I'm back! Here's my review of Q-Squared. I'd hoped that I wouldn't finish it until Friday night so I could wait and do this review on Saturday. But I ended up finishing it before I went to sleep last night and so here we are. So let's get into it.
I swear Peter David loved to mess with his audience when he was writing these books back in the 90s. Especially when it came to the longer novels like Vendetta, Imzadi, I, Q, and this one Q-Squared. Not only does he know his Star Trek lore, but he uses it in pretty unique ways. I mean I don't know any other author who would've thought to put Q and Trelane, from the TOS episode "The Squire of Gothos", in a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel. Peter David did though and it's genius.
Track B, which is the primary TNG universe and where the bulk of this story takes place in, happens during the latter half of the show's seventh season, after "Parallels" but before the series finale, "All Good Things...". However, the other two tracks are both alternate timelines. Track A is a timeline where Jack Crusher never died on the Stargazer and saved Picard's career following the ship's destruction at Maxia Zeta and his subsequent court-martial and demotion to commander. Jack became the captain of the Enterprise, making Picard his first officer. As a result Worf, Deanna, and Riker never become part of the crew. There are other changes as well, but I don't want to spoil that for you despite this being a 27 year old book.
Track C is an alternate version of the events of the season 3 episode, "Yesterday's Enterprise". In this version the Enterprise-D arrives at the location of the Enterprise-C too late to save the crew and Geordi can't repair the ship, so Picard is forced to destroy it to keep it out of the hands of the Klingon Empire. And the war between the Federation and the Klingons continues.
This is probably my favourite Peter David written Star Trek: The Next Generation novels, followed by Imzadi and Q-in-Law. I think that's because all three books delve heavily into TNG lore and Star Trek lore in general. I'm not a huge lore person when it comes to any franchise. I know alot of it when it comes to Star Trek, Star Wars, and the DC Universe, but for the most part it's not my main focus when I'm reading the books and comics or watching the shows and movies. Therefore other people know way more than I do. However, I get excited when a lore heavy episode or book comes up in my viewing and reading lists because it's a form of world building, even if the story in question isn't canon to the series it's part of. Especially if it's parts of the lore that I am very familiar with. I guess because it means that the writer of the episode or book knows the same lore that I know and it connects me to their writing. I know, I'm weird.
Even though they aren't canon to the TV series they tie into, books like these are fun little "What If" pieces, showing how characters's lives could've been if things had been just slightly different. We've seen it several times in Star Trek, though mainly with TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise, not so much with TOS outside of "Mirror, Mirror".
On the flipside of that though parallel universes, alternate timelines and time travel in general is very confusing for me and as much as I love the lore stuff, the Trelane stuff, with evil cosmic beings, and time travel grates on me throughout this book. It's well written, but that kind of thing I don't enjoy nearly as much as I do seeing alternate versions of the main characters.
My favourite scene in this book is early on Trelane is interacting with the children on the Enterprise in the ship's school. And the teacher, Ms. Claire, rather than Ms. Kyle from the show's fifth season, reads the children one of the Winnie the Pooh books by A.A. Milne. So then Trelane brings the characters to life. Again, only Peter David could've come up with a crossover, however brief it was, between Star Trek: The Next Generation and Winnie the Pooh.
Overall this is a great book. If you've never read it, but have read Peter David's other TNG novels, then I highly recommend picking this one up. Even if you just end up getting the audiobook, while I've never listened to the audiobook before, it is narrated by John De Lancie, Q himself, and him reading anything outloud is bound to be a good time.
Alright my friends that is going it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow morning with my review of Batman Forever. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you later. Take care.
No comments:
Post a Comment