I didn't really like it, honestly. It was very predictable, and because each chapter was a flashback, there was no feeling of jeopardy in the emergencies they were dealing with.
I didn't read Dark Passions, so I dunno. (The title 'Dark Passions' amuses me. It sounds like a soap opera.)
Yes, Susan Wright is the one who also wrote the Dark Passions duology (which, in my opinion, deserves a follow-up. I really enjoyed those two books). And I thought the Badlands duology was okay. I do agree with shanejayell about the predictability and lack of jeopardy.
I actually liked Badlands. For once, a generation-spanning story actually had a good method of tying TOS to the modern series. The TNG segment was rather weak, though, and the VOY segment would have been better if it had just focused on the Maquis. The TOS and DS9 segments were both pretty good.
When does the DS9 component happen? Before the end of the TV series? I believe the Voyager one is pre-TV series. TNG & TOS components happens when? Is this duology as reviled as the last few posts?
I started reading it, Kirk was in Sickbay and TOUCHED HIS COMBADGE. I was done. If you are that clumsy i don't want to keep going
^Yeah, that's a typical error of Susan Wright's work, honestly. Beyond those kinds of lack-of-attention-to-detail issues, her plots are generally weak, her characters wooden, and her prose is mind-numbingly bland at best and completely asinine at worst. Nothing she's ever written is worth reading. I gave it several tries, including her Voyager novel Violations, the TOS Gateways book One Small Step and Starfleet Academy: The Best and the Brightest, and yes, The Badlands. Every single one of them is a complete and utter nightmare. She's, IMO, the worst Trek novelist in history.
I've never read any of her work other than the Dark Passions duology, but that was more than enough for me. To me, it was some of the worst TrekLit that I've ever read. When I look at some of the other non-Trek novels that she's written, I have to ask myself, who the heck thought she might be a good fit for TrekLit?! Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary. - Byron
You mean, "Hi I'km Susan WRight and I"m Bi-Sexual, therefore EVERY FEMALE IN THIS BOOK WILL BE TOO?" Those books were the worst.
Fifth season, shortly before "In Purgatory's Shadow" (i.e. the time when Bashir had been replaced by a Changeling). Right. Both it and the VGR installment of the similar The Brave and the Bold crossover duology are crammed into the brief period between Janeway getting command of Voyager and the ship getting lost in the Badlands. (I believe the B&tB one is chronologically first.) As far as I recall or can determine, the TOS installment is your typical late-5-year-mission setting, while the TNG is sometime in the 5th season of that show, about three years before the VGR portion and five years before the DS9 portion.
These were one of the earliest Trek books I bought and enjoyed them at the time but now all I can remember about the TNG portion was Riker being shaved by Deanna...
At least it was appropriate for the Mirror Universe, because apparently every woman was bisexual there. Yeah, B&tB was first because it was Tuvok infiltrating the Maquis several weeks to a month before the events of Caretaker, then Badlands was Voyager leaving DS9 and getting to the Badlands before getting wisked away. IIRC, Evek committed suicide in Badlands, but I don't know if the rest of Trek Lit ever mentioned that.
^Evek is still alive post-DS9 in A Stitch in Time, so The Badlands evidently doesn't fit into the main novel continuity. And yes, Dark Passions is the only Susan Wright Trek work I know of with multiple bisexual female characters. Wright did pioneer the portrayal of LGBT relationships in Trek Lit with Jayme and Starsha in The Best and the Brightest, though back then it had to be kept subtle and implicit; but I can't recall any instances in Wright's other Trek Lit. Although of course many other authors of various genders and orientations have included LGBT characters and couples in their work since then, which is just a natural part of representing human diversity as Star Trek is supposed to do.