Monday, November 10, 2008

STAR TREK: DESTINY Book II: Mere Mortals by David Mack

The Star Trek mega-crossover continues! This three-book series focuses on Captain Picard and the USS Enterprise-E, Captain Riker and the USS Titan, Captain Ezri Dax and the USS Aventine, and Captain Erika Hernandez and the NX-02 Columbia. Not to mention we get to briefly check in on Captain Chakotay and the USS Voyager this time, as well.

The threat is (once again) the Borg, but this time the Borg has decided they've had enough of this pesky Alpha Quadrant that refuses to be assimilated; now their goal is to simply wipe them all out.

Despite all that, the book isn't really about the Borg invasion itself; it's more about the Federation trying to rally the Alpha Quadrant together, the fate of the crew of the NX-02 Columbia, and a race called the Caelier.

David Mack always provides a great read, and Destiny has been no exception. It helps that no character is bullet-proof anymore; one major character was already killed off a few books ago, and in this series we learn the fates of the entire Columbia crew in no uncertain terms. And the ending is one big, big cliff-hanger. So the threats to everything and every one feel very, very real. I have no comfy reassuring feeling that Picard, the Enterprise, the Earth, or even the Federation are definitely going to survive! David Mack mentioned on the Psi-Fi message board that Paramount/CBS gave him a LOT of leeway-- they basically said "Are you sure want to do that...? Okay, go ahead." And I'm not convinced that Star Trek XI isn't going to turn into a total reboot of the Star Trek universe by the time the studio is done with it-- which means they may consider the entire "original" Star Trek Universe to be expendable at this point.

There may never be another time that a media tie-in project can ever hold the stakes this high again. Can't wait to find out what's going to happen in the final book next month!

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