Star Trek: The Next Generation: Posession (#40) by JM Dillard and Kathleen O'Malley

[Kilana2]

Haha, sorry to cause confusion! It didn't even occur to me people wouldn't know what I meant. I've been organizing my books, and just did TNG the other day, so issues of cover and spine design are fresh in my mind.

Though there are some good books in that era (Intellivore, Diplomatic Implausibility), a lot are just bland and boring (Dragon's Honor, A Fury Scorned, The Death of Princes, To Storm Heaven, Tooth and Claw). The earlier TNG books could be a little more hit-and-miss, perhaps, but had more standouts, and the failures were more interesting.

I think there was just a malaise in the Pocket editorial offices at the time; the era's TOS novels are also pretty dull (Twilight's End, The Rings of Tautee, Heart of the Sun, Across the Universe).

It's interesting. I found Tooth and Claw abysmal. Intellivore mediocre. And I loved Dragon's Honor and The Death of Princes. Diplomatic Implausibility was good.

 

[marlboro]

Just wanted to say that I am a fan of these review threads for the more obscure Trek books. Personally, the hit to miss ratio when picking up the older books is fairly terrible, so it's nice to have people turning up hidden gems.

 

[DrBeverly]

I just finished reading this one after finding it for £1 in my local second-hand bookstore. One thing that impressed me was that I felt that Dillard and O'Malley had really captured each character's voices - I could 'hear' Troi, Worf, LaForge etc in my head really well throughout.

I wonder though if anyone knows the story behind the writing of this one. It's the only book the pair write together, and I think O'Malley's only Star Trek book. She often collaborated outside Trek tie-ins with A C Crispin. And in the acknowledgments at the end, Dillard thanks O'Malley for 'coming to her rescue during a very difficult year'. Made me wonder if this was originally a Dillard novel she couldn't complete for personal reasons, and then how much was written by each of them...

Not that that should detract from what I thought was a pretty good book! A tad silly in places, and takes far too long to get going, but a pretty exciting plot by the end and good character work.

 

[Reanok]

I remember reading this book years ago and liking it.

 

[Starbreaker]

This was one of the first Trek novels I ever read. I hadn't seen Demons and that's probably why I didn't like the book very much.