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

[Markonian]

After reading By the Book, I started with What Price Honor? rightaway.

Does somebody know the significane of the grammatically awkard title? Shouldn't it be "What is the Price of Honor?" or "The Price of Honor"?

The novel was solid entertainment. The timeframes never confused me, even when I laid down the book for a few days. I would've liked to see Elizabeth Cutler again, as sort of lower decks characters and to strengthen continuity with the first book.

I liked that the plot was based on something from TOS, anticipating ENT's great fourth season, in a way.

I guess the star system seen at the end of the book was never picked up again?

The next book on my list is Surak's Soul. Unfortunately, I'll skip Rosetta because its price is unreasonable.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Does somebody know the significane of the grammatically awkard title? Shouldn't it be "What is the Price of Honor?" or "The Price of Honor"?

It's a construction that condenses the question "what personal cost are you willing to pay for honour?" It's more a piercing question than an open-ended inquiry.

 

[Christopher]

Does somebody know the significane of the grammatically awkard title? Shouldn't it be "What is the Price of Honor?" or "The Price of Honor"?

It's a common English idiom that's been around for a long time, in constructs like "What price victory?" or "What price glory?" (the name of a 1924 play with two film adaptations, one by John Ford) or "What price fame?" It's basically a rhetorical question meaning "Was gaining this thing really worth the cost/the damage done in pursuing it?" Or sometimes to suggest that the thing has been rendered worthless by the actions taken in its pursuit, like, "What price security if we sacrifice liberty?"

 

[Markonian]

Thanks for the explanation! I googled the exact phrase before posing the question so as not to make a fool of myself. There were only two major findings - either direct references to the ENT novel, or the phrase "What Price Glory?", which I dismissed as not being the same.

 

[VST]

That's two for two on ENT novels, as this was a pretty damn good story.

Reed is still probably one of the blander crew members but I really felt his dynamic with Alana throughout this, very nicely played. The flashback structure threatened to become a little 'gap filling' until the final reveal, which mitigated all that - nice use of ancient tech to tell a quite creepy story once we got to the finish. Just a shame the 'villain' race couldn't have been more familiar, as the Sarkassians just seem a little too powerful & self-important never to be heard from again in the future.

Overall yeah… another solid novel, a good character study that nails everyone's voices, and better I'd say than 'By the Book'.

 

[Paris]

...Reed is still probably one of the blander crew members...

Christopher has been doing a great job with him in his recent ENT: Rise of The Federation novels. Reed is now one of my favorites in the ENT sphere after those last two books

 

[VST]

^That's good to hear. I will be getting to those books eventually, looking forward to it. I like Reed, I just felt he didn't get much in the show, so it's nice to hear the books give him some focus - certainly worked in this one.