2004-05-28 Not Your Usual Star Trek Adventure

If you only yearn for lots of Kirk or Picard and their crews, avoid this book because it only has a smidgeon of Picard and the Next Generation crew. If you do avoid the book, I think you will, however, be making a mistake.

The Star Trek novels are often a retelling of the same few story lines with only some variation in the details to help you fight off total boredom. Ship of the Line makes a bold attempt to go where the other novels have not gone before.

Here are some of the differences. The story focuses on the building of the Enterprise 1701-E1, the replacement for the D1 which was destroyed. The characters are from the 23rd century, Morgan Bateson and his Klingon arch enemy. When Picard does appear, he has to call on help from his former Cardassian torturer.

The theme of the book is clearly that stalled thinking is harmful to us and those around us. A good example is that if we decide someone is an enemy, we may miss the opportunity to form an alliance with that enemy that would be to our mutual advantages. In fact, it may be easier than we think to do so.

In this book, Diane Carey is clearly pointing out the real lessons of conflict. Enemies who meet each other often find they like and respect one another. Destruction also requires rebuilding, and care lest we make the same mistakes all over again triggering another round of destruction.

Whip of the Line is a nice, balanced story with lots of food for thought. What more can we ask of our Star Trek novels?