An adventure crossing generations!
This book is a tie-in prose novel of “Star Trek: The Original Series”. The first part is developed during the command of Captain Christopher Pike, right after the events of the TV episode “The Cage”; and the second part is developed during the command of Captain James T. Kirk, set between the events of the movie “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” and “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”.
HAIL THE MASTER STORYTELLER
I read this prose novel after knowing the sad news that Peter David, the author, passed away. He is my favorite Star Trek novelist. He did a lot of stuff, not only prose novels of several franchises and movie novelisations, but in the Star Trek franchise, even he was the first authorized to make an original prose novels spin-off Star Trek: New Frontier which was so successful that opened the path to other prose novels spin-offs, also he was prolific and respected in comic book works for DC and Marvel, including the co-creation of the Spider-Man 2099 character; and even he wrote TV episodes for several projects including the co-creation of Nickelodeon’s Space Cases TV series along with iconic Billy Mumy.
Easily the half of my favorite Top10 of Star Trek prose novels were written by Peter David, curiously enough, the uneven numbers: One, Star Trek: The Next Generation Imzadi; Three, Star Trek: The Next Generation Q-Squared; Five, Star Trek: New Frontier – Captain’s Table Once Burned; Seven, Star Trek: The Next Generation Before Dishonor; Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation Vendetta. And right after reading this novel at hand, I plan to read Star Trek: The Next Generation Q-in-Law, that I don’t know why I waited so long to read it and I wouldn’t be much surprised if it could get into the Top10.
Star Trek: The Next Generation Imzadi isn’t only my favorite Star Trek prose novel, but also it’s my favorite tie-in prose novel featuring in my all-genre Top10 of novels in general.
So, if you haven’t read any Star Trek prose novel, you never will be disappointed if you choose any work by Peter David (there are certainly several other good stuff by other authors, my own Top10 has other half of works written by other authors), but Peter David in Star Trek is almost always a safe bet.
Hail the master storyteller. You’ll be missed. Thanks a million for your excelent work!
TWO GENERATIONS OF THE ENTERPRISE
The first part of this adventure is set right after the events of “The Cage” (the first pilot commisioned for the Star Trek TV series and that since it was unaired, later the footage was used in “The Menagerie” two-parter) having Captain Christopher Pike under command of the original USS Enterprise, counting with Number One (known nowadays as Una Chin-Riley in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) as his First Officer, a younger Mr. Spock as Chief Science Officer, Dr. Boyce as Chief Medical Officer and Lt. José Tyler, ship’s navigator.
In the first part, the USS Enterprise makes first contact with the Calligar, an alien race that they lived very far away from Federation space but it’s possible to make contact through an unstable rift that serves as passage to unite two points in space. The Calligar are isolationists but its “Master Builder” (the term that they used for their political leader) is willing to make contact since their resources aren’t what they used to be since they ruined their homeworld forcing them to live in massive artificial orbital stations.
Lt. José Tyler begins a romance with Master Builder’s daughter provoking a rupture in the fragile diplomatic negotiations, along that the rift becomes unstable again and the USS Enterprise is barely able to return to Federation space.
Thirty years later, the infamous rift is becoming stable once again, and now the USS Enterprise-A under command of Captain James T. Kirk, set after the events of the movie Star Trek V: the Final Frontier but before the events of the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (it’s amusing to notice that this adventure is happening first in the beginning of the original TV run, and later, in the final stages of the movie era of the Original Series crew), where Starfleet doesn’t want to risk the stablitiy of the rift with the size of a starship, therefore they only used shuttles now. Captain Spock, now First Officer, and Chief Engineer Scotty take a Federation diplomatic team to try a second time to forge an alliance with the Calligar, the team has Tellarite and Andorian representatives (two of the Federation founding species) and the famous Dr. Richard Daystrom.
The daughter of the original Master Builder is now the current Master Builder and she travels through the rfit aboards the USS Enterprise-A where she encounters again with José Tyler, now with the Rank of commodore (Kirk was admiral but events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home provoke his demotion to captain once again) and Ambassador Robert Fox (it’s truly great the way that Peter David is so crafty employing obscure Star Trek characters that may did just once appearance in the original TV series but using them in such logical way without contradicting the canon).
The new Master Builder wants to stay in Federation space and she asks for asylum, provoking anger in a Calligar faction that kidnaps the Federation team, provoking a diplomatic incident that Tellarite and Andorian ships arrive demanding the liberation of their representatives making harder the work of Kirk and his crew trying to solve in a peaceful way the situation.
While I am fan of Peter David and I already say that he’s a safe bet to read in Star Trek, I didn’t imagine that this novel would be so good and entertained. Maybe it’s not something to fit in my Top10, but definitely is one cool novel that I recommend to any Trekker.