Star Trek Insurrection by J.M. Dillard Review Thread (27th Anniversary)

[tomswift2002]

Published: December 1998 in hardcover
Publisher: Pocket Books
Also published: Star Trek Insurrection (YA novel) by John Vornholt

Plot: Data goes rogue and Picard must rescue him from the fountain of youth!

Review: First off, Insurrection was the first ever Star Trek film I saw in theaters and bought in widescreen on VHS tape (as the widescreen version in its blue cassette was the only version out from Ottawa to Winnipeg and even today when I find the tape used it’s always the widescreen version). I also bought John Vornholt’s novelization in December 1998 with Christmas money, but never bought J.M. Dillard’s version (nor see it again) until a few days ago. Back then the $30 price tag was steep for a teen and I expected the novel to get a paperback release before the millennium.

I notice the spine doesn’t use the traditional Pocket Books kangaroo like was used my my Star Trek Generations or Star Trek First Contact hardcovers), but a kangaroo in flight. The logo looks like it should be on a Qantas airplane!

I’m sixty pages in and so far it’s been a beat-for-beat retelling of the movie with very little added, unlike her previous novelizations where she added a lot.

 

[Tosk]

I don't have much to add, so I'll just highlight the time that Michael Piller's The Dead Zone threw some comedy shade at Michael Piller's Star Trek Insurrection.

 

[tomswift2002]

I don't have much to add, so I'll just highlight the time that Michael Piller's The Dead Zone threw some comedy shade at Michael Piller's Star Trek Insurrection.

That’s similar to how I got my hardcover copy of Star Trek Generations in 1998: it had a Clearance stick on it and was on clearance for $4.99 at a Smithbooks in Ottawa (and as I recall they had at least another twenty on Clearance that day on one of the tables at the mall entrance).Regular $26.50 on for $4.99.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Since it's a review thread, added a poll.

 

[Markonian]

Read this years ago. INS is my favourite Star Trek movie. I appreciated the additional scenes and background on the Son'a and how they got started.

 

[tomswift2002]

I’m up to about Chapter 10. This is a very barebones novelization with no additional scenes. I was expecting a scene when LaForge was in engineering repairing Data, and wakes up Data, that would go back before the movie and show what had led up to the opening scene, but there was nothing, just a paragraph break to where they are on the planet getting them Artim to show them where he had been.

Reading this in 2026, any additional scenes or lines in the book are what can be found on the Special Edition DVD or Blu-Rays in the Deleted Scenes. Plus I think the novelization also has the original ending, that is also in the Deleted Scenes on the discs.

 

[tomswift2002]

This is one book where in terms of technical writing it’s high quality and outstanding, but in terms of the story, it feels like Dillard was told to just follow the dots and not add anything else. In that sense it’s a very poor book because it’s, as I said, barebones and there’s nothing added to explain parts of the movie that you would want explained.

 

[Reanok]

I like the book I reread again a few yeras ago and like the dditional scenes that filled in the blanks and added more depth to the chracters and made the story more interesting . I like wow Donatra's character was portrayed in the book and some of the romulans defied shinzon in the book and ended helping Picard near the end of the book.

 

[DonIago]

I like the book I reread again a few yeras ago and like the dditional scenes that filled in the blanks and added more depth to the chracters and made the story more interesting . I like wow Donatra's character was portrayed in the book and some of the romulans defied shinzon in the book and ended helping Picard near the end of the book.

Wrong book.

I never read this one. It's sad how far things declined from the heyday of the novelizations of TWOK and TSFS.