[Brendan Moody]

I've just finished Losing the Peace, and as ever I have a great variety of compliments and complaints that wouldn't matter to anyone but me, but I'm not sure I have the willpower to organize them into a review. For now I'll just highlight a few things I enjoyed and one that annoyed me a little.

I very much appreciate the character-driven feel of the book. There's not exactly a lack of action, but compared to previous TNG "relaunch" stories the epic feel is toned down, and the character interactions get a lot of space. I didn't always feel those character arcs were completely successful, but either way it was good to see them worked on.

It was nice to get some insight into Beverly's response to Jack's death. It's been in the background of her character a lot, but never really came into focus before, and the flashback sections fleshed that out credibly without going on too long.

The grim situation at the refugee camp was also effectively conveyed. It's hard, given the starship/starbase centered nature of Trek, to make the planetary devastation from the Borg invasion feel as real as it should, and Losing the Peace does as much as any book could to bring that across.

I appear to be the only person so far who's felt this way, but I thought Picard's behavior in kidnapping the politicians and flying off to Pacifica was obnoxious and a little hypocritical. Viewed in the light of the Star Trek cliche that Admirals Are Idiots, it makes sense, and in a way all comes out well because the politicians Learn A Valuable Lesson. But I'm not sure how Picard's decision to fly off to his preferred emergency because his medical officer/wife asked him to is any better than Barrile and Tiernan's focus on their own planetary crises. It's true that the Pacifica situation was more urgent than those at Alpha Centauri or Deneva, but (as Akaar points out, before Picard conspires to ignore him in a moment I didn't find as funny as I was evidently supposed to) there are emergencies everywhere. Akaar does lecture Picard on how his behavior was inappropriate, but this being Star Trek, instead of punishment he gets offered a promotion.

Anyway, whatever my complaints, Losing the Peace is a fundamentally thoughtful book that follows up on a number of the lingering TNG threads from Destiny and gives characters old and new some time to shine.