Ship of the Line by Diane Carey
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It's not a bad novel if read in isolation; however, there are several obvious inconsistencies between the novel and canon that may be easily discerned by watching "Cause and Effect." Furthermore, I didn't care for the way the TOS bunch (which makes a brief appearance at the novel's outset) was depicted, something that anyone who's read the book would understand.
--Sran
Diane Carey is a matter of taste. Ship of the line features Morgan Bateson from the 23th century taking command of the Enterprise-E while Picard is sent on a mission. This novel polarized. It´s up to you to read it. There is already a Ship of the Line thread, but it might contain spoilers.
My advise is: you may as well go ahead to another novel. Morgan Bateson appears also in Christopher´s DTI novel. He handles the dealing with temporal displaced Starfleet personnel better. So "Watching the Clock" is more recommendable.
My advise is: you may as well go ahead to another novel. Morgan Bateson appears also in Christopher´s DTI novel. He handles the dealing with temporal displaced Starfleet personnel better. So "Watching the Clock" is more recommendable.
We had a review thread on this book last year 
: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=244570
: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=244570
I've never read it myself, but I have never heard anyone ever say anything good about it. One of those that is legendarily bad, from what I can tell.
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Not as bad as Double Helix - Red Sector. That´s by Carey, too. I know people who enjoyed it, though.
Not just that - a crucial conversation is undercut by the fact that Carey thinks Picard is tortured *before* he was captured and enslaved by the Borg.
^A consequence of Carey not knowing what she's talking about; she was always more comfortable writing TOS than she was any other series and should have stuck with Kirk & company. Don't even get me started on her Enterprise novelization of "Broken Bow."
--Sran
--Sran
I think Carey did a fantastic job on "Ship Of The Line" and "Broken Bow" (her novelization of BB was better than the stupid episode, hands down). "Ship of The Line" is one of the few TNG books that I've read 3 times.
Did you enjoy Red Sector, too?
As I once said: if I had the choice I would prefer Ship of the Line over Red Sector. Both are definitely not among my all-time favorites.
I think I was about 14 when this book came out. I remember getting it for christmas. It didn't really do it for me, even as a 14 year old.
I just barely remember Red Sector as being part of the Double Helix, and being a bit tired of the story. Of course I was also reading the DH omnibus, and after reading 3/4 of it, I needed to put it down and read something else.
And it's somehow set after Worf joins the crew of Deep Space 9 but before the Klingons invade Cardassia.
Are you Diane Carey?
And honestly, I'm no fan of ENT myself, but what she did with the novelization of BB was nothing short of unprofessionalism.
That book so badly needed a rewrite and an edit. I see it as a joint failure of Carey and Ordover, and I feel like it was published in an unfinished state.
All of these problems aside, I actually have fond memories of the book! I think I usually just ignored all the stuff about Picard and focused on Bateson's Space Nautical Adventure.
Exactly this. If she'd have written Hornblower-esque fiction, maybe set in and around the American Revolution, I'd have lapped that up in a heartbeat.
However, I suspect that there's not much of a market (or much money) for that kind of fiction. Outside of O'Brian and Forester (or Novik, who added dragons to it), what's out there seems to come from small and specialty presses.
Carey has published a few historical-fiction novels. She's done two books of a Civil War trilogy (which the publisher apparently abandoned) under the byline D.L. Carey; I can't find out much about them, but they're apparently told from the Confederate side and the hero is a very Randian libertarian type. She also did a fairly recent book called Banners about Francis Scott Key and the War of 1812. She's also done a number of "historical romance novels" that Wikipedia lists but her own website doesn't.
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