Spoilers TNG: Shadows Have Offended, by Cassandra Rose Clarke - Review Thread

[Elwro]

We have an A(lien) and B(etazed) plot here. (They could easily be two separate novelettes.) I found the B one to be a lot better; it starts as a cliche after cliche, but evolves into a satisfying tale, with a twist that actually enriches the Star Trek universe in my opinion. (And I would be glad if future authors developed it more.) However, I just don't think there's enough in A for half a novel; with all the repetitive clues the team gets, it'd be enough for a short story. In fact, it reminds me of some Soviet-era Warsaw Pact short stories I read as a kid (i.e. I was getting the Strugatsky vibe when listening), which for me is a good thing :-)

A question: the thief used an appearance-altering device. I just finished the Prey trilogy where that was a Big Thing. Here it barely gets a mention. Did I miss something in the audiobook or is there just barely any discussion of it?

@Cyfa "equally useless - and frankly irrelevant (unless I missed something) - description and accompanying thought process of making a gurney out of a table". Oh boy, this fragment gave me pause. I was listening to the wonderfully produced audiobook and it occurred to me at that point how many people, involving an extremely talented narrator who put his whole heart into the task, had been involved in making sure this riveting event would be immortalized in the way it deserved :-) [Seriously, shouldn't the editor have suggested cutting it?]

 

[thribs]

Didn’t know this was out. Only just got the new TOS novel.

 

[Csalem]

Just finished this. Thought it was fine. I know the book was meant to focus on Crusher and Troi, but based on the amount everyone else got to do, poor Geordi certainly got short-changed.

I wasn't a huge fan of how Troi was written for most of the book. It just felt like she was there to assist Worf and make him the best he can be by helping and serving him. (may explain why he was on the cover).

I would have much preferred a book where Troi and Crusher were on a mission together without the rest of the Enterprise crew.

 

[Elwro]

It occurred to me now that Riker didn't do anything in the book -- he was completely devoid of agency. He was along for the ride on the planet, but honestly, killing off the leader of the previous team wasn't worth it just to motivate Riker going there ;-)

[Thanks to the guys from Positively Trek for talking to the author! Interesting stuff!]

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'm a few (very short!) chapters in. Roughly 14%. Interesting mix of suspense and comic relief, so far.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

When

Spoiler

the three relics turned up missing at the unveiling

in the back of my mind, I began to hear a sweeping Henry Mancini(?) theme, one projecting an air of absolute and unflappable calm, the unflappable calm of a certain fantastically wealthy, fiercely Polish, freelance insurance investigator from Boston. And I envisioned that suave finder-of-missing-items, portrayed by a pre-A-Team George Peppard, in sweats, towel around neck, calmly rowing his boat on the Charles River:

This isn't a job for Worf; it's a job for Thomas Banacek.

 

[Elwro]

Made my day, @hbquikcomjamesl , thanks!

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

There's an old Polish proverb: If the wolf is chasing your sleigh, toss him a raisin cookie. But don't stop to bake a cake.

The common thread in every (or at least nearly every) episode of Banacek was that regardless of whether it was a football player disappearing from under a pile-up, or a million dollars in cash disappearing from a display case in a casino, it would always turn out that not only was there something that was not as it seemed, but indeed, nearly nothing was as it seemed.

Seems to me that in addition to the incident on Betazed being a perfect textbook Banacek situation, the medical mystery is going to turn out to be another case of nothing being as it seems.

 

[Markonian]

FInished!
It was entertaining and I have some questions.
The ending was abrupt. I felt like there should've an epilogue. As soon as the Kotans audibly say Hello for the first time, the book ends.

1) I was constantly thinking about the Microbrains of Velara III - another undetectable lifeform that Crusher works to identify as such and communicate with. At no point did the doctor draw a comparison between equipment and people malfunctioning in very specific ways, and the same event happening for tech years earlier?

2) So, with the Kotans already inhabiting the planet, and being hard to communicate with, the refugees can't be settled there, right? So that happens to them?

3) We get several references of Ferengi being active around Federation space in the 23rd century and 2350s. Presumably, at the time they'd have been known as just "random unidentified aliens", given that Official First Contact occurred only in 2364.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

What "Markonian" said.

I see I was entirely correct about practically nothing being as it seemed. Although I actually was expecting a "Banacek-like" resolution on the disappearance of the relics.

It also seemed a bit stretched. At times, the short chapter length mitigated this, but at other times, it seemed to exacerbate it.

Overall, it was a fun ride, with the feel of an episode.

 

[rafterman1701]

Meh. Not a fan of this. Felt really mediocre. Stretched out, nothing of a story. Felt like a middling episode. Not a fan. Unfortunately.

 

[Relayer1]

Because mostly I am not interested in standalone stories.

I get that.

Some have been quite good, but I really liked the "what happened next" nature of the continuations, the shared universe and connectivity.

We've had a hell of a lot of episodes and unless exceptional, or a USP, I don't feel much of a need for more.

 

[Josh Kelton]

Prior to this one, what was the last TNG novel to be set during the series? Engines of Destiny?

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Yep, that was the last published novel set during TNG’s run proper, though TECHNICALLY, Engines of Destiny didn’t carry the TNG label, just carrying the label of “Star Trek.” Presumably because of the time travel nature making it more of a cross-generation tale (the same way that Federation didn’t carry the TOS or TNG label).

The last TNG novel that carried that label while being set during the series was Do Comets Dream? by SP Somtow.

 

[Leto_II]

Yep, that was the last published novel set during TNG’s run proper, though TECHNICALLY, Engines of Destiny didn’t carry the TNG label, just carrying the label of “Star Trek.” Presumably because of the time travel nature making it more of a cross-generation tale (the same way that Federation didn’t carry the TOS or TNG label).

The last TNG novel that carried that label while being set during the series was Do Comets Dream? by SP Somtow.

Technically, Do Comets Dream? was actually set in 2371, post-"All Good Things...", and not long prior to the events of Star Trek: Generations (during the eighth year of the Enterprise-D's service-record).

 

[Damian]

Just completed the novel and I ranked it 'below average.' It's been a very long time since a book has been published that I didn't care for. And I really wanted to like this book. As much as I love the ongoing litverse (and would love to see it continue indefinitely) I still always wanted to see an occasional standalone TNG (and DS9, Voyager, etc) novel set during the series. So I was very interested in reading this novel. Also Cassandra is a new author for Star Trek, our first new one in a while, so I wanted to really like it (though she apparently is an experienced author). But it just wasn't happening for me here.

At the beginning of the book I had to remind myself a few times the era we were in. Between the ongoing litverse and Picard (and all the changes that have occurred in the intervening years) I had to remember this was still season 7. I also initially forgot about Troi and Worf's short lived romance, which feels like a lifetime ago now. And that's an important part of the story. But that's just an observation and not a critique.

I had a hard time getting interested in the two storylines here. There were 2 distinct story lines, which isn't always a bad thing, and neither story line had anything to do wtih the other, other than the Enterprise was not available to rescue the stranded team on Kota. But as others have noted I found the Betazed house leaders obnoxious and one dimensional, with little difference between them other than Virox. Picard is roped into a ceromonial role he does not want, and after the thefts all he wants to do is return to the Enterprise to take charge of the investigation and hunt for the thieves. But he is convinced to stay to help 'babysit' the bratty house leaders. So Worf is placed in charge and along with Deanna they go on a chase, first of a Romulan, then of a Ferengi and we learn a shocking twist. But I found myself just going through the motions reading the story, almost more out of an obligation to see it through rather than any actual interest. And we don't find out much more about the Romulan, though it is inferred that she will be arrested for the thefts while the Ferengi is given a chance to 'escape.' Ho hum.

Meanwhile on Kota, the away team has strange dreams and all their tech...and Data, starts malfunctioning. This part of the story was mildly more interesting. I do give Clarke credit for creating a totally alien life form. But the reveal comes so late in the book and then it's basically cut off just as they finally start communicating because the book has ended...er, I mean the Enterprise has arrived to pick them up and I guess they have some pressing engagement that makes it impossible to try to learn more about this totally new life form, despite their mission credo to explore strange new worlds.

I also found the writing a bit confusing at times. Esp. while Crusher was communicating with the aliens. At times I found myself lost and having to re-read parts. I was really trying to figure out what point was trying to be made. And there were other parts of the book that I got tripped up on. Maybe it's because of my lack of interest, but it just didn't seem to flow all that well at times.

So what were the positives? I did find the Vulcan ambassador to Betazed interesting. And unlike the other house leaders on Betazed, she actually did add a little more depth to Lxawana Troi. At first this looked like it was going to be the normal Troi trying to harass Picard endlessly to annoyance. But she had moments where she was really a help, and she actually helped Picard out by telling him one of the Bajoran legends about the treasures when he was worried about his away team on Kota.

But overall, I just couldn't find a whole lot to like here, despite hoping Clarke's first Star Trek outing would be a good one. But overall I just didn't find the overall story that interesting and at times I found the writing to be a bit confusing.

 

[Christopher]

I thought it had some interesting ideas. Not just the aliens on Kota, but the description of the biodegradable research base, designed to decay away without trace when the mission was done. That was a neat bit of technological futurism, though one that's tricky to reconcile with the way TNG-era tech was portrayed onscreen.

It was nice to see Lwaxana portrayed in a fairly positive way, rising to the occasion and doing well in the crisis. I felt that Picard came off as rather petulant; it's hard to believe he'd be quite this resistant to participating in a diplomatic function that gives more insight into a Federation culture.

 

[Damian]

I thought it had some interesting ideas. Not just the aliens on Kota, but the description of the biodegradable research base, designed to decay away without trace when the mission was done. That was a neat bit of technological futurism, though one that's tricky to reconcile with the way TNG-era tech was portrayed onscreen.

It was nice to see Lwaxana portrayed in a fairly positive way, rising to the occasion and doing well in the crisis. I felt that Picard came off as rather petulant; it's hard to believe he'd be quite this resistant to participating in a diplomatic function that gives more insight into a Federation culture.

Yeah, there were some things the book had going for it. Thinking back Picard did seem uncharacteristically petulant, a good word to describe it. Also, Riker seemed off a bit (that's harder to explain but at times it almost seemed like he wasn't even there).

Enough to keep it from being poor to me. I treat 'poor' like 'outstanding' in that a 'poor' novel would have to have almost nothing going for it and be poorly written to boot (just as I reserve 'outstanding' for a truly entertaining book that is almost flawless. The Phoenix novels come to mind when it comes to a poorly written story. Shadows Have Offended does have a couple positives. I was just disappointed with it overall, and a couple times I was lost. For instance when Troi is first being taken back to see Brynt, she's talking to the other Ferengi, and at first I wasn't sure if she was talking to the Ferengi or the Romulan. I had to go back and re-read that paragraph before I figured it out. It just didn't flow all that well at times. I usually don't have those problems with current Star Trek novels.

I was curious to see if there were any nods to other Trek lit in any way. But I didn't see any. But I didn't count that for or against the novel. That was more just a curiosity to see (plus, there probably would not be much to tie it to since it's years before Nemesis even). I'm not sure how familiar Clarke is with other Trek novels.

Perhaps things will improve if Cassandra writes any future Star Trek novels. It'd be nice to add a new writer to the mix. We'll have one more new Star Trek novelist to read from later this year so we'll see how that book goes.

 

[Little_kingsfan]

I finally got around to reading this and I feel like an echo when I say it was fine...nothing special, nothing spectacular or noteworthy, and nothing horrible - although it was fun to go back in time to 2370 to TNG's final season, and I'm ambivalent about the fact that there was nothing to tie it into the Lit-verse-at-Large.

That said, I did enjoy seeing more of Betazed, Lwaxana was her usual larger-than-life self who managed to surprise me (and Picard) in the scene where she was able to take his mind off the fact that he had responsibilities that kept him off the bridge of the Enterprise at a (somewhat) critical time, and I would very much like to see more of Ambassador Sulel - I wonder what she's up to in the 2380s.

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

Peachy keen, Billy Jean! https://warpfactortrek.com/shadows-have-offended-review/