Star Trek: New Frontier: The Returned 1-3
Book 19-21
Synopsis:
Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the crew of the U.S.S. Excalibur are back, picking up three months after the stunning events depicted in New Blind Man’s Bluff. Calhoun's search of Xenex has failed to find any survivors, and now he is bound and determined to track down the race that killed them—the D'myurj and their associates, the Brethren—and exact vengeance upon them. His search will take the Excalibur crew into a pocket universe, where he discovers not only the homeworld of the D’myurj, but another race that shares Calhoun's determination to obliterate his opponents. But is this new race truly an ally…or an even greater threat?
Analysis: I'm doing this book as one single review because I feel like the three novellas really are just one very good(ish) New Frontier novel that was divided into three parts. I feel like it is a questionable place to end the series, though, because there's a lot of unanswered questions.
According to urban legend, Peter David supposedly did a Soleta-centric novel after this novel that he never got published and I would very much like to read it. If it exists, it makes me wonder if it's available on his Patreon. Either way, it saddens me there will never be another New Frontier novel and it is a bit like saying goodbye to a bunch of old friends. You can only speculate where the NF version of Robin Lefler, Shelby, Calhoun, Soleta, Xyon, Kalinda, and others may have ended up.
The story is divided into roughly two parts with Mac suffering PTSD and obviously needing years of therapy before coming back to work, hopping back into work at the chance of getting revenge on the Demiurge race. Mac intends to commit genocide against them because, as we remember, he's a Conan the Barbarian-esque savage in a Star Fleet uniform. This doesn't surprise me as he's someone clearly not in his right mind but the fact that his crew indulges him right up to the point that he's planning genocide, well, doesn't sit well with me.
The second part of the book is Robin Lefler, Mark McHenry, and Cwansi returning to New Thallon in order to secure the latter a place for his future rulership. Unfortunately, the cartoonishly evil Shintar Han is determined to invite them back solely for the purposes of eliminating them. The fact that Cwansi would not come of age for twenty years and could easily be a puppet doesn't enter Shintar's head as he just keeps trying to kill them all.
Eventually, he summons the power of the Awesome who turns out to be Q in a plot that I don't think works very well for the TNG character. Q may be as close to a god as anything in the Trek universe but I can't really ever imagine him allowing himself to be worshiped or going out of his way to answer the prayers for a child's murder. He's undoubtedly killed many children with his games but its the very lack of care to the "small picture" is why I don't think he'd work with them. Props to the resolution, though.
Honestly, these novellas are some of the darkest in Star Trek, which is part of why it's so strange that they remain so mostly lighthearted. There's sexual assault, the genocide of THREE races, our heroes help in the genocide of two even if they don't directly annihilate everyone, themes of suicide, and the constant attempts at murdering a baby that are played for a laugh. It doesn't help the Dayam (Damn?) are one-dimensionally evil Necromongers that want to kill all other life in the universe because, they're bad guys meant to be worse than the Demiurge.
Mark McHenry and Robin Lefler become involved in this book and this is an interesting twist because Mark has a lot of Wesley Crusher elements at the end of his run. He's basically a Traveler, awkward, goofy, and probably resembles the adult Will Wheaton now in my head. I think it's a pretty good romance but comes a little quickly after the death of Si Cwan in-universe. Sadly, Cwansi is aged up as an adult, which is kind of terrible and would be incredibly traumatic in real life but fits the kind of "Cable/Nate Summers" logic that I'm fairly sure Peter David was drawing from.
Oh and Mac gets raped.
Yeah.
No real way to talk around that, Soleta zaps his brain and they have sex without him having any choice in the matter. Except, it is played as an extention of Soleta being in love with him and her being a victim of Pon Farr. Then they end the series on her being pregnant with his kid. I feel like this was really not very well handled and makes pretty light of male sexual assault. Especially since, under other circumstances, I would have supported a love triangle between these two or Soleta/Mac.
I can't even say I liked the handling of Xyon this book around since he ends up trying to kidnap a child to give to an evil Prime Minister, endangers the entirety of the Excalibur crew, and betrays his love of Kalinda in a way that makes him a complete scumbag. Even being called out as evil by his computer and working to make amends doesn't really make up for the fact a character who should really know better did some truly reprehensible things. Also, you'd think he'd have been even slightly more sympathetic to his dad during this or at least unwilling to destroy so many lives of people who were otherwise friendly to him. Kalinda is onboard the Excalibur for example.
Yeesh.
I am going to say this is the second set of New Frontier books I don't much care for.
Way-way too dark and sadly a poor place to end.
Still it was a fantastic run.