadow enormously, as I'm partial to Cardassian stories and especially to Garak.  While there's still a little obviousness in how McCormack portrays her villains, she did introduce an interesting idea about the origin of the Obsidian Order. Her portrayal of Garak, as he and his castellan (president) try to navigate away  from the sirens that might destroy them, even as they attract so many citizens,  more than makes up for the mustache-twirling antagonists.  As a bonus, McCormack indirectly quoted CS Lewis, when she makes Garak observe that people are much more dangerous when their tyranny is effected with sincere intentions to help others.  A comparative Lewis quote is here.

Revelations and Dust

Star Trek the Fall:  Revelation and Dust

401 pages

© 2013 David R. George III

David R. George takes a bullet for the team in The Fall: Revelation and Dust. First in a five-part series with five participating authors, Revelation and Dust largely consists of recap, introduction, and assassination. Well, something had to happen, right? There's four books after this, so something extraordinary had to hook us for the rest. We've had the Borg invasion, we've blown up Deep Space Nine already, the Dominion are SO yesterday, and the hostile takeover of the Federation by the Ferengi Alliance is unlikely. So, gunshots it is.

At the end of George's DS9/Typhon Pact duology, Deep Space Nine was blown up with the lost of most of its hands.  Two years later, the station has been rebuilt, this time as a proper  deep space installation instead of an ore-processing plant turned command post. Its formal opening coincides with the two year anniversary of the old station's destruction, and now the gang is back together to pay respects to their fallen comrades, and their now-vaporized home.  Tensions from the previous Typhon Pact novels -- Sisko's estrangement from his wife Kasidy,  Bashir and Dax's falling out over Bashir's determination to destroy Section 31 from the inside -- are buried, making room for new and exciting arguments.The novel largely follows the characters as they make their way to the station and renew old acquaintances, musing over the good times until the speeches and gunfire start. Part of this catching-up is an unfortunate series of chapters that re-uses a plot device from one of the early Relaunch novels:  readers are subjected to completely new characters in some quasi-fantasy setting involving a tribe called the 'Bajora'.  As with last time this is an extended vision effected by the Prophets,  because the mystical goings-on here translate parable-like to something "real" that has happened . The upshot of this thread seems to be that Sisko can have his life back from Prophets.  He can  have his family and they won't kill him. Yay. In any case, I don't want to read about random fantasy Bajorans, I want to read about President Bacco. She's always fun.

George's previous DS9 novels have all been great reads, but this one is lacking...story. This is essentially a Star Wars scrolling text intro, expanded to 400 pages.  See for yourself!

(camera pans from starfield to new station)