Star Trek: Voyager: String Theory #3: Evolution [Mass Market Paperback]

This isn't a bad book but in comparison to the first two installments of the "String Theory" saga, this one was average and simply not as satisfying. Heather Jarman is a great writer and I've enjoyed her Star Trek fiction but I felt to some degree, she took on a lot or chose to wrap up the three part series in a rather light, less epic, at times corny manner.

The book was nearly 400 pages and I felt a lot of it was rather unnecessary or executed in a less than successful manner. It felt like a Voyager reunion more so than an end to the "String Theory" series. We have the regular Voyager characters, the "aliens of the week", Q, the Caretaker species and Kes ... all in one book. The plot goes into typical series anniversary mode by spending time attempting to explain something about the show, some aspect that we need to know and once revealed, will blow our minds. The plot here is basically about who the Caretakers are, how they came to the Delta Quadrant and what happened to Kes after the episodesn"The Gift" and "Fury". It sounds good, but there seemed to be a lot to get through just to get to the good parts.

The Q-plot seemed a bit much at times- the comic relief, the plot that completely seemed to be a distraction to the actual interesting stuff. It felt like the characters were kept apart a bit; Janeway is mentioned throughout the book but only appears in the last pages of the book. The Doctor and Kes have their own plot, Tom and Harry have another plot, the rest of the Voyager crew and some lower deck characters appear. It seems like a lot to keep up with.

Other than that, it was an okay book. I appreciated the Kes-plot, though it seems like now she's used or a part of any Voyager three-part series. It was nice getting more info on the Nacene (the Caretakers) and how they came to be so influential in the Delta Quadrant and Voyager history. This book, as you can tell by the cover, did focus in on The Doctor but his plot was competing against many others and didn't truly get interesting until the later half of the book.

In all, it was a good book but in my opinion, the weakest of the "String Theory" series. It was a bit of a let down in comparison to the other two books, and I felt as if the plot or focus wavered from the previous two novels. Perhaps there was too much taken on, or the focus was more on creating a "Tenth-Anniversary Odyssey" as the cover tag line boasts. Still better than the last two books released in the Voyager Relaunch series though and was a nice incorporation of Kes and an explanation of different parts and aspects of the series that we never got with watching the show.

Right off the bat, let me just say I hate it when they switch writers within a trilogy. The style changes, the characterization changes and the focus shifts. It's a bad idea. The most disappointing part of this book was that I actually enjoyed the first two in the series. By the time I got to this turd I was already two books into the story, so I had to suffer through the rest of this book. It couldn't be helped. Anyway, there were too many seperate storylines; too much focus on bland, original characters... just too much. The author tried to throw so many different things in this book that even the interesting plotlines were trimmed down to fit everything in. I picture the brainstorming session going something like this:
The author (unmarried) sits in her study (living room) alone (with her cat). Suddenly in a geyser of creativity, ideas explode into her brain: Q... Kes... The Caretaker... sick Janeway ...missing Doctor ...Harry Kim/Alien romance ...Seven's stuggles to feel human ...original characters that may eventually lead to a spin-off series of their own and ultimately my fame and respect as an author... and so on. It resulted in a crowded, uneven Voyager novel and an unsatisfying, "Well I'm glad everythings okay, guys" conclusion to an otherwise decent series. My Nugget: Skip this series. The first two are fun, but not worth the anticlimactic climax.

This book was rife with misspelled words and other editorial oversights, ruining an otherwise interesting read. Star Trek readers generally have above average intelligence. Pocket Books, please provide them the courtesy of properly editing the manuscript prior to publication.

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