Customer Reviews

The Badlands, Book One of Two (Star Trek: The Badlands)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The first book in the Badlands series of Star Trek books by Susan Wright is a bit of a letdown from what I had heard about it. The concept of the Badlands isn't a bad one, an unknown and mysterious area of space where something is lurking, and all four of the Star Trek crews have to deal with it in their own time. Something strange is lurking there, damaging ships and making the crew sick, and the different ships have to figure out whether it's something natural or something much more malevolent. However, this first book just falls completely flat for me.

First of all, as a series, I think that Pocket Books' penchant for tying all four Trek series together in a book series, where they all interact with the same storyline, is starting to wear a little thin. It's becoming a bit too unbelievable that they all interact with the same problem this many times, though this time Voyager isn't on the other side of the galaxy, which is a switch. I realize that it's a marketing ploy to entice readers of all the various series, but I hope Pocket Books starts to tone this down a bit. At least all of the other ancillary series aren't involved.

Secondly, it gets off to a bad start with this book. The only book I have read of Susan Wright's is the Voyager book Violations, and I remember liking it a great deal. This novel, however, seems written for a much younger level than I remember most Trek books being written. The sentence structure seems very simplistic, and I just had a feeling I was reading a Young Adult book. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I did find it quite jarring. Maybe I just wasn't ready for that.

The characterization seemed a bit off as well. The most glaring example was Ensign Ro in the TNG story. This story takes place directly after the TV episode that introduced her, "Ensign Ro." This episode established her as a hothead with a lot of rage seething inside her. Even given that, though, I think Wright took her a little too far. Ro is a Bajoran, a race of people who have been subjugated by the Cardassians for years. When two Cardassians are brought on board, she has trouble dealing with that fact, exploding in a rage a couple of times. However, for me, that doesn't jibe with the episode. First, she acts like this even before the Cardassians come on board. Secondly, she always struck me as somebody who seethes inside, and would refuse to let a Cardassian see that he is affecting her. She seemed too explosive for me, and not the Ro I'm familiar with.

Finally, I think the stories suffer from feeling truncated. I think both of them could have used a bit more story, almost as if they both deserved their own book. I would not like the idea of this being a four book series, just because it would seem like more Pocket Books marketing. However, the stories do suffer from being squeezed into two books. The second story suffers from this more than the first one does. Kirk's story could just use a couple of scenes of falling action, because as it is, the story just ends. Obviously, one plot thread isn't finished because it has to be left for the subsequent stories to deal with. However, the rest of it just comes to an abrupt halt, with one thread having been dealt with and another one just hanging there.

The TNG story, though, feels very unfinished. In the plot thread that must continue for the next book, Data ends up making some scientific observations about it and that's about it. Two Cardassians come on board, see the crew fall ill, decide that the Federation is full of weak people, and take some of their intelligence back to the Cardassian Union. There is some resolution to the theme of the story, which is that one of the Cardassians has a fascination with Data as an artificial life form. Data neatly turns the tables on him, and the Cardassian is left with much to think about. It just seems like this story could have used some more meat to it.

One more complaint, and I'll make this a brief one. Please, spare me the "Kirk's yeoman is really in love with him and oh, isn't he a wonderful captain, I can't let him see that I'm a weak person" schtick. It got old in the original series, and it was particularly annoying here. Even more annoying is that, once Wright includes it she doesn't do anything with it. It almost seems like it's there just to make Kirk seem like an even more heroic figure.

I know this review consists of all negatives. I did, however, enjoy the book, faults and all. It is a quick read, which helps. The stories themselves, truncated as they are, are interesting if you're a Trek fan. I would certainly recommend that a Trek reader take a look at these, though I might suggest that you save your money and check them out from the library. There are better Trek books out there, and this one is just a nice side story.

Part 1

Star Trek

Part one takes place in 2268. Captain Kirk and the Enterprise are ordered to a set of coordinates that are way outside of Federation space. The mission: intercept and detain a smuggler that is supposed to be heading towards those coordinates. That smuggler is supposed to be smuggling plasma beam weapon technology. Once the Enterprise arrives, they discover the Badlands which to this point had not been discovered by the Federation. Captain Kirk is given credit for naming this space phenomenon "The Badlands." Captain Kirk eventually finds himself dealing with a Romulan smuggler, a Klingon D-7 cruiser and a mysterious radiation that is affecting his crew.

Part 2

Star Trek The Next Generation

Part two takes place in 2368. The Enterprise is ordered to survey the Badlands. Once there, Captain Picard dispatches Commander's Riker and Data in the shuttlecraft Hawking to explore the Badlands. Upon completing their survey, they discover that their navigational grid is down and have to find a way out of the Badlands and back to the Enterprise. Unfortunately for Riker and Data, the warp and impulse engines are down and they encounter the Cardassians who gladly insist on helping them.

Overall, these first two stories are extremely well written, albeit short, Trek stories that are in good keeping with Susan Wright's excellent writing style. She has definitely become one of the top Trek writers. In reference to some of the other reviews, the minor mistakes that are pointed out, are exactly that, minor and easily dismissible. This is good Star Trek that I recommend to any and all fans.

Rather than writing a four-book series, each a full-length novel set in one of the Star Trek series, the author compresses this series into two books; the first tells a half-length story of the "Original Series" crew and a half-length story of the "Next Generation" crew. The second will have a half-length story of DS9 and a half-length Voyager story. This leaves each story feeling more than a bit rushed.

Other than that, the writing is fairly good, although it started weakly. There were a half-dozen typos and copyediting mistakes in the first 70 pages, (to say nothing of the anachronism of Kirk calling Scotty on his commbadge, a technological innovation that didn't exist for about another 80 years or so, roughly equivalent to an author of a historical novel set in the time of the War of 1812 having James Madison call James Monroe on the telephone) but I didn't notice any after that. The characters were competently handled, the plots were reasonably good as far as they went. They simply didn't have time to go far enough; that was the only serious problem with the book.

This was a frustrating read for me, containing good writing, but unimportant and meaningless plot that got nowhere.

Compesating the plotlessness there was the fact that Ro has always been one of my favorite characters and she has a prominent role in the second part of the book, wich pretty much saves the day.

Also, I was gratefull for the information regarding the existance of the novellas on the star trek timeline. Not horrible, but not nearly good either.

While this first book does bring the four parts of the startrek universe together, it has some problems. Right when the story begins to get interesting you jump a few years and start another. What the author should have done is separate the four stories into four stories. This was very successful for the Invasion Series and would have helped out this series as well.

However...the storyline is good, and the way she brings the star trek universe together is worth mentioning.

I cant wait to read the second book. To see what this phenomenon really is.

Susan Wright does an affable job telling us NO story, only postulating events that lead up to what Book 2 promises to be a thrilling conclusion. Book 1 proposes a mysterious threat located in the area of outer space known as the Badlands ... and that's about it. With part of the story told in the Star Trek TOS timeframe and then another part in Star Trek TNG, that's all we're given ... no memorable characters and almost laughably forgettable dialogue. Many scenes almost read like filler, written last minute to expand the book to a required word length. It's curious how this story, out of the multitude of ideas that are probably submitted to Pocket Books, made it past the editorial staff. The only positive assessment I can add is that it was a quick read.

Although most of those who have written reviews for this book would seem quite likely tom disagree with me I belive this to be a very good book.As is Badlands 2

I have been interested in the Badlands since the first Voyager story. This first book introduce the lore without going into too much detail. It tries to project a mystery but failed. I believe a better job would have been done if it were 4 stories instead of 2 half stories. There is not enough time to build up the tension and then resolve it spectacularly. Spock could come up with some kind of theory but here he is not up to his usual high standards. He seems lost and do not know what to do. The mystery remains unresolved as it should be. What to show for this story is a lot of sick people.

Next came Picard and his crew. This story is a lot better, in fact the best of the 4 stories. Again the mystery was not resolved, lots of sick people again.

I had hoped for a more spectacular reason to the Badlands, something into like an super alien experiment gone wrong, a tear in space-time fabric (again?), some new way for travel can be devised from learning the secrets of the Badlands, etc.

I feel that the story could be better, perhaps we can have another series but giving a different explanation?

Jean Luc Picard faces the PHANTOM MENACE? HAHAHAHAHAHA Almost makes me want to read it...

"Mysterious force?" "Phantom menace?" Does this sound familiar to anyone else?