ENT: What Price Honor? by Dave Stern Review Thread (Spoilers)

Enterprise: What Price Honor? by Dave Stern

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The Starship Enterprise NX-01 is humanity's flagship -- the first vessel to begin a systematic exploration of what lies beyond the fringes of known space. Led by Captain Jonathan Archer, eighty of Starfleet's best and brightest set forth to pave humanity's way among the stars. Tempered by a year's worth of exploration, they are a disciplined, cohesive unit. But now one of their number has fallen.

Bad enough that Ensign Alana Hart is dead. Worse still that she died while attempting to sabotage the Enterprise -- and at the hands of Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, the ship's armory officer and her nominal superior. Even as questions swirl around Hart's death, Archer, Reed, and the rest of the Enterprise crew find themselves caught squarely in the middle of another tense situation- a brutal war of terror between two civilizations.

But in the Eris Alpha system, nothing -- and no one -- are what they seem. And before the secret behind Ensign Hart's demise is exposed, Reed will be forced to confront death one more time.

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I have no old review for this one, but I really liked it, especially because it focused so much on Reed, a character I always felt was underdeveloped in the TV show. The jumping around with time frames requires an attentive reader, but that#s not necessarily a bad thing. Definitely still among my TOP 3 of Enterprise novels.

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Yep, the first one was By the Book.

 

Still my favorite Enterprise novel. Very spooky in parts and a good character piece.

 

Excellent Malcolm Reed story I really like this book a lot.

 

This is one of those books that's so standalone, your question is meaningless.

There are, however, some pretty big dating errors compared to the television series. The dates in the book put it around the 2151/52 new year, but episode references indicate it takes place near the end of Season One, which would be mid-2152. Also, an NX-01 crewmember dies, which I think was contradicted by "Anomaly."

 

The one connection between What Price Honor? and the ENT lit-verse, that I can recall, is that this book is the first appearance of Donna "D.O." O'Neill, who served as gamma shift commander aboard Enterprise. She later reappeared in several future ENT novels.

According to Memory Beta, in the Pocket Books Timeline What Price Honor? is officially set in late February 2152, after "Two Days and Two Nights."

 

The Eris Alpha system is also mentioned in at least one other novel (was it The Buried Age?), in a line that alludes to the events of this novel.

 

I thought the messed up dates were 2150, when it should have been late-2151?

 

Glancing through my copy real quick, it looks like the story itself takes place in mid-January 2151 while also flashing back to events from late December up to shortly before the "present day." As I mentioned in my last post, the book's entry on Memory Beta points out that the book references events that happened in "Desert Crossing" and "Two Days and Two Nights," both of which took place in February 2152. So the dates in the book are off by over a year.

 

Sorry for the double post, but I've been up reading the book (this thread kinda made me want to check it out again, it's been years since I last read it ) and wanted to comment on this...

Yes, The Buried Age also mentions the Eris Alpha system. From Christopher's annotations on his website:

 

I haven't read this book since it came out, but I remember I found the book to have been very disjointed and disorienting in terms of when and where the book would jump from the present to the past, and by the end of the book I was still trying to figure out what was going on. So I have to give this book a Poor rating.

 

Thanks for the date corrections, peeps. I haven't read it since it came out!

 

I can't remember if I've read this one or not - it's early enough in the Enterprise books that I probably did but it's so long ago I can't remember. It sounds like one I'd lover though, so I'm going to see if my library has it. I shall report back

 

This is a case where a vote between average and above average would be perfect as It's not average and it's not quite above average.

 

If something isn't average, it can only be either above average or below average.

 

But it's not a 4 out of 5 rating. It's more like a 3.5 out of 5.

 

Let's not start this again, please.

 

I'm only stating what is; not enough voting resolution.