The good, the bad and the lovely

Yesteryear was 20 years of Star Trek: The Next Generation and there were celebrations aplenty! (Probably.) One such celebration were a set of big exciting books in the ST:TNG series. Not sure how many there were, but I picked up three.

Resistance by J. M. Dillard features the return of the Borg. 'Cos you just can't keep a good villain down. This could easily serve as a prequel to First Contact with the Borg gearing up to a threat that Picard and co might attend to, despite all wishes of higher up (in this case, Admiral Kathryn Janeway). It's a decent book, but it does take a little time to get started. Once underway there is some Borg action, but there could easily be more. There is a more cerebral approach to taking on the Borg, but there does get to be some kind of fight scene in the end. Certainly a book to note.

Q&A by Keith R. A. DeCandido features, strangely enough, Q. This book is set after Resistance, which is quite easily to tell as over half the book is spent with the characters moaning on about how the events in Resistance affected them, or giving in depth back story to the new characters. However, I read this book first, so that aspect didn't mean anything to me. And there is very little Q. Fine, an omnipotent being does tend to ruin the plot a little, but it would have been nice to have plot to ruin! In fact, this book is a battle between plot versus character development, with the author wanted to do a lot of the latter while grudgingly giving time when force to the former. And there's yet another retcon on why Q did the things he did! This is a book to avoid.

Before Dishonor by Peter David features... the Borg! This is a sequel to Resistance in a way that Q&A never could be. Following on from events in Resistance the Borg take another evolution in how they act, and this time in the hands of a true master author. The Borg are back and way nastier than ever, and the entire book basically becomes a big battle to try to stop them. Now this is a decent story truly well told, although it does make reference to a previous Peter David book (Vendetta) which I have only read once (which is at least helpful over referring to things I haven't read). There is also an ending which... I'm not sure if it will stick in the ST universe, but will definitely create interesting waves if it does. (And I also note there is another New Frontier book coming out, yay!) Definitely a must read (but do pick up Resistance and Vendetta).

So I don't just read Doctor Who, but this does show that any series output can very wildly in quality from book to book.

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