It’s taken me a while to get around to this anthology, and a while yet to read it due to my workload, but overall it was well worth the wait. This is a top-notch anthology, rivaling Tales of the Dominion War, which I’m particularly happy with considering the uneven nature of the TNG-Relaunch thus far has left me unsatisfied with the way my favourite series has been handled; I’m not sure if Marco still checks these boards, but kudos on a well put-together piece. The book has many outstanding stories, making it a true challenge to choose a favourite (though I eventually did), and those stories which I didn’t care for generally only produce an impassive reaction rather than active dislike; no canine Dadaism or exercises in character assassination here. The stories are a mixture of one-off adventures and follow-ups on lingering threads from the actual show, which feels appropriate for a TNG anthology.
Meet With Triumph and Disaster by Michael Schuster & Steve Mollmann
Having said all of that, it’s unfortunate then that the anthology is bookended by the pieces I liked the least, which I’m going to treat separately. The real problem with this short story is… well, there’s no story to it; it’s almost like an extended slice-of-life piece aboard an as yet unlaunched ENT-D, starring a non-entity and supplemented by early series guest stars I’ve no memory of. The protagonist has already made his decision, encounters no obstacles to carrying them out… I’m reminded of Michael Piller arguing for trashing the DS9 sets for “Emissary”, arguing “There’s no drama to a man coming to a space station and deciding to stay;” well, there’s no drama in a man showing off a spaceship and then leaving. I kept waiting for some reason to care about Holloway or his decision, but none were forthcoming; at least not yet (the epilogue does expand on this, as will Q&A). Maybe I just missed the point, but I finished this piece asking myself “Why did I just read this?”
Acts of Compassion by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
A competent if unremarkable story; the character interaction and pacing are good, but there’s little in way of mystery or suspense: the characters are all exactly who they appear to be at first blush, and the denouement easy to anticipate. Still, it’s good to see Yar get some screen time, and the theme of the story—medicine as diplomacy—is a positive one.
Redshift by Richard C. White
This story kicks off a string of excellent stories. Firstly, it gives us a perspective into the curmudgeony-ness of Pulaski, which, since she was here and gone so fast, isn’t something we see often, and it’s a good insight too, with the right mixture of hard-bitten competence and demanding nature, and feeling like she’s not connecting and unsure whether that bothers her—and of course, the one character she does connect with, LaForge, is to be placed in peril. It all makes her a sympathetic heroine in a story that’s surprisingly intense for a medical protagonist as fighting and rescues take place in the confines of a structurally-damaged ship. I also like the central conceit that animates the story—creative, but with enough clues to what’s going on that an attentive reader can solve the puzzle before the characters do, which makes this story a nice little piece of mystery fiction as well. And, in a typical TNG way, the conflict is eventually revealed to stem from a lack of communication, with the potential for resolution once the gap is bridged.
Among the Clouds by Scott Pearson
After due deliberations, I would have to say that this is my favourite story of the collection. It doesn’t bring about any great revelation or drastic change; what it does is capture, in the space of a short story, all the themes that made TNG great. If there is a spirit of Trek, a zeitgeist of the series, Among the Clouds exemplifies it. Mysterious call for aid, an ominously dead ship, magnificent alien vistas, death-defying plunge from a space elevator, strange new lifeforms and civilizations struggling against all odds to survive and adapt to radically changed circumstances, fantastic aerial battles, enemies brought together by the need for cooperation, the optimism of a once-divided society coming together to build a better future… all this and more still, yet the story never feels rushed nor overstuffed. This story, as I read it and afterwards, left me feeling really energized, as if I had just seen a new TNG episode (one without budget limitations), or better yet, a distillation of the adventure-of-the-week format that TNG did better than any other show out there. I’ve always felt that the show’s upbeat outlook and lack of serialization were two notable challenges that it overcame in grand style; that’s also applicable to the fiction, and this story demonstrates how it’s to be pulled off. Elsewhere, it’s also nice to find an underused character like LaForge being given the lead, and his enthusiasm for the Narosians is infectious; their story, too, is a compelling one, of disaster ignored and then the terrible choices they faced, moderated by their ingenuity in adapting to their new environment. The interspacing of the scenes of LaForge’s fall with the narrative of what came beforehand works nicely to balance pacing and imbue the story with a sense of immediacy and suspense. And touches of humour throughout keep things from getting too dark even through tragedy and danger.
Thinking of You by Greg Cox
This story is pure fun, as might be expected from any story that has Barclay, Lwaxana and Ro. As nominal ‘outsiders’, though with very different personalities, Barclay and Ro make a great duo as the eccentricities of one bounce off the other; when Lwaxana comes in, the three-way interactions sparkle. Sharp characterization here lets several exaggerated characters repartee without falling into self-caricature; Barclay’s discomfort around telepaths, Lwaxana’s reaction and Ro’s reaction to her—all of it is just adorable. Then we get to the plot itself, which is also quite fun—Barclay rescuing Lwaxana from giant frogmen warriors sounds like a twisted version of one of his holofantasies, all the better than it takes place on an actual holodeck. Good use of the environment here, in several ways—I could just picture Barclay’s expression when the bugs were crawling all over him, or Ro jumping from the waterfall. And, it goes without saying, the whole thing was quite funny.
Turncoats by Susan Schwartz
I was a bit leery going into this one, given the author and subject. I’ve tried and failed to get into the Vulcan’s Whatever books and I’ve found past contributions to anthologies so mired in their own little universe of Romulans who act nothing like Romulans as to be hard to understand for the unititated reader. Fortunately, this story was nothing like that: it was accessible and engaging, and DeSeve’s inner turmoil as he tried to reconcile irreconcile actions and values made for fascinating reading. I’ve only the vaguest recollection of the episode this was a sequel to, and might have liked a bit more reminders, but ultimately it didn’t matter: the star of the story was DeSeve, watching him react to the Starfleet crew, they to him, and, again, him to their reactions (comfortable with Worf’s loathing, ill. The idea of someone defecting from the Federation to Romulus and back again certainly proved worthy of further examination, and his was a very interesting perspective through which to view the familiar. By that standard the plot is almost superfluous, but it, too, was fairly engaging. One might say that the traitor being able to sacrifice himself to earn redemption—and spare the thorny issues of what to do with him next—is too tidy and expected a solution, but execution forgives much, and this was well-done; thematically and plot-wise, this was the ending the story wanted.
Ordinary Days by James Swallow
This is another story whose point, ultimately, seems to have passed me by. I usually find alternate universe stories interesting, and unlike many actually like the Wesley Crusher character, but this scenario just didn’t feel like it had any payoff. Yes, Data and Picard die in this version, but it’s offscreen and seemingly without much consequence, since they all end up at Dorvan V anyway; the focus remains on Wesley’s path, and it’s ultimately hard to care whether Wes becomes a Traveler or not because it’s basically a dead end either way. This is perhaps more a problem with the show, or the fiction since, in that it failed to attribute any greater importance or repercussions to Wesley’s choices, than the story itself, although the conclusion speaks of individual choices having cosmic consequences without actually delving into those consequences, which is what I would have liked to seen. Beyond that, looking at Wesley connecting and reacting differently to the Enterprise was interesting, but when he drifted off into vagrancy and then domesticity I couldn’t muster much attention. And where this version of the crisis on Dorvan is never resolved, it feels like this alternate narrative comes to an abrupt and premature end.
’Twould Ring the Bells of Heaven by Amy Sisson
This story didn’t thrill me the way others in this collection did, but that high standard aside is a quite enjoyable tale. It’s greatest value stems from showing Troi in a command situation, and handling the crisis that comes up in her own fashion; I’ve never found Troi particularly compelling a character or convincing an officer, so it’s nice to find stories like this that demonstrate her competency without turning her into somebody else. It was also nice to see Taurik get some screen time. The actions scenes are good and one really feels Troi’s anxiety at using Data that way, although I must say that the scenes from Data’s perspective interspaced in the rest of the narrative didn’t work here as well as in Among the Clouds, for being less frequent and less clear. Also, as an antagonist of sorts I couldn’t really get a feel for Maher; it’s a bit too obvious that he’s just a mechanism for conflict, and as such you can’t help but wonder if Troi is justified in trusting he won’t kill given what he’s already done. Still, I thought the reveal—rings as lifeforms—was clever enough, and in keeping with the spirit of the series.
Friends with the Sparrows by Christopher L. Bennett
This top-notch story does to linguistics what Bennett has, in other books, done with physics, biology or archaeology, exploring the speculative area of the discipline in a story that engages you as much conceptually as it does via plot or characters. This story does two things which are entirely awesome. The first and most noteworthy thing is, of course, revisiting the Tamarans, logically expanding on their culture, taking the way they communicate as a demonstration of how they think and see the universe; as a reader and sometimes writer, it’s always interesting to watch the ups and downs of a civilization based on stories. Learning a new language is always an experience that expands one’s conceptual horizons, and glimpses alone into the Tamaran’s feel edifying; I also like how the story simultaneously raises and addresses the pragmatic problems that might come about with such a mode of communication, yet without ever affecting the pacing of the story. Just as interesting were those brief instances of Data communicating in the Tamaran fashion using Earth stories and his own experience as the underlying mythos; wish we’d seen more of it. The other awesome thing was the treatment of the newly chipped Data. I still recall one of the Shatnerverse books attempting to do so by putting Data through a kind of age-progression, but it’s no fun seeing a respected character act like a moody adolescent even when there’s good cause. I much prefer this take on Data’s challenges in integrating the emotion input: Data knows as much theory as ever, and hasn’t lost his ability to reflect on himself or reason; the problem lies in the gap between theory and his limited experience, combined with his usual, ready expertise on most subjects (that early conversation between Data and Troi is quite interesting). The process at work here is very different from the one by which a human learns emotional control (or fails to do so), as well it should be given Data’s nature and capacities.
Suicide Note by Geoff Trowbridge
This is a short but moving character piece. I think it was well done of Trowbridge to remember the episode this is based off of and see the possibility for fulfillment offered by latter developments; an insightful idea and well executed. It simultaneously explores the cultural gap between Federation and Romulan attitudes while suggesting where bridges between the two can be built; which, at the larger level, ties in well with using something as dreadful as a war as an opportunity for rapprochement between long-standing enemies. I don’t have much else to say about this piece, but I enjoyed it.
Four Lights by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Another story that uses the Dominion War to good effect for following-up on a lingering character point from the series. An interesting examination of Picard’s character in two movements; the first, the compassionate man of peace dealing with the psychological realities of war, bravely refusing to accept even the death of a foe as more than a tragedy. The second is his confrontation with Madred, the conflict of emotion against will, his determination to hold on to his decency and Madred’s ability to recognize that and prey on it. The second meeting of the two here is far and away better than the trite, propagandistic treatment received in Ship of the Line; as Picard himself realizes, it’s not a case of competing ideologies—that’s just cover for Madred’s predations—but of conflicting and irreconcilable mindsets and psychologies. Madred is like O’Brien in 1984, something I thought the episodes themselves played on; he breaks people not because he has to but because he enjoys it. The ending is particularly good for showing this distance that simply can’t be bridged: between Troi’s useless advice and Madred’s psychotic priorities leading him to believe that he’s won, Picard realizes that ultimately he cannot be accountable for Madred, only himself. “This does not feel like victory” is just classic Picard. A word should also be said about the story’s stylistic choices. One notices immediately that it’s told in the first person, something rarely done in TrekLit; and after a few pages, I found myself wondering why, since the text was basically descriptive and dialogic, and wasn’t making use of the perspective for the kind of introspection I would expect. A partial answer may lie in the flashback sequences, which are undeniably more powerful for being told in the first person—but also gain much of that power from the shift to the present tense. Ultimately, I think the story should have either used the first person/present tense throughout or simply have used the first person only in those segments; for the attention such a choice draws to itself, it doesn’t, outside those segments, do anything that Trek’s usual tight third-person, free indirect representation can’t do. Still, the stylistic quibble shouldn’t distract from the fact that this is a successful, interesting character piece, which I’m all the more keen on where I’ve always considered Picard a standout character and can’t get enough well-executed explorations of his persona.
’Til Death by Bob Ingersoll & Thomas F. Zahler
It’s the long awaited Dylan Thomas/Apocalypse Now/Star Trek crossover as a never-say-die Riker slowly emerges from a swamp to tract down the man that has, essentially, killed him. But, seriously, this story basically does for Riker what the previous one has for Picard, pushing the characters to their limit, placing them in a situation to lose those things they care for—Picard, his self-respect, Riker, his newfound opportunity for a life with Troi—only to bounce back by an affirmation of who they are. Of course, the plot is also very gripping: the idea of Riker walking around with this gaping hole in his chest, held alive by the little device hovering there, is a startling visual image. I admit I was concerned at first by Crusher’s fatalistic tone, which Riker seemed to catch, and his regret about Troi, worried the story was going to turn out to be some kind of emo-bitchfest. Fortunately, Riker rallies, remembering that he has never been the type to take anything lying down, certainly not death, and I was cheering him right along as he gathers (what’s left of) himself, turns his lethal condition into an advantage by which to outflank his foe, and goes down fighting (affecting, even though we know it won’t actually be the end). And Riker’s final message being a solid minute of him grinning is classic; that, and this story overall, really captures the joie de vivre which I’ve always felt to be at the center of his character.
On the Spot by David A. McIntee
I enjoyed this story, but with a few reservations. I enjoyed the plot, but felt short-shifted by the end, where we discover that there was a plot to destroy the Enterprise, but not how was behind it or why. It’s somewhat frustrating to be made aware of a crime but lack the most important aspect of it, motive. I also had a few quibbles regarding presentation; the rapid scene shifts, I felt, actually threw off the pacing, particularly when some are only a few paragraphs long and don’t deliver any information that couldn’t have been tacked on to another scene. It’s obvious that the unknown speaker at the beginning is meant to emulate Spot’s perspective, and therefore isn’t Spot; from there, actually adding scenes from the cat’s perspective felt unnecessary and treading dangerously close to cutesy. Fortunately cats are the badasses of the animal kingdom, and the remove and predatory nature counteracts the cutesy factor somewhat. What was interesting about this tale was the almost procedural aspect of Worf’s investigation, running through the possibilities, including the dead ends, the way one figures most security investigations must go but the details of which are bypassed for time.
Trust Yourself When all Men Doubt You by Michael Schuster & Steve Mollmann
It feels almost unfair to be picking on Schuster and Mollmann again, but I didn’t care for the epilogue any more than I did the prologue. The idea of Picard, in a time of self-doubt, turning to Holloway’s words for advice, and holding him up as an example for Riker, reminded me, and not in a good way, of Picard soliciting holographic Kirk for advice in Ship of the Line, only worse since Holloway is, as mentioned, a complete non-entity. It’s hard to imagine even first-season Picard calling someone else a coward for identifying and pursuing different priorities, career-wise. Picard looking into Holloway’s ultimate fate, and discovering that he fell at Wolf 359, does, belatedly, imbue some significance into his earlier decision not to assume the captaincy of the Enterprise, as does the memory of his experience with Q, but that’s as far as it goes. Add to that a pointless attempt to fluff a character one has no reason to care about and a lot of trite stuff about the joys of domesticity, and the result is a story that just lies there, without plot or any other kind of spark to engage my interest.
Meet With Triumph and Disaster by Michael Schuster & Steve Mollmann
Having said all of that, it’s unfortunate then that the anthology is bookended by the pieces I liked the least, which I’m going to treat separately. The real problem with this short story is… well, there’s no story to it; it’s almost like an extended slice-of-life piece aboard an as yet unlaunched ENT-D, starring a non-entity and supplemented by early series guest stars I’ve no memory of. The protagonist has already made his decision, encounters no obstacles to carrying them out… I’m reminded of Michael Piller arguing for trashing the DS9 sets for “Emissary”, arguing “There’s no drama to a man coming to a space station and deciding to stay;” well, there’s no drama in a man showing off a spaceship and then leaving. I kept waiting for some reason to care about Holloway or his decision, but none were forthcoming; at least not yet (the epilogue does expand on this, as will Q&A). Maybe I just missed the point, but I finished this piece asking myself “Why did I just read this?”
Acts of Compassion by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
A competent if unremarkable story; the character interaction and pacing are good, but there’s little in way of mystery or suspense: the characters are all exactly who they appear to be at first blush, and the denouement easy to anticipate. Still, it’s good to see Yar get some screen time, and the theme of the story—medicine as diplomacy—is a positive one.
Redshift by Richard C. White
This story kicks off a string of excellent stories. Firstly, it gives us a perspective into the curmudgeony-ness of Pulaski, which, since she was here and gone so fast, isn’t something we see often, and it’s a good insight too, with the right mixture of hard-bitten competence and demanding nature, and feeling like she’s not connecting and unsure whether that bothers her—and of course, the one character she does connect with, LaForge, is to be placed in peril. It all makes her a sympathetic heroine in a story that’s surprisingly intense for a medical protagonist as fighting and rescues take place in the confines of a structurally-damaged ship. I also like the central conceit that animates the story—creative, but with enough clues to what’s going on that an attentive reader can solve the puzzle before the characters do, which makes this story a nice little piece of mystery fiction as well. And, in a typical TNG way, the conflict is eventually revealed to stem from a lack of communication, with the potential for resolution once the gap is bridged.
Among the Clouds by Scott Pearson
After due deliberations, I would have to say that this is my favourite story of the collection. It doesn’t bring about any great revelation or drastic change; what it does is capture, in the space of a short story, all the themes that made TNG great. If there is a spirit of Trek, a zeitgeist of the series, Among the Clouds exemplifies it. Mysterious call for aid, an ominously dead ship, magnificent alien vistas, death-defying plunge from a space elevator, strange new lifeforms and civilizations struggling against all odds to survive and adapt to radically changed circumstances, fantastic aerial battles, enemies brought together by the need for cooperation, the optimism of a once-divided society coming together to build a better future… all this and more still, yet the story never feels rushed nor overstuffed. This story, as I read it and afterwards, left me feeling really energized, as if I had just seen a new TNG episode (one without budget limitations), or better yet, a distillation of the adventure-of-the-week format that TNG did better than any other show out there. I’ve always felt that the show’s upbeat outlook and lack of serialization were two notable challenges that it overcame in grand style; that’s also applicable to the fiction, and this story demonstrates how it’s to be pulled off. Elsewhere, it’s also nice to find an underused character like LaForge being given the lead, and his enthusiasm for the Narosians is infectious; their story, too, is a compelling one, of disaster ignored and then the terrible choices they faced, moderated by their ingenuity in adapting to their new environment. The interspacing of the scenes of LaForge’s fall with the narrative of what came beforehand works nicely to balance pacing and imbue the story with a sense of immediacy and suspense. And touches of humour throughout keep things from getting too dark even through tragedy and danger.
Thinking of You by Greg Cox
This story is pure fun, as might be expected from any story that has Barclay, Lwaxana and Ro. As nominal ‘outsiders’, though with very different personalities, Barclay and Ro make a great duo as the eccentricities of one bounce off the other; when Lwaxana comes in, the three-way interactions sparkle. Sharp characterization here lets several exaggerated characters repartee without falling into self-caricature; Barclay’s discomfort around telepaths, Lwaxana’s reaction and Ro’s reaction to her—all of it is just adorable. Then we get to the plot itself, which is also quite fun—Barclay rescuing Lwaxana from giant frogmen warriors sounds like a twisted version of one of his holofantasies, all the better than it takes place on an actual holodeck. Good use of the environment here, in several ways—I could just picture Barclay’s expression when the bugs were crawling all over him, or Ro jumping from the waterfall. And, it goes without saying, the whole thing was quite funny.
Turncoats by Susan Schwartz
I was a bit leery going into this one, given the author and subject. I’ve tried and failed to get into the Vulcan’s Whatever books and I’ve found past contributions to anthologies so mired in their own little universe of Romulans who act nothing like Romulans as to be hard to understand for the unititated reader. Fortunately, this story was nothing like that: it was accessible and engaging, and DeSeve’s inner turmoil as he tried to reconcile irreconcile actions and values made for fascinating reading. I’ve only the vaguest recollection of the episode this was a sequel to, and might have liked a bit more reminders, but ultimately it didn’t matter: the star of the story was DeSeve, watching him react to the Starfleet crew, they to him, and, again, him to their reactions (comfortable with Worf’s loathing, ill. The idea of someone defecting from the Federation to Romulus and back again certainly proved worthy of further examination, and his was a very interesting perspective through which to view the familiar. By that standard the plot is almost superfluous, but it, too, was fairly engaging. One might say that the traitor being able to sacrifice himself to earn redemption—and spare the thorny issues of what to do with him next—is too tidy and expected a solution, but execution forgives much, and this was well-done; thematically and plot-wise, this was the ending the story wanted.
Ordinary Days by James Swallow
This is another story whose point, ultimately, seems to have passed me by. I usually find alternate universe stories interesting, and unlike many actually like the Wesley Crusher character, but this scenario just didn’t feel like it had any payoff. Yes, Data and Picard die in this version, but it’s offscreen and seemingly without much consequence, since they all end up at Dorvan V anyway; the focus remains on Wesley’s path, and it’s ultimately hard to care whether Wes becomes a Traveler or not because it’s basically a dead end either way. This is perhaps more a problem with the show, or the fiction since, in that it failed to attribute any greater importance or repercussions to Wesley’s choices, than the story itself, although the conclusion speaks of individual choices having cosmic consequences without actually delving into those consequences, which is what I would have liked to seen. Beyond that, looking at Wesley connecting and reacting differently to the Enterprise was interesting, but when he drifted off into vagrancy and then domesticity I couldn’t muster much attention. And where this version of the crisis on Dorvan is never resolved, it feels like this alternate narrative comes to an abrupt and premature end.
’Twould Ring the Bells of Heaven by Amy Sisson
This story didn’t thrill me the way others in this collection did, but that high standard aside is a quite enjoyable tale. It’s greatest value stems from showing Troi in a command situation, and handling the crisis that comes up in her own fashion; I’ve never found Troi particularly compelling a character or convincing an officer, so it’s nice to find stories like this that demonstrate her competency without turning her into somebody else. It was also nice to see Taurik get some screen time. The actions scenes are good and one really feels Troi’s anxiety at using Data that way, although I must say that the scenes from Data’s perspective interspaced in the rest of the narrative didn’t work here as well as in Among the Clouds, for being less frequent and less clear. Also, as an antagonist of sorts I couldn’t really get a feel for Maher; it’s a bit too obvious that he’s just a mechanism for conflict, and as such you can’t help but wonder if Troi is justified in trusting he won’t kill given what he’s already done. Still, I thought the reveal—rings as lifeforms—was clever enough, and in keeping with the spirit of the series.
Friends with the Sparrows by Christopher L. Bennett
This top-notch story does to linguistics what Bennett has, in other books, done with physics, biology or archaeology, exploring the speculative area of the discipline in a story that engages you as much conceptually as it does via plot or characters. This story does two things which are entirely awesome. The first and most noteworthy thing is, of course, revisiting the Tamarans, logically expanding on their culture, taking the way they communicate as a demonstration of how they think and see the universe; as a reader and sometimes writer, it’s always interesting to watch the ups and downs of a civilization based on stories. Learning a new language is always an experience that expands one’s conceptual horizons, and glimpses alone into the Tamaran’s feel edifying; I also like how the story simultaneously raises and addresses the pragmatic problems that might come about with such a mode of communication, yet without ever affecting the pacing of the story. Just as interesting were those brief instances of Data communicating in the Tamaran fashion using Earth stories and his own experience as the underlying mythos; wish we’d seen more of it. The other awesome thing was the treatment of the newly chipped Data. I still recall one of the Shatnerverse books attempting to do so by putting Data through a kind of age-progression, but it’s no fun seeing a respected character act like a moody adolescent even when there’s good cause. I much prefer this take on Data’s challenges in integrating the emotion input: Data knows as much theory as ever, and hasn’t lost his ability to reflect on himself or reason; the problem lies in the gap between theory and his limited experience, combined with his usual, ready expertise on most subjects (that early conversation between Data and Troi is quite interesting). The process at work here is very different from the one by which a human learns emotional control (or fails to do so), as well it should be given Data’s nature and capacities.
Suicide Note by Geoff Trowbridge
This is a short but moving character piece. I think it was well done of Trowbridge to remember the episode this is based off of and see the possibility for fulfillment offered by latter developments; an insightful idea and well executed. It simultaneously explores the cultural gap between Federation and Romulan attitudes while suggesting where bridges between the two can be built; which, at the larger level, ties in well with using something as dreadful as a war as an opportunity for rapprochement between long-standing enemies. I don’t have much else to say about this piece, but I enjoyed it.
Four Lights by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Another story that uses the Dominion War to good effect for following-up on a lingering character point from the series. An interesting examination of Picard’s character in two movements; the first, the compassionate man of peace dealing with the psychological realities of war, bravely refusing to accept even the death of a foe as more than a tragedy. The second is his confrontation with Madred, the conflict of emotion against will, his determination to hold on to his decency and Madred’s ability to recognize that and prey on it. The second meeting of the two here is far and away better than the trite, propagandistic treatment received in Ship of the Line; as Picard himself realizes, it’s not a case of competing ideologies—that’s just cover for Madred’s predations—but of conflicting and irreconcilable mindsets and psychologies. Madred is like O’Brien in 1984, something I thought the episodes themselves played on; he breaks people not because he has to but because he enjoys it. The ending is particularly good for showing this distance that simply can’t be bridged: between Troi’s useless advice and Madred’s psychotic priorities leading him to believe that he’s won, Picard realizes that ultimately he cannot be accountable for Madred, only himself. “This does not feel like victory” is just classic Picard. A word should also be said about the story’s stylistic choices. One notices immediately that it’s told in the first person, something rarely done in TrekLit; and after a few pages, I found myself wondering why, since the text was basically descriptive and dialogic, and wasn’t making use of the perspective for the kind of introspection I would expect. A partial answer may lie in the flashback sequences, which are undeniably more powerful for being told in the first person—but also gain much of that power from the shift to the present tense. Ultimately, I think the story should have either used the first person/present tense throughout or simply have used the first person only in those segments; for the attention such a choice draws to itself, it doesn’t, outside those segments, do anything that Trek’s usual tight third-person, free indirect representation can’t do. Still, the stylistic quibble shouldn’t distract from the fact that this is a successful, interesting character piece, which I’m all the more keen on where I’ve always considered Picard a standout character and can’t get enough well-executed explorations of his persona.
’Til Death by Bob Ingersoll & Thomas F. Zahler
It’s the long awaited Dylan Thomas/Apocalypse Now/Star Trek crossover as a never-say-die Riker slowly emerges from a swamp to tract down the man that has, essentially, killed him. But, seriously, this story basically does for Riker what the previous one has for Picard, pushing the characters to their limit, placing them in a situation to lose those things they care for—Picard, his self-respect, Riker, his newfound opportunity for a life with Troi—only to bounce back by an affirmation of who they are. Of course, the plot is also very gripping: the idea of Riker walking around with this gaping hole in his chest, held alive by the little device hovering there, is a startling visual image. I admit I was concerned at first by Crusher’s fatalistic tone, which Riker seemed to catch, and his regret about Troi, worried the story was going to turn out to be some kind of emo-bitchfest. Fortunately, Riker rallies, remembering that he has never been the type to take anything lying down, certainly not death, and I was cheering him right along as he gathers (what’s left of) himself, turns his lethal condition into an advantage by which to outflank his foe, and goes down fighting (affecting, even though we know it won’t actually be the end). And Riker’s final message being a solid minute of him grinning is classic; that, and this story overall, really captures the joie de vivre which I’ve always felt to be at the center of his character.
On the Spot by David A. McIntee
I enjoyed this story, but with a few reservations. I enjoyed the plot, but felt short-shifted by the end, where we discover that there was a plot to destroy the Enterprise, but not how was behind it or why. It’s somewhat frustrating to be made aware of a crime but lack the most important aspect of it, motive. I also had a few quibbles regarding presentation; the rapid scene shifts, I felt, actually threw off the pacing, particularly when some are only a few paragraphs long and don’t deliver any information that couldn’t have been tacked on to another scene. It’s obvious that the unknown speaker at the beginning is meant to emulate Spot’s perspective, and therefore isn’t Spot; from there, actually adding scenes from the cat’s perspective felt unnecessary and treading dangerously close to cutesy. Fortunately cats are the badasses of the animal kingdom, and the remove and predatory nature counteracts the cutesy factor somewhat. What was interesting about this tale was the almost procedural aspect of Worf’s investigation, running through the possibilities, including the dead ends, the way one figures most security investigations must go but the details of which are bypassed for time.
Trust Yourself When all Men Doubt You by Michael Schuster & Steve Mollmann
It feels almost unfair to be picking on Schuster and Mollmann again, but I didn’t care for the epilogue any more than I did the prologue. The idea of Picard, in a time of self-doubt, turning to Holloway’s words for advice, and holding him up as an example for Riker, reminded me, and not in a good way, of Picard soliciting holographic Kirk for advice in Ship of the Line, only worse since Holloway is, as mentioned, a complete non-entity. It’s hard to imagine even first-season Picard calling someone else a coward for identifying and pursuing different priorities, career-wise. Picard looking into Holloway’s ultimate fate, and discovering that he fell at Wolf 359, does, belatedly, imbue some significance into his earlier decision not to assume the captaincy of the Enterprise, as does the memory of his experience with Q, but that’s as far as it goes. Add to that a pointless attempt to fluff a character one has no reason to care about and a lot of trite stuff about the joys of domesticity, and the result is a story that just lies there, without plot or any other kind of spark to engage my interest.
