Summer 2022 Reading Entry #9. That Sleep of Death (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Slings and Arrows, Book 4: That Sleep of Death) by Terri Osborne (2008). The fourth of a six-book series of ebooks (still not available in print form as of this time) released in 2007-2008 as part of Pocket Books' commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" television series.
Each of the books in this series is written by a different author (or team of authors), and they all take place in the first year of service of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E (so, following the film Star Trek Generations, in which the Enterprise from the tv series, NCC-1701-D, was destroyed, and prior to the following film, Star Trek: First Contact, in which its replacement, the Enterprise NCC-1701-E, was introduced).
This fourth book in the "Slings and Arrows" series centers entirely on Dr. Beverly Crusher. As mentioned briefly in the previous book in the series (The Insolence of Office), Crusher is attempting to restart the on-ship theater company she once had going on the Enterprise-D before that ship was destroyed. The new, Enterprise-E, company is in rehearsals for A Christmas Carol, with Data playing the narrator and Reginald "Reg" Barclay playing Scrooge. (Will Riker is reluctantly also in the play, playing Jacob Marley.)
At the same time, the Enterprise-E crew has its very first diplomatic mission aboard the new ship, to carry a Kendarayan envoy to a summit meeting so that the envoy can share important information regarding the Dominion (the only thing that really ties this story in with the overarching theme that runs through all six books, the impending war with the Dominion). This particular species, the Kendarayan, their skin secretes an iridescent layer of "sebum" that protects them.
However, as soon as the Kendarayan envoy comes aboard, members of the crew starting first with Deanna Troi start to lapse into deep comas during nighttime hours and Crusher has to find the cause. Signs point to the Kendarayan envoy as he has either been in direct contact with each of the fallen crewmembers or they in turn have apparently spread it to the others. Crusher is stymied, however, by the enjoy's refusal to allow her to take a sample of the sebum because, as he explains, is in actuality, a separate life form that each Kendarayan lives in coexistence with.
Crusher is also forced to have to activate the Emergency Medical Hologram that is being field tested aboard ship--something she recalls regretting agreeing to when the hologram program's creator, Dr. Louis Zimmerman asked her to when his first test ship, the U.S.S. Voyager, went missing--to assist her in monitoring the patients in the comas while she seeks out a cause and a cure. (Curiously, this book seems to indicate that Crusher is activating the Emergency Medical Program for the first time when it is also briefly seen in the previous book, The Insolence of Office.)
This is the first of the books in the "Slings and Arrows" series that left me feeling not overly impressed. Osborne's writing is fine, but it just doesn't feel like there's enough story here with the Kendarayan envoy/crewmembers falling into comas plot alone.
As I mentioned about The Insolence of Office, that book felt like two separate "B-plots" from a typical "Next Generation" episode put together (and satisfyingly so). Here, it feels like we are missing either a secondary B-plot to go along with the Kendarayan one, or that the one we get isn't given enough room to be fully developed. As a result, That Sleep of Death feels like a decent long-ish short story (or "novelette") rather than a fully fleshed out novella/short novel. And the page count, a mere forty-four pages, by far the shortest of the six "Slings and Arrows" books, would seem to bear that out. (And the page count would have been even shorter if not for the scenes of the Christmas Carol rehearsals, which, aside from giving us some nice moments to get back into Beverly Crusher as a character, don't really add anything to rest of what's going on.)
There is one minor thing that bothered me. At one point during the story, Captain Picard is one of several who have fallen into one of these comas that Crusher is still trying to determine what is causing. Crusher immediately contacts Data and asks him to bring the Kendarayan envoy to sickbay right away. As soon as she has done this, Will Riker also falls into a coma in sickbay right in front of her, Nurse Ogawa, and the Emergency Medical Hologram. What bothers me is that Crusher didn't immediately contact Data again to inform him that with both Picard and Riker medically incapacitated, Data, as second officer, is now officially in command of the ship. It would seem to me that that would be something regulations would have required of her. (Granted, Data was already on his way to the envoy's quarters to bring him to sickbay, but still.)
Again, the writing is good here. Osborne gets the character of Beverly Crusher well. However, due to the Kendarayan plot being a rather simple one (it's obvious the envoy is in some way causing the comas), what we are primarily left with is Crusher reacting to the escalating problem (and the in between scenes at the play rehearsals). Perhaps if we could have followed the enjoy to his meeting with Troi early in the story, and later on his tour around the ship with Picard, it would have felt like a fuller, more fleshed out story (although that would have meant shifting away from Crusher as the sole point of view character).
As it is, That Sleep of Death is an enjoyable enough "Next Generation" short story or "novelette", but I have to say that it's not really necessary to read in order to enjoy the other books in the "Slings and Arrows" series. And, unlike the other books I've read in that series so far, it doesn't really "fill in" anything of any real importance between Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: First Contact, aside from that Crusher does not end up liking the personality of the Emergency Medical Hologram. I believe that's what Osborne was going for, to explain why Crusher in First Contact says she had "sworn never to use one of these things" right before activating the EMH to distract the Borg drones while she and her staff and patients escaped. But there really isn't enough interaction here between her and the EMH (or scenes with the EMH actually treating patients) to really make that come across here in this story.
As a result of all of the above, I gave That Sleep of Death a three out of five stars on GoodReads. Next up: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Section 31: Rogue, one of four "Section 31" novels that came out in 2001. I'm reading it in between books four and five of "Slings and Arrows"as the editor of the latter series, Keith R.A. DeCandido, says the last two "S&A" books take place simultaneously with each other and following the events of Rogue.
(Previous Summer 2022 Reading Entries: #1: Star Trek: Avenger by William Shatner (1997; novel); #2: Batman vs. Ra's Al Ghul by Neal Adams (2019-2021, six-issue comic book limited-series; 2021 collected hardcover edition); #3: Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid, Leinil Francis Wu, and Gerry Alanguilan (twelve-issue comic book limited series; 2003 to 2004; read on DC Universe Infinite, also available in hardcover and softcover editions); #4: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Slings and Arrows Book 1: A Sea of Troubles by J. Steven York and Christina F. York (2007; novella), #5: The Orville Season 1.5: New Beginnings by David A. Goodman and David Cabeza (2019, four issue comic book limited series; 2020 collected trade paperback edition), #6: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Slings and Arrows, Book 2: The Oppressor's Wrong by Phaedra Weldon), #7: Superman: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, and Jon Sibal (2009-2010, six-issue comic book limited series; 2019 "Deluxe Edition" collected hardcover edition), #8: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Slings and Arrows, Book 3: The Insolence of Office by William Leisner (2007).
—David Young
