F/SF

There really are only so many Star Trek plots, aren't there? In this book some members of the crew are kidnapped and made to fight in what are essentially gladiatorial combats. Oh, it doesn't have the ancient Roman mess of the TOS episode, but it's clearly cut from the same cloth. I was pleased at how well the author handled the characters losing their memory for part of the book. I find it continually strange how each author tries to pump up Pulaski, though. I LIKE Pulaski and even so, it's strange when there are characters who are in awe of her. She seems very competent in the series, even great, but not a LEGEND the way many of these novels treat her.

That was really, really really hard to get into. Perhaps because it was Pulaski instead of Dr. Crusher (although Wes was still in this book). The Enterprise is going after the missing ship The Mendel and Picard has a personal connection to one of the young women who is lost.

They find the disabled ship and Geordi, Data, Picard, Worf beam aboard as an Away Team, but then they disappear from the ship and onto (apparently) the planet which the ship is orbiting.

There’s also a horrible illness that is on the brink of exploding on the Enterprise and they can’t leave because Data’s on the surface trying to rescue everyone.

It was an interesting novel once I got into it, and oddly prescient about where civilization was going on in the twenty-first century with the ‘conflicts’ on the alien planet, etc. And also an interesting look at self.

Not a bad Star Trek Novel, though not one of the better Michael Jan Friedman ones either. ( )

Better than some of the ST:TNG books I have read. An interesting story of an alien race which kidnapps other races, wipes thier minds, and uses them as entertainment somewhat like the Romans did. Several Enterprise crew members get captured and the Enterprise must find and rescue them. The only real "believability" part of the story I had this time was the number of captured aliens on the planet listed at the end of the story. The capture of 18,000 aliens on a planet which is way off the beaten path and does not currently travel in space is quite a stretch. Also, the Enterprise was able to take all of these freed aliens aboard ship and on a 6 day journey at max warp to the closest starbase. Seems way over the limit the starship could carry aboard and take care of. ( )