jdornoff's Full Review: Keith R.A. DeCandido - A Time For War, A Time For ...
Background:
This is the final book in a 9 part series of books detailing the events leading up to the movie Star Trek: Nemesis. This was originally supposed to be a two book subseries like the others but was cut down to only a single finale book.
Plot:
To top off all that has happened to the Enterprise in the last year, now they are about to face a grueling inspection, an inspection that could harm every crewmember on the ship including the future Captain of the Titan. To make matters worse, all but the final member of the inspection team have a personal grudge against either Picard or the Enterprise. The final member of the team is put on to give some desperate balance, one Montgomery Scott of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers.
Due to the resignation of the previous Federation president (preceding book), there is going to be an election to find a new President. One is very mainstream who has successfully run a colony while the other is more confrontational. The second candidate has said the Klingons and other societies must better assimilate into Federation culture or there will be a price to be paid.
Meanwhile at the Federation Embassy on Qo'noS there has been a high turnover of staff members recently and the resident Ambassador Worf suspects something is wrong. The day his son Alexander is scheduled to arrive the staff takes everyone in the Embassy hostage but Worf is able to escape to a level that only he knows about. The terrorists are angry about the proclamations by the presidential candidate and also believe that Emperor Kahless has been replaced by a Federation Hologram.
It turns out that Emperor Kahless has been replaced by a hologram and to make matters worst it is Federation technology. Therefore Worf sets out to meet the Enterprise in order to search for the Emperor and find out exactly why he was replaced by a hologram. With tensions high it is important that the truth be found quickly to avoid war between the Federation and the Klingons.
Impressions:
Originally this was intended to be a two book subseries like the previous books in the series but was cut down to a single 336 page book. The author of the book is Keith R.A. DeCandido who was written many Star Trek books.
The big problem with the book deals with cutting the book down from two books to only one. There are just too many plot lines going on in the book which requires them to all get solved way too easily. In addition the book seems pretty choppy which apparently comes from condensing the books.
The book leads up to the moment of Riker and Troi's wedding then picks up after the events of the movie Nemesis. The book tries to explain why we see Wesley Crusher in a Star Fleet uniform in the movie despite him being a traveler. While the explanation seems to be very far-fetched I think the author did the best job possible to explain the situation.
Despite the above comments the book is well written and gives good closure to this series of books and moving past Nemesis into the new era of Star Trek: TNG and the new books series Titan.
Last Thoughts:
When this subseries was cut down from two books to one, they should have cut down on the number of plot lines in order to create less choppiness and endings that happen too quickly and too easily.
That said, this book does a good job of pulling everything together in order to move from the pre- to post-Nemesis era. However, it may be difficult for non-Star Trek fans to follow if you haven't read the previous books in the series or watched the movie.
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