Spoilers TNG: Resistance by J.M. Dillard Review Thread

[Defcon]

TNG: Resistance by J.M. Dillard

Blurb:
Captain Jean-Luc Picard, his ship repaired, must now reassemble his crew. With the departure of both William Riker and ship's counsellor Deannna Troi, the captain must replace his two most trusted advisors. He chooses a Vulcan, a logical choice, and for his new first officer, Worf. But the Klingon refuses the promotion and the new ship's counsellor appears to actively dislike Worf. A simple shake-down mission should settle everything. Except that once again, the captain hears the song of the Borg collective. Admiral Janeway is convinced that the Borg have been crushed and are no longer a threat. Picard believes she is wrong, and that if the Enterprise doesn't act the entire Federation will be under the domination of its most oppressive enemy.

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My review from 2007:

An average novel.

The writing is decent enough, but the character work is very uneven in my opinion. There are some characters J.M. Dillard captured very well, especially Janeway. The Janeway shown here is exactly how I see her: anal about the regulations as long as it isn't her breaking the rules. Most of the regulars characterizations are decent, too, but I don't buy the whole Worf plot about him not believing in his worthiness to be in a commanding role. He was commander of a Starfleet vessel after Jadzia's death, the Defiant, he was responsible for the relation between the Federation and it's biggest ally, but now he doesn't think he is worthy to be Picard's first officer? Way to constructed dilemma for my taste. Of the new characters the only one with a good characterizations is killed off in the end, so the whole work is kind of wasted, especially when you see how one-dimensional T'Lana remains. The story has it's moments, but the new viciousness of the Borg isn't enough to make them overly interesting again.

Overall an improvement for the TNG Relaunch after "Death in Winter", but nothing that blows you away.

 

[Thrawn]

Not a favorite; having all the characters comment repeatedly on how all of the storylines sound exactly like previous episodes doesn't make the fact that it copies previous episodes wholesale any better.

 

[zarkon]

A pretty awful read. As Defcon noted, Janeway was written fairly accurately, but all the new characters of this vintage of TNG (Resistance to GTTS) felt flat. The story is fairly boring given the stakes, and I have no desire to ever reread this book

 

[F. King Daniel]

I read through this part of the TNG relaunch backwards (Destiny, Greater Than the Sum, Before Dishonor, this) so to be it felt like another minor prelude to the big invasion. Picard becoming Locutus again felt forced, and the less said about "royal jelly", the better.

 

[PKS8304]

I haven't given this book a second thought since I read it. I read this back to back with the other 3 books when they came out and honestly alot of the details kind blur into the others so I would need to read this again on its own but I do remember not really having any complaints about any of those books so I'd say I probably at least enjoyed it well enough.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

It's an enjoyable enough "popcorn flick" type book. It suffers from the E-E feeling empty, almost every new character is a throwaway character. (A problem that plagues the post-Nemesis TNG books up until GttS) However, between this book, Before Dishonor and Greater than the Sum, it's too much Borg too soon and they all end up losing some luster because of it. The book is laser focused on Picard and Crusher and Word and could careless about Geordi who just sort of appears because he's supposed to be there. It clearly seems like between the A Time To... books and these ones they really had no guiding principal like with the DS9-R or even Golden's original VOY-R - regardless of its inherent quality, it seemed there was some planning involved.

 

[VDCNI]

Very poor - and the weakest of the Borg novels leading up to Destiny. The only positive thing I can say is that is was nice to see Crusher save the day in an action sequence. Other than that - completely forgettable.

 

[Paris]

An average vote from me. I remember liking this book just fine as part of the run up to Destiny. I read it really close to the other TNGR books, and as it wasn't as jarring as Before Dishonour, I don't remember disliking it. I'll have to check it out again in the future to double check..

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Sadly, one of my least favourite. Partly that's just my preference for arcs and continuity coming to the fore - this book seemed to serve as a relaunch for TNG that would attract a wide audience, more casual fans rather than those who follow the novels religiously. As such, references to previous novels were lacking, which was a shame. I very much wanted to at least have the words "Rashanar" and "Tezwa" brought up. There were a few continuity issues, too. B-4's fate conflicted a bit with Articles of the Federation (though Greater Than the Sum later dealt with this quite neatly), and most notably it was claimed that Worf had never met Janeway in person (he did, in Death in Winter. The book before this one). Given the issues with Before Dishonor, I'm wondering if the powers that be were just so eager to launch the TNG post-Nemesis books that they didn't give anyone time to read anyone else's work...

One thing I did like was how Seven of Nine was acknowledged and made out to be important without actually appearing. It was a nice way to reinforce the obvious fact that she's the Federation's expert on the Borg without turning a Picard/TNG adventure into a Seven of Nine piece. If only such deft handling of relevant extra-TNG details had been present as regards the novels...

Certainly not a poorly-written book, but sadly very forgettable.

 

[Reanok]

I didn't care for this book at all I'm not fan of borg stories.

 

[tomswift2002]

I found the book was "Outstanding" and a whole lot better relaunch than "Death In Winter". And I remember, back in 2006-2007 before the book came out whether it would actually be released, or become a "Ghost" title, since there had been that preview in DIW 2005 hardcover printing, and then nothing more announced, and tha preview had really "whetted my appetite" for the story.

 

[Stephen!]

It seemed a bit too much of a "kill fest" overall. I preferred "Before Dishonor" to "Resistance".

 

[Enterpriserules]

I remember this being a very average story that was the first in a long line of Borg stories, that began to lose me until Destiny finally just took care of them.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I know I read it but I don't remember a single thing about it.

 

[langdonboom]

My least favorite of the pre-Destiny Borg books. Felt like it really paled in comparison to what came after, especially Destiny. But I also thought the weakness of this book had as much to do with the prose as the story itself. I'm not a Borg-hater, but it felt to me like this was written below the standards of the other Borg-centered novels like Greater than the Sum, and Before Dishonor.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Just finished Resistance.

What worked:

I enjoyed Dillard's writing style over Friedman's. Her character work on the canon crew was fine and the new characters were decent. The cloak capability in Federation vessels was an interesting idea. Beverly was given a substantial story arc that felt very satisfying.

What didn't work:

T'Lana was a bit of a cypher. The text seemed to suggest more to her story, but the book ends with no delivery on these suggestions. If this is build-up for subsequent books in the TNG series -- I'll soon find out.

Each of the three Borg infiltration plans were poorly thought out and amounted to little more than the plots of low-standard video games. The endless pages of "shoot Borg, recalibrate phasers, shoot Borg, repeat" became a slog to read.

I thought that the return of Locutus would prove interesting, but he behaved like a conventional drone. Ho-hum.

Chronologically speaking, we aren't too far removed from the events of the A Time to... series, but Picard's blatant insubordination of Janeway's orders appears to occur in a vacuum. It wasn't that long before this novel's events that Picard was on Starfleet's shit-list. Picard and Janeway behave like the books before Nemesis never occurred.

Overall, the book wasn't badly written but the story failed to spark much intrigue for me. A fairly mediocre read.

 

[Mizrach]

"Resistance" has great potential, but the final work it's just average.
Dillard writing is the opposite of Bennett's writing: too much plot and too less characterization. It turns out as a thriller, but a weak one. Not like Mack's book in the Legacies trilogy: that is a thriller, impossible to put down.
How many characters are on Ent-E? Ten? Small world syndrome indeed.
I have read 4 books on Picard from the ST Lit Guide Flow Chart (2 Stargazer and 2 TNG), but I'm not satisfied. I seriously hope the quality will increase down the road.

 

[DarKush]

I remember a lot of people not caring for this book when it came out and it seems like that persists. But I enjoyed the book when I read it back in the day. I though it was fast-paced and a fun return to the Borg. I also liked Sara and Lio better than some of the other new TNG characters that were introduced during that period. I also see it as perhaps the start of the Borg arc leading to Destiny. In that "arc" I liked Before Dishonor the least.

 

[Kilana2]

I remember a lot of people not caring for this book when it came out and it seems like that persists. But I enjoyed the book when I read it back in the day. I though it was fast-paced and a fun return to the Borg. I also liked Sara and Lio better than some of the other new TNG characters that were introduced during that period. I also see it as perhaps the start of the Borg arc leading to Destiny. In that "arc" I liked Before Dishonor the least.

Alas the newly introduced characters didn't last long enough to get to know them better.

 

[Kertrats47]

Just posted my review of this novel. Not a favorite, but I did enjoy a few aspects.