(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 3/14/20, over two months prior to my joining up here.) I just finished reading Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope (2020), the first original novel tying into (and a prequel to) the now airing CBS All Access television series, “Star Trek: Picard”.
The story takes place in the Star Trek timeline in the years 2381-2385, starting two years after the events of the last of the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies, Star Trek: Nemesis (which took place in 2379) and deals with the discovery that the central star in Romulan space would soon be going supernova, threatening billions of lives living in planets within the blast range. (The Romulan star going supernova in 2387, two years after the events of “The Last Best Hope”, is from the 2009 J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. “Star Trek: Picard”, the tv series, then picks up the story in 2399: twenty years after Nemesis, fourteen years after the end of The Last Best Hope, and twelve years after the Romulan star going supernova, destroying most of the Romulan empire.)
Ok, now that I’ve covered when this takes place, what did I think of the novel? Overall, I liked it. As of this time, I have not yet watched any episodes of “Star Trek: Picard” (although I plan to begin watching them over my now two week long—two weeks instead of the usual one thanks to the Coronavirus outbreak—Spring Break which just started). So, unlike for most people who will be reading this novel, I assume, it really was more of a preparation experience for “Star Trek: Picard” rather than that of a prequel story (which it also is).
I should also mention that despite my being a long-time Star Trek novel reader going all the way back to the mid 1980s (including the start of the Star Trek: The Next Generation novels), for the most part I would buy them with the plan to read them all “eventually” (something I am just now finding the time to finally get started on).
One reason why I mention this now is that Pocket Books released over the years (from 2003 onwards) a large number of “post Nemesis” Star Trek: The Next Generation novels establishing an entire timeline of events for Captain Picard and company that now do not line up with “Star Trek: Picard” (similar to the oodles of Star Wars tie-in novels and comic books that instantly got relegated to “Star Wars: Legends” status when Disney purchased Lucasfilm and started making new Star Wars movies starting with The Force Awakens).
Unlike the Star Trek readers who are not over twenty years behind in their Star Trek reading, though, this did not really effect my enjoyment of The Last Best Hope because I am not fully aware of just what happened in the previously released post Nemesis novels.
I thought the story here was interesting, Picard leaving the Enterprise to accept promotion to admiral so that he can take command of the fleet of relief ships being sent into Romulan space to transport refugees to planets outside the supernova’s anticipated blast range.
Much of the novel deals with the sheer size and scope of such a mission. How to massively increase and speed up the number of starships that can be produced to be used as transport ships. The creation of the workforce to build those ships. And political bounce back from both Federation member worlds who see it as a massive diversion of necessary resources from their own planets in order to help the Romulans, who have for generations been a nemesis, as well as from the scientists and engineers who must now put years of their own research and projects on hold in order to be part of the Romulan relief effort.
On top of all of this, the Romulans involved, both at the governmental level as well as those refugees that Picard is transporting to safety, continually make things difficult by hiding information and having their own agendas.
The only two Star Trek: The Next Generation “regulars” that are in “The Last Best Hope” are Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi La Forge, the latter being Picard’s man in charge back at the Utopia Planitia shipyards on (and in orbit around) Mars overseeing the shipbuilding and retrofitting phase of the relief mission. Although a few other TNG characters are referred to, every other character is an original one (although I know that at least a few of them are also on the “Star Trek: Picard” tv series).
Without going too much more into the plot details, I did find it to be an enjoyable enough story from both the perspective of a general Star Trek story as well as specifically as a lead up to the “Star Trek: Picard” series, bridging the gap between “Next Generation” and “Picard”.
Two things that kind of bugged me, though. First, the author, Una McCormack (for whom this is her ninth Star Trek novel writing), includes only the slimmest of connections with what was seen in Star Trek, the 2009 J.J. Abrams movie, regarding the Romulan supernova. In that movie, Ambassador Spock is shown to have been trying to stop the supernova from happening and failing to do so. Granted, that’s a couple years after Last Best Hope, but what we discover about what Spock is up to during the timeframe of this novel is disappointingly little. (I can only guess that they wanted to keep the references to the 2009 movie to a minimum.)
More distracting to me was the repeated use of common current day profanity in this novel. Now, I know that there are regular Star Trek fans who aren’t bothered by that, nor would I really be if I was reading a non Star Trek novel. However, it breaks me out of the entire Star Trek mindset to have characters frequently using the “f-word” and “sh*t” as not only does it break the illusion that the story is taking place hundreds of years in the future from now but also because it seems to break with established Star Trek precedent. Yes, in the previous Star Trek tv series and movies going all the way back to the original 1960s “Star Trek” tv series and on through the various other tv series and movies, you get quite a few “damns”, etc. You even get the rare, strategic harsher curse word (such as when Data, still struggling with having real human emotions for the first time, says “sh*t” upon realizing that they are going to crash into the planet’s atmosphere in Star Trek Generations).
However, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home addressees, and humorously so, that the use of profanity is mostly unknown to Kirk, Spock, and company in their own time frame in the 23rd century when they suddenly find themselves in the streets of 1986 San Francisco amongst twentieth century people who are using such terms all around them. (The unforgettable instance of Kirk trying to mimic that behavior by cursing back to an angry driver, “Well, double dumb ass on you!”)
It’s not that I want there to be absolutely zero profanity in a Star Trek story, but, at the same time, I feel like there should be a specific reason for it, and that it should be used sparingly. Instead, in The Last Best Hope, it comes across to me as a decision by someone (I don’t know if McCormack as the author of the novel or perhaps the producers of the tv series which it is tying into) to start to make the way people talk in Star Trek more like that ofhow people talk today “in real life” rather than how they have, often by necessity, talked in past Star Trek tv series and movies. (I should point out that Picard himself does not use the above mentioned curse words in the novel, but La Forge does a few times, something we’ve never seen from him prior to this, and several of the original “Picard” characters that we are introduced to in the novel, like Picard’s new first officer, Raffi Musiker, do most of the cursing.)
All of that said, I still enjoyed The Last Best Hope and I look forward to watching “Star Trek: Picard” (and to reading any future “Star Trek: Picard” tie-in novels). I rated Last Best Hope three stars out of five on GoodReads (although I would have given it a three and a half star rating if GoodReads asked for half stars.)
(Oh, and going back to my many decades now of reading Star Trek novels. As I said before, much of the time that I was buying the Star Trek novels in the 1980s through early 2000s, I was not actually reading them as they came out. I now have literally hundreds of Star Trek novels that I look forward to reading for the first time. The Last Best Hope has the distinction of actually being the first Star Trek novel that I’ve read “right away”—within the first month of its publication—in I don’t know how long (probably over fifteen years!))
The story takes place in the Star Trek timeline in the years 2381-2385, starting two years after the events of the last of the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies, Star Trek: Nemesis (which took place in 2379) and deals with the discovery that the central star in Romulan space would soon be going supernova, threatening billions of lives living in planets within the blast range. (The Romulan star going supernova in 2387, two years after the events of “The Last Best Hope”, is from the 2009 J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. “Star Trek: Picard”, the tv series, then picks up the story in 2399: twenty years after Nemesis, fourteen years after the end of The Last Best Hope, and twelve years after the Romulan star going supernova, destroying most of the Romulan empire.)
Ok, now that I’ve covered when this takes place, what did I think of the novel? Overall, I liked it. As of this time, I have not yet watched any episodes of “Star Trek: Picard” (although I plan to begin watching them over my now two week long—two weeks instead of the usual one thanks to the Coronavirus outbreak—Spring Break which just started). So, unlike for most people who will be reading this novel, I assume, it really was more of a preparation experience for “Star Trek: Picard” rather than that of a prequel story (which it also is).
I should also mention that despite my being a long-time Star Trek novel reader going all the way back to the mid 1980s (including the start of the Star Trek: The Next Generation novels), for the most part I would buy them with the plan to read them all “eventually” (something I am just now finding the time to finally get started on).
One reason why I mention this now is that Pocket Books released over the years (from 2003 onwards) a large number of “post Nemesis” Star Trek: The Next Generation novels establishing an entire timeline of events for Captain Picard and company that now do not line up with “Star Trek: Picard” (similar to the oodles of Star Wars tie-in novels and comic books that instantly got relegated to “Star Wars: Legends” status when Disney purchased Lucasfilm and started making new Star Wars movies starting with The Force Awakens).
Unlike the Star Trek readers who are not over twenty years behind in their Star Trek reading, though, this did not really effect my enjoyment of The Last Best Hope because I am not fully aware of just what happened in the previously released post Nemesis novels.
I thought the story here was interesting, Picard leaving the Enterprise to accept promotion to admiral so that he can take command of the fleet of relief ships being sent into Romulan space to transport refugees to planets outside the supernova’s anticipated blast range.
Much of the novel deals with the sheer size and scope of such a mission. How to massively increase and speed up the number of starships that can be produced to be used as transport ships. The creation of the workforce to build those ships. And political bounce back from both Federation member worlds who see it as a massive diversion of necessary resources from their own planets in order to help the Romulans, who have for generations been a nemesis, as well as from the scientists and engineers who must now put years of their own research and projects on hold in order to be part of the Romulan relief effort.
On top of all of this, the Romulans involved, both at the governmental level as well as those refugees that Picard is transporting to safety, continually make things difficult by hiding information and having their own agendas.
The only two Star Trek: The Next Generation “regulars” that are in “The Last Best Hope” are Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi La Forge, the latter being Picard’s man in charge back at the Utopia Planitia shipyards on (and in orbit around) Mars overseeing the shipbuilding and retrofitting phase of the relief mission. Although a few other TNG characters are referred to, every other character is an original one (although I know that at least a few of them are also on the “Star Trek: Picard” tv series).
Without going too much more into the plot details, I did find it to be an enjoyable enough story from both the perspective of a general Star Trek story as well as specifically as a lead up to the “Star Trek: Picard” series, bridging the gap between “Next Generation” and “Picard”.
Two things that kind of bugged me, though. First, the author, Una McCormack (for whom this is her ninth Star Trek novel writing), includes only the slimmest of connections with what was seen in Star Trek, the 2009 J.J. Abrams movie, regarding the Romulan supernova. In that movie, Ambassador Spock is shown to have been trying to stop the supernova from happening and failing to do so. Granted, that’s a couple years after Last Best Hope, but what we discover about what Spock is up to during the timeframe of this novel is disappointingly little. (I can only guess that they wanted to keep the references to the 2009 movie to a minimum.)
More distracting to me was the repeated use of common current day profanity in this novel. Now, I know that there are regular Star Trek fans who aren’t bothered by that, nor would I really be if I was reading a non Star Trek novel. However, it breaks me out of the entire Star Trek mindset to have characters frequently using the “f-word” and “sh*t” as not only does it break the illusion that the story is taking place hundreds of years in the future from now but also because it seems to break with established Star Trek precedent. Yes, in the previous Star Trek tv series and movies going all the way back to the original 1960s “Star Trek” tv series and on through the various other tv series and movies, you get quite a few “damns”, etc. You even get the rare, strategic harsher curse word (such as when Data, still struggling with having real human emotions for the first time, says “sh*t” upon realizing that they are going to crash into the planet’s atmosphere in Star Trek Generations).
However, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home addressees, and humorously so, that the use of profanity is mostly unknown to Kirk, Spock, and company in their own time frame in the 23rd century when they suddenly find themselves in the streets of 1986 San Francisco amongst twentieth century people who are using such terms all around them. (The unforgettable instance of Kirk trying to mimic that behavior by cursing back to an angry driver, “Well, double dumb ass on you!”)
It’s not that I want there to be absolutely zero profanity in a Star Trek story, but, at the same time, I feel like there should be a specific reason for it, and that it should be used sparingly. Instead, in The Last Best Hope, it comes across to me as a decision by someone (I don’t know if McCormack as the author of the novel or perhaps the producers of the tv series which it is tying into) to start to make the way people talk in Star Trek more like that ofhow people talk today “in real life” rather than how they have, often by necessity, talked in past Star Trek tv series and movies. (I should point out that Picard himself does not use the above mentioned curse words in the novel, but La Forge does a few times, something we’ve never seen from him prior to this, and several of the original “Picard” characters that we are introduced to in the novel, like Picard’s new first officer, Raffi Musiker, do most of the cursing.)
All of that said, I still enjoyed The Last Best Hope and I look forward to watching “Star Trek: Picard” (and to reading any future “Star Trek: Picard” tie-in novels). I rated Last Best Hope three stars out of five on GoodReads (although I would have given it a three and a half star rating if GoodReads asked for half stars.)
(Oh, and going back to my many decades now of reading Star Trek novels. As I said before, much of the time that I was buying the Star Trek novels in the 1980s through early 2000s, I was not actually reading them as they came out. I now have literally hundreds of Star Trek novels that I look forward to reading for the first time. The Last Best Hope has the distinction of actually being the first Star Trek novel that I’ve read “right away”—within the first month of its publication—in I don’t know how long (probably over fifteen years!))
