Chains of command
January 23rd, 2008
I can’t honestly say that I’ve read that many Star Trek Next Gen novels, a couple of the hardcovers and that’s really it. You see there is a quality difference in the Star Trek books - the hardcovers are a few a year and are generally landmark or event books that may deal with big Trek continuity ideas such as featuring Scotty and Spock in TNG time period etc.
The paperbacks are a different story, they are not really supposed to write about established characters from different eras, family members and life altering events. They are all supposed to be stand alone stories that don’t have an impact on the continuing story.
There is good aspects to this and there are bad, often I feel that it weighs heavier on the bad side but the sheer number of Trek novels means that it could easily become highly convoluted. The other thing and this applies to all Star Trek novels is that they are not canon, that is they are not officially recognised in any timeline. This gives the movies and the shows the freedom not to be across what’s going on in the books.
So I just finished is the Star Trek The Next Generation novel Chains of command not to be confused with the episode Chain of Command or the episode Relics (of course if you were to confuse the episode Relics with Chains of command then you would be an idiot and honestly there is no hope for you).
The Good
It’s been a while since I’ve watched a lot of the next gen but I was always annoyed by the writers and how they dealt or rather ignored certain characters. Deanna Troi being one of the main ones. She could have been a very complex character with a lot more depth. Sure there were episodes that I was genuinely interested in her, particularly the episode that she was left in command after the ship was badly damaged and then later when she started bridge command training.
So I was really happy to read about her empathic abilities and being overwhelmed by the rather lurid thoughts of a crowd of men who had not seen a woman for at least five years. The whole internal struggle and reaction was just written really well.
The Bad
Riker is poorly handled in this book, he is doubting himself after losing a red shirt and he is acutely aware of it throughout the mission. I also found that Dr Crusher’s feelings of missing Wesley (he’s gone off to the academy by the time this book is set) were really forced and just awkward to read. She’s a character I don’t particularly like at the best of times. It’s possibly the stories she’s been given.
The other
The alien species in this story are an avian race that resembles giant chickens and are in fact nicknamed chickens by the slave race of humans that they found. I actually pictured them in my mind when reading it giant canaries. There was mentions of an avian race in Enterprise during the Xindi episodes but I think they were more majestic.
This is an alright read. Not life changing but a pleasant diversion and a nice enough episode of the Next Generation.
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Categories: Books, Science Fiction, Star Trek | Tags: chains of command, novels, Star Trek, the next generation, TNG
this is one franchise i just never got into
sir jorge’s last blog post..A Broken Camera
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Yeah I wasn’t going to get into the next gen books myself but a couple of cheap second hand book stores and a book fair later and I have a whole bunch to now read. I’ve got to collect them all now - it’s a sickness.
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