So, after a lengthy time to wait, and more 404 errors than you can count, I finally managed to download the other day KRAD's entry in the TNG Slings And Arrows series, entitled Enterprises Of Great Pitch And Moment. The premise to the book is simple: the Federation has elected Min Zife of Bolarus as their President, and his first order of business is to normalize relations with the Klingon Empire and to do that, one has to convince Gowron that peace between the two powers is better than war, especially with the Dominion on their backs. (There are other reasons as to why peace with Qo'Nos was better than war; I invite those who are interested in reading the Decline and Fall of the Zife Administration to read A Time To Kill, A Time To Heal, A Time For War; A Time For Peace, and for a nice epilogue, read Articles of The Federation. For those of you that have, it's old news) Anyways, so with this first mandate, Picard's summoned to the house of the Federation Council and is met by Koll Azernal and ordered to meet Gowron, since Picard was the one who, under his authority as Arbiter of Succession, installed Gowron as Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. He was also told he'd be working with Captain Sisko of Deep Space Nine, a man that Picard had a history with, considering that as Locutus of Borg, Picard killed Sisko's wife, Jennifer, at Wolf 359.
On Deep Space Nine, Sisko is given similar orders because it was Sisko and his covert team that found and destroyed the Founder impersonating Martok at Ty'Gokor, so Gowron has a level of trust and respect for these two men. Sisko also learns he has to work with Picard, and isn't overly thrilled about it. The Enterprise arrives at DS9, the two crews brief, they head to preliminary meeting, and are told to meet Gowron in the Badlands, and to come in a shuttle, not the Defiant, the captains consent and make the rendez-vous, and then Something Really Bad Happens, and it's up to Worf and Data to save their captain's lives, while exposing the truth behind this meeting. In the end, you know things will turn out okay, but how you get there is all the fun in reading this book.
All in all, I enjoyed this short book. I will concede that I had thought ...Great Pitch and Moment would have been written in a style consistent with Keith's other works, and in particular, I expected something akin to A Time For War; A Time For Peace. However, when I realized how short the work was, I saw that it was a dumb hope, and shame on me for thinking so. Nevertheless, this book still rocked! Keith keeps the action going, and there's enough here to make it worth the time to read it (for the record, I read it in just under an hour). The pacing of the story is akin to that of a DS9 two-parter. The first part builds to where Something Bad Really Happens, and the second part would have been the resolution. The dialogue was on the ball, and Keith did a great job matching the characters on television to their literary counterparts. Reading Worf one could hear Worf (this was an obvious one), and Keith's had experience with Picard, so it was nothing to be surprised about there. This is a TNG story, but Keith did a fantastic job with the DS9 characters as well. For the short time they were in the story, I liked Dax and Kira. (I won't lie...I'm completely in love with the character of Kira Nerys, and when I get to read about Kira, I get giddy) The interaction with Sisko and Picard was spot on in that it felt choppy, and one would imagine that after the interaction we saw of them in Emissary, this was an inevitability. The two of them walk on eggshells around the other, and it's brilliant. The part that was interesting was that it was Picard who offered the first olive branch. Personally, I always thought it'd be Sisko. But, once they made some kind of peace, the captains worked well together. The funniest part was when Picard insisted on Sisko calling him "Jean Luc", Sisko's reply of, "Well, you can call me 'Captain Sisko'..." was nice. It reminded me of Kirk and Picard in Generations, albeit funnier.
Back on DS9, with Worf and Data working to rescue their captains, this part of the story was short (as to be expected), and the mystery wasn't all that indepth. Deep Space Nine fans will notice the similarities in this story and the mystery in The Darkness And The Light, and how both are resolved. I won't spoil it here. In the end, all's well, and the nice epilogue that segues into First Contact makes the Picard/Sisko relationship that much stronger, and gives this story proper closure.
The cameos were great, from Koll Azernal to Admiral Hayes, and even to Miranda Kadohata who we see now in Q&A and Before Dishonour. We get to visit some exiciting places, both old and new, and only fitting that this being a KRAD e-Book, we start in none other than the Palais de la Concorde. LOVED IT!!!!
Worth a second or third reading by far, anybody who has NOT yet read this, please do so.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jeremy W. Woolward
On Deep Space Nine, Sisko is given similar orders because it was Sisko and his covert team that found and destroyed the Founder impersonating Martok at Ty'Gokor, so Gowron has a level of trust and respect for these two men. Sisko also learns he has to work with Picard, and isn't overly thrilled about it. The Enterprise arrives at DS9, the two crews brief, they head to preliminary meeting, and are told to meet Gowron in the Badlands, and to come in a shuttle, not the Defiant, the captains consent and make the rendez-vous, and then Something Really Bad Happens, and it's up to Worf and Data to save their captain's lives, while exposing the truth behind this meeting. In the end, you know things will turn out okay, but how you get there is all the fun in reading this book.
All in all, I enjoyed this short book. I will concede that I had thought ...Great Pitch and Moment would have been written in a style consistent with Keith's other works, and in particular, I expected something akin to A Time For War; A Time For Peace. However, when I realized how short the work was, I saw that it was a dumb hope, and shame on me for thinking so. Nevertheless, this book still rocked! Keith keeps the action going, and there's enough here to make it worth the time to read it (for the record, I read it in just under an hour). The pacing of the story is akin to that of a DS9 two-parter. The first part builds to where Something Bad Really Happens, and the second part would have been the resolution. The dialogue was on the ball, and Keith did a great job matching the characters on television to their literary counterparts. Reading Worf one could hear Worf (this was an obvious one), and Keith's had experience with Picard, so it was nothing to be surprised about there. This is a TNG story, but Keith did a fantastic job with the DS9 characters as well. For the short time they were in the story, I liked Dax and Kira. (I won't lie...I'm completely in love with the character of Kira Nerys, and when I get to read about Kira, I get giddy) The interaction with Sisko and Picard was spot on in that it felt choppy, and one would imagine that after the interaction we saw of them in Emissary, this was an inevitability. The two of them walk on eggshells around the other, and it's brilliant. The part that was interesting was that it was Picard who offered the first olive branch. Personally, I always thought it'd be Sisko. But, once they made some kind of peace, the captains worked well together. The funniest part was when Picard insisted on Sisko calling him "Jean Luc", Sisko's reply of, "Well, you can call me 'Captain Sisko'..." was nice. It reminded me of Kirk and Picard in Generations, albeit funnier.
Back on DS9, with Worf and Data working to rescue their captains, this part of the story was short (as to be expected), and the mystery wasn't all that indepth. Deep Space Nine fans will notice the similarities in this story and the mystery in The Darkness And The Light, and how both are resolved. I won't spoil it here. In the end, all's well, and the nice epilogue that segues into First Contact makes the Picard/Sisko relationship that much stronger, and gives this story proper closure.
The cameos were great, from Koll Azernal to Admiral Hayes, and even to Miranda Kadohata who we see now in Q&A and Before Dishonour. We get to visit some exiciting places, both old and new, and only fitting that this being a KRAD e-Book, we start in none other than the Palais de la Concorde. LOVED IT!!!!
Worth a second or third reading by far, anybody who has NOT yet read this, please do so.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jeremy W. Woolward
That would have been sweet.
