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Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Best and the Brightest
Every year, Starfleet Academy in San Francisco attracts many of the most talented and ambitious young people in the Federation. They come from all over the Alpha Quadrant, from hundreds of worlds and species, to prepare themselves for the challenges of the final frontier. Meet a new generation of cadets: a newly joined Trill just beginning the first of many lives; a Bajoran Vedek who finds himself torn between his vows and an unspoken love; a reckless young man fond of pushing the limits; a feline alien raised among humans; a brilliant but immature young woman with a lot to learn; and a native-born Earth woman with a talent for engineering.
Together they will learn about courage, life, teamwork, and themselves. Their future is just beginning-- but one of them will not survive!
Together they will learn about courage, life, teamwork, and themselves. Their future is just beginning-- but one of them will not survive!
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
7 people are currently reading
334 people want to read
About the author
Susan Wright
37 books95 followersSee also S.L. Wright
Susan Wright (aka S.L. Wright) is a USA Today Bestselling author of more than two dozen novels and nonfiction books. She writes New Adult Contemporary Romance novels, as well as Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Science Fiction and Star Trek novels, and has been published by Pocket Books, Penguin Group, St. Martin’s Press and Kensington.
Susan Wright (aka S.L. Wright) is a USA Today Bestselling author of more than two dozen novels and nonfiction books. She writes New Adult Contemporary Romance novels, as well as Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Science Fiction and Star Trek novels, and has been published by Pocket Books, Penguin Group, St. Martin’s Press and Kensington.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 19, 2012
This book, although titled as a Star Trek: The Next Generation book, has very little to do with the crew of the Enterprise-D. It focuses instead on a group of cadets: Jayme Miranda, a Starfleet brat whose whole family are engineers, Moll Enor, a newly joined Trill who is the first host of the Enor symbiont, Nev Reoh, a failed Vedek trying to find his place in the galaxy, fearless Starsa, arrogant Hammon Titus, and Bobbie Ray, a catlike Rex who was born on Earth.
Some of the crew members of the Enterprise do make appearances. Jayme meets Guinan as she's tracking her roommate, Elma after she took Jayme's tricorder, and as this book takes place around the time of DS9, many events from the series are mentioned.
After Jayme and the others complete their first year, they move on to different Quads, but they all remain friends, and the focus of the book, I think, is their self-discovery and the bonds of their friendship.
Three of the cadets do end up serving on the Enterprise; Moll Enor, Nev Reoh, and Titus, and one of them ends up dying at Veridian III. I very much enjoyed this book and reading about the discoveries these young cadets make about themselves. I particularly enjoyed the part where Bobbie Ray meets some of his own kind from the Rex homeworld, and the relationship that forms between Moll Enor and Jayme.
Some of the crew members of the Enterprise do make appearances. Jayme meets Guinan as she's tracking her roommate, Elma after she took Jayme's tricorder, and as this book takes place around the time of DS9, many events from the series are mentioned.
After Jayme and the others complete their first year, they move on to different Quads, but they all remain friends, and the focus of the book, I think, is their self-discovery and the bonds of their friendship.
Three of the cadets do end up serving on the Enterprise; Moll Enor, Nev Reoh, and Titus, and one of them ends up dying at Veridian III. I very much enjoyed this book and reading about the discoveries these young cadets make about themselves. I particularly enjoyed the part where Bobbie Ray meets some of his own kind from the Rex homeworld, and the relationship that forms between Moll Enor and Jayme.
September 20, 2017
The Good: The new characters introduced in this book were interesting. Also, the writing was pretty good.
The Bad: This wasn't at all what I was expecting! I thought this was going to be a traditional Next Generation adventure, with Picard, Data, Riker, Troi, and crew; instead, it felt more like a generic space opera than anything affiliated with Star Trek.
Conclusion: Different isn't always a bad thing; I should know because I'm different from pretty much anyone I've ever met. However, it isn't always a good thing...as was the case with this book, which wasn't Roddenberry's sci-fi franchise as I've come to expect it.
The Bad: This wasn't at all what I was expecting! I thought this was going to be a traditional Next Generation adventure, with Picard, Data, Riker, Troi, and crew; instead, it felt more like a generic space opera than anything affiliated with Star Trek.
Conclusion: Different isn't always a bad thing; I should know because I'm different from pretty much anyone I've ever met. However, it isn't always a good thing...as was the case with this book, which wasn't Roddenberry's sci-fi franchise as I've come to expect it.
February 17, 2024
An interesting take following a group of cadets through Starfleet academy. A solid piece of work but didn't offer anything really new
August 30, 2015
While the story may have lost some of the luster it had when I first read it seventeen years ago, it remains a fun story with characters I truly came to care about. It taught me about friendship, love, grief, and the importance of recognizing the importance of people who are different from me, and about the validity of another's experience, all lessons that resonate in my life to this day. While I would have appreciated a slower, more deliberate pace and, ultimately, more time with these characters, I can't fault the story for playing to its audience. Adolescent me was very thankful to have read this story, and adult me was happy to rediscover it.
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2015/08/T...
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2015/08/T...
May 2, 2018
I didn't have high hopes for this book but I was looking forward to it. I ended up being quite disappointed. This book read more like a bunch of short stories about some unknown Starfleet cadets who always seem to be just on the outside of stuff going on. There are a few story threads that play out through the book are resolved poorly and the two relationships in the book were quite forced and unbelievable. I felt like I could call this book "The Starfleet Academy Name Dropping Novel" as it just plays a game with all these characters that sort of know the main characters from Next Gen, DS9 and Voyager. I was okay with at for the most part until the end and then the book got really stupid.
September 21, 2020
Author Susan Wright brings us a tale of new cadets that have begun their starfleet adventure at StarFleet Academy in the year 2368. This new cast of characters is taken through four years at the Academy and along the way they learn to work together. Jayme Miranda who begins as an engineering student finds out that her special built tricorder has been taken by her room mate to the San Francisco radio observatory for reasons unknown. But Jayme and the rest of her quad find out in the Admiral's office that her room mate wants to give up the starfleet life and return to her colony world. As this is going on the Wesley Crusher and his team where held back a year due to a stunt that got one of them killed (TNG Season 5). And during their second year at the Academy the Bajorian system is freed while the wormhole is found and DS9 takes its stance near its mouth. During their third year Jayme decides that engineering isn't for her even though she's from a line of engineers that go back to the time of the Enterprise-B. Her parents don't want her to waist what she's already learned but she makes the choice for her. During the summer of 2371 three of her former quad mates who had been assigned to the Enterprise-D had gone through the events of Star Trek: Generations and only two of them survived the crash and returned to Earth. At this time the Romulans and the Cardassians attack the founders homeworld (DS9 Season 3) while the Starship Voyager disappears in the badlands (Voyager Season 1). As darkness befalls the Alpha Quadrant these cadets both former and in their last year continue on to make a difference. I highly recommend this book to all science fiction fans.
July 23, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. 5+ new characters go through Starfleet? and they are (almost) all different species? It sounds like a bad idea, but it's not. The only thing missing is that I wish the story would keep going, or perhaps the story should have been longer to give us more detail. And there were some things that were not explained, like the whole Rex episode.
Some events from NG and DS9 are referenced here, and in fact most of it is in the overlapping 2 years of those series. Some DS9 spoilers through the beginning of season 3.
Some events from NG and DS9 are referenced here, and in fact most of it is in the overlapping 2 years of those series. Some DS9 spoilers through the beginning of season 3.
August 6, 2017
Running parallel to the following over its duration: Generations, DS9 and the beginning of Voyager.
This tells the tale of a group of cadets focusing on the ties and events that bind them together this gives you a look at starfleet from outside the area of the flagship crew.
With touching moments this is good writing set in a well structured universe.
This tells the tale of a group of cadets focusing on the ties and events that bind them together this gives you a look at starfleet from outside the area of the flagship crew.
With touching moments this is good writing set in a well structured universe.
February 3, 2017
Star Trek: The Academy Years. I didn't dislike this one half as strongly as I thought I might when I stumbled across it recently. Susan Wright introduces a raft of new characters, all members of a "quad" at Starfleet Academy and at various stages of their training.
While only relying lightly on some familiar characters to serve as cameos (Picard, Admiral Brand, Doc Zimmerman and the like), "The Best and the Brightest" does a charming job of weaving in and out of on-screen events from TNG's "Time's Arrow" right up to the military coup in DS9's "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost". Throughout all of this, we follow the lives of a collection of cadets, adventuring their way through their early years in training and encountering their fair share of life, love and loss along the way.
To the author's credit, the characters grew on me rather quickly - especially the Bajoran Nev Reoh who shunned life as a Vedek to become a pragmatic geologist in Stafleet, and Jayme Miranda, the human who is born into a family of Starfleet engineers yet must find her own way through trial and error.
Don't expect continuous prose here - rather, this is 12 vignettes, small insights into the different characters and their growth and development as they move on from Academy life. This format may read as disjointed initially, it certainly did to me, as I feel I just start to make a connection with a character when they're dropped and we have to move on to another. Yet once some of the broader messages start to become clear, the book is more enjoyable. Take Jayme's uncertainty about her life - this story is rather elegantly told over the course of the book and intertwined with her personal life and infatuation with one of her closest friends, the Trill Moll Enor. If anything, this romance felt slightly contrived toward the end. After having resisted her advances for half the book, Moll acquiesces thanks to a coup on Rahm-Izad and then *boom* - happily ever after. Albeit long distance. I didn't quite buy it.
Some of the vignettes that worked for me:
* I enjoyed Titus' summer volunteering for the communications project. This was an introspective piece, with an important message that resonated with me as the reader.
* Moll's internal conflict as the first host to her symbiont was a fascinating angle that I hadn't considered before. I especially enjoyed her interaction with Jadzia and the rather intimidating scenes in front of the symbiosis commission.
And some that fell flat:
* The survival training with Bobbie Ray (an alien cadet from a species called the "Rex"), Starsa and Nev Reoh. An intriguing start, but the pay-off with Bobbie Ray mimicking his species aggressive body language was poor.
* The initial story of the cadets sliding down huge parabolic dishes and climbing into the cavernous underbelly of San Francisco. This almost made me give up on the book before it had begun. When the characters are new and I know nothing about them, I have zero interest in seeing them running around recklessly and getting into trouble with Admiral Brand. This really didn't work for me.
All in all, a quick and light read, with some interesting character work after the first few chapters. Just don't expect any satisfying resolutions or sweeping storylines!
While only relying lightly on some familiar characters to serve as cameos (Picard, Admiral Brand, Doc Zimmerman and the like), "The Best and the Brightest" does a charming job of weaving in and out of on-screen events from TNG's "Time's Arrow" right up to the military coup in DS9's "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost". Throughout all of this, we follow the lives of a collection of cadets, adventuring their way through their early years in training and encountering their fair share of life, love and loss along the way.
To the author's credit, the characters grew on me rather quickly - especially the Bajoran Nev Reoh who shunned life as a Vedek to become a pragmatic geologist in Stafleet, and Jayme Miranda, the human who is born into a family of Starfleet engineers yet must find her own way through trial and error.
Don't expect continuous prose here - rather, this is 12 vignettes, small insights into the different characters and their growth and development as they move on from Academy life. This format may read as disjointed initially, it certainly did to me, as I feel I just start to make a connection with a character when they're dropped and we have to move on to another. Yet once some of the broader messages start to become clear, the book is more enjoyable. Take Jayme's uncertainty about her life - this story is rather elegantly told over the course of the book and intertwined with her personal life and infatuation with one of her closest friends, the Trill Moll Enor. If anything, this romance felt slightly contrived toward the end. After having resisted her advances for half the book, Moll acquiesces thanks to a coup on Rahm-Izad and then *boom* - happily ever after. Albeit long distance. I didn't quite buy it.
Some of the vignettes that worked for me:
* I enjoyed Titus' summer volunteering for the communications project. This was an introspective piece, with an important message that resonated with me as the reader.
* Moll's internal conflict as the first host to her symbiont was a fascinating angle that I hadn't considered before. I especially enjoyed her interaction with Jadzia and the rather intimidating scenes in front of the symbiosis commission.
And some that fell flat:
* The survival training with Bobbie Ray (an alien cadet from a species called the "Rex"), Starsa and Nev Reoh. An intriguing start, but the pay-off with Bobbie Ray mimicking his species aggressive body language was poor.
* The initial story of the cadets sliding down huge parabolic dishes and climbing into the cavernous underbelly of San Francisco. This almost made me give up on the book before it had begun. When the characters are new and I know nothing about them, I have zero interest in seeing them running around recklessly and getting into trouble with Admiral Brand. This really didn't work for me.
All in all, a quick and light read, with some interesting character work after the first few chapters. Just don't expect any satisfying resolutions or sweeping storylines!
October 16, 2023
Enjoyable one-off book following a group of cadets through four years at Starfleet Academy, set during the TNG era.
The bunch of characters often get paired off in interesting ways, and each chapter feels a bit like a different episode as it puts the cadets in all manner of different situations. Most characters come up against classic "being true to yourself" or "don't be quick to judge" story elements that are familiar Star Trek ground.
It's nice to see every character grow and get a proper ending that makes it feel like the galaxy is more alive with small stories. Good reading if you want something that is going to give you an adventures that starts and concludes every 20ish mins of reading.
The bunch of characters often get paired off in interesting ways, and each chapter feels a bit like a different episode as it puts the cadets in all manner of different situations. Most characters come up against classic "being true to yourself" or "don't be quick to judge" story elements that are familiar Star Trek ground.
It's nice to see every character grow and get a proper ending that makes it feel like the galaxy is more alive with small stories. Good reading if you want something that is going to give you an adventures that starts and concludes every 20ish mins of reading.
May 9, 2011
Really enjoyable... easy to pass-over but I'd recommend any trekkie give it a look! The focus here is a group of Starfleet Academy cadets, their study-years and eventual assignments. What I found nicely done was how it gives the cadets lots of character and exploits of their own, but refers (and sometimes engages with) already established events from ST:TNG, DS9 and the movie Generations, to make them really feel a part of the universe. Give it a look!!
May 1, 2012
This was good but not tng book. It follows 6 starfleet academy students as they make their way through the academy. Main events in the star trek universe affect them, and some are even friends with people like Dax. The characters are presented really well, and you feel like you know them after such a short time. This could be the start of a new book series, its such a great concept. A very good read.
December 14, 2015
Not great. This story follows a quad of cadets as the live their lives adjacent to big events in the Star Trek universe. It had its moments, and was relatively entertaining but was ultimately unsatisfying. There were too many primary characters and I think the cameos and attempts to connect the narrative to known Star Trek plots made it too weak to stand on it's own.
January 23, 2016
I'm a fan of Star trek and the next gen. I got this book at a used book store because the back sounded interesting, but the book overall wasn't that exciting. It was mostly a boring story for 5 cadets.
Its not horrible, but it definitely not a favorite.
Its not horrible, but it definitely not a favorite.
January 10, 2013
This book was amazing. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed Star Trek novels until I read this.
January 8, 2017
Ezcellent! I felt as if I were a comrade at the Academy.
November 7, 2018
I've read this book many times and I've enjoyed it each time.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews