Before Dishonor

Surprisingly good. I haven't read many star trek books since my high school days (Yeah I was that guy), but this one is good. Quite a few funny trek culture references.

The death of Janeway surprised me. I thought they'd save her at the last minute, but nope, she's gone, unless of course she's now Q. GOD I HOPE NOT

Peter David's "Before Dishonor" is the TNG equivalent of a Tarantino film, which is to say that it is all over the map, obscure, generally good but with plenty of bad, and leaves you with the unanswerable question of whether or not you've gotten value for your time.

Maybe it's just pale because of comparison to the books immediately before it in the relaunched series. Or maybe it just suffers from "middle-book syndrome".

To me, it feels like one of the older numbered books that you hope will never be brought into canon. The Borg threat was unmoving, red-shirted characters were abundant, the resolution was deus ex technobabble, and the name-dropping for other series and other books was incessant. (I know that's supposed to tie you into the show more full breadth of the Trek Universe, but in this book it just came off as cheap.)

Oh, and a Trek book should never use the word "spambot". show less

I like Peter David's books. He's an awesome writer, and in that way, this book didn't disappoint. That's why it gets four stars.

But then, for Pocket Books (since I looked up to see if it was Mr. David's idea or not) to do what they did in this book. Not cool, and that's the main reason I didn't give it the fifth star. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure that those at Pocket been watching too much Stargate recently.

But, to go back to the positive. At least Mr. David seemed to put some interesting subtext in there too. And I don't mean Chakotay/Janeway subtext.... (or Chakotay/Seven subtext, gag). And Peter David is Peter David, I'd read a grocery list if he wrote it.

This is the last of this year's installments in the TNG relaunch, and I don't have much to say about it, beyond that it's basically the ultimate Peter David Star Trek book, with all the positives and minuses that that entails these days. (originally written December 2007)

When I started my current Star Trek binge, one of the first books I grabbed off the shelf was the latest non-New Frontier book from my favorite Star Trek author, Peter David. This was a very enjoyable ride, and I had no problems whatsoever with the event(s) that so many fans have complained about.

Very interesting addition to the series. Ending was not very suspensful.

Peter David certainly has a way of knitting the entire Trek universe together, doesn't he?