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Title: The Brave and the Bold, Book 2 (Star Trek) by Keith R.A. DeCandido ISBN: 0-7434-1923-5 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 26 November, 2002 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (6 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: An Intriguing Concept Marred By Poor Plotting
Comment: "The Brave and the Bold: Book 2" is Keith DeCandido's epic Star Trek saga encompassing the crews from all of the Star Trek television series. It is a hokey premise about the discovery of mysterious alien artifacts, "Malkus Artifacts", which are the last vestiges of a power-hungry ruler and a civilization dating from 90,000 years before the 24th Century. The first half is a somewhat engaging look at the discovery of the third of these artifacts, featuring Captain Robert DeSoto of the USS Hood and Lieutenant Tuvok from USS Yoyager a few weeks prior to Voyager's ill-fated mission in the Badlands. It also includes some riveting scenes with members of the Maquis. The second half is a disappointing reunion of Colonel Kira Nerys, Ambassador Worf, Ambassador Spock and Admiral McCoy as they fall under the spell of the fourth artifact, found on the Klingon colony world Narendra III. This was a quick diversion on a long New York City subway ride.
Rating: 2
Summary: Not the Best
Comment: For Voyager fans seeing the pic of Capt Janeway on the cover taking up a full quarter of the front would lead them to believe that 25% or so of the story was decided to her. Not so. For Star Trek fans who have to read EVERY single book, it's a must, but for most, just a mishmash and rehash of old story lines.
Rating: 3
Summary: What a downer ending for a great 2-book series
Comment: The first book in the Brave and the Bold 2-part series introduced a very intriguing concept, but the second book doesn't carry it through. The book has two stories, the first of which is pretty good and almost holds up the quality of the first book. However, the second falls to pieces, bringing the entire series down with it.
The first book in this series was so well written and exciting, that I was really looking forward to a riveting conclusion. One of the minor gripes with the entire series, like all of the Star Trek book series that incorporate all of the television crews, is that it became a little bit too much of a coincidence that the same things would happen to all of our familiar crew members. Candido alleviated that a little bit by having other crews involved as well: in the first book, it was Decker and his ship and then the crew of the Odyssey. Further along those lines, Candido provides even more distance by making Tuvok and Chakotay the only two familiar characters in the Voyager story. I found that this helped considerably.
The first story is really well-told, as DeCandido does a good job of fleshing out some characters that we saw only briefly in the TV series (Cal Hudson) as well as creating some very interesting characters for the Hood. The Hood doesn't have as much to do as the ships did in the previous book, but the characters that DeCandido creates for it, especially Captain DeSoto, are vivid. DeSoto is a champion at the game of Go, and he has created a monster by teaching his first officer the game (and now she constantly beats him). It becomes a running gag throughout the story. It seems a bit superfluous, but it adds greatly to the character, as we feel we know him. DeCandido doesn't do as good of a job with the villain of the piece, though. The Andorian is very two-dimensional, going crazy because of the death of his family. He becomes very boring after awhile, and it's good that the story is short. The Maquis characters that DeCandido creates fulfill their roles well, but are rather basic otherwise. The distrust of Tuvok is understandable, but that's pretty much all there is.
While the Voyager story is pretty good, the Next Generation story that ends the book just completely falls apart. One of the problems with it is that it seems to be a showcase for DeCandido's new series of books about the IKS Gorkon and less a Next Generation story. That's fine in and of itself, but that's not really the way the book was sold. They do seem like an interesting crew, and DeCandido makes them intriguing to read about, but Picard and the rest of the Enterprise crew are bit players in their own story.
The second problem, and the one that made me almost want to put this book down in frustration many times in its short 140 page duration, was the constant explanation of continuity references. In many Star Trek books, there are so many references to past episodes that it can strangle a story. Others handle this very deftly, by either not including many references or by the author being very capable of explaining just enough of the references to not leave the new reader confused without bogging down the story. Throughout the first three stories in this series, DeCandido did a really good job of this. They were not intrusive, but they also weren't mystifying. Even better, a lot of these "references" were actually references to things that we haven't seen before, because they dealt with the new characters that DeCandido had created. That made them interesting. Unfortunately, in this final story, the continuity references come at the reader fast and furious, and DeCandido uses paragraph after paragraph to explain them. Most of them only need one paragraph, but when there are multiple references on each page, it starts to add up and get very messy. Not only are there references to television episodes, but there are multiple references to other books, as well (especially concerning the Gorkon, which has appeared on one of DeCandido's previous books).
The story also feels very staged and ends up being anti-climactic. DeCandido moves all of the pieces around, has them do their assigned jobs, and then has the book end within one page in a very boring way. Finally, there is fifteen pages of story after the ending, which makes the rest of the story seem very inconsequential. I understand that this is the conclusion to the two-book series, and thus needs to be there, but when the story itself is only 140 pages, it doesn't add much to the final story. I wouldn't mind so much if the story itself were actually good, but this really needed a bit more to it.
On a positive note, though, the crew of the Gorkon is very interesting, and I'm looking forward to their series. DeCandido is a good writer (this story not-withstanding) and I think he'll do a good job with it. It highlights the differences between Klingon ships and the Federation ships that we're all familiar with, as well as containing good characters to boot. I have to admit I was surprised by one of the deaths, because I thought that this character was one of the more interesting ones and I was looking forward to seeing the character in the new series. I was touched by the character, and really sorry to see the death. In such a short story that contains so much, that's a rare feat.
Overall, the series is very good, but it the final story is a big let down. Speaking specifically about this book, it contains a 4-star story and a 2-star story. Thus, I'll split the difference and make it 3-stars. What a waste.
David Roy
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Title: The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 1 (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) by J. G. Hertzler, Jeffrey Lang ISBN: 0671784935 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Farther Shore (Star Trek Voyager, Book Two of Two) by Christie Golden ISBN: 0743467558 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 2 (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) by J. G. Hertzler, Jeffrey Lang ISBN: 0671784943 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Homecoming, Book 1 (Star Trek: Voyager) by Christie Golden ISBN: 074346754X Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Art of the Impossible (Star Trek: The Lost Era, 2328-2346) by Keith R.A. DeCandido ISBN: 0743464052 Publisher: Star Trek Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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