MIRACLE WORKERS
Star Trek SCE, No. 2
By Keith R A DeCandido, Kevin
Dilmore, David Mack and Dayton Ward
Pocket Books (Simon & Schuster) - March 2002
ISBN 0743444124 PB
SF/TV Tie-in

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
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Here is the second book in the new series about the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Following Have Tech, Will Travel (also reviewed on this site) it details more adventures of the crew of the da Vinci in the aftermath of the Dominion War, and ties DS9 together neatly with TNG as well as adding a cast of new characters to the Star Trek world. The engineers grapple with the Tholians in the second part of Interphase, giving Nog a chance to shine as he endeavors to remove a fusion core from a deserted Cardassian space station and First Officer Sonia Gomez takes center stage as she is dispatched to a crystalline planet and finds herself dealing with something very unexpected and very nasty. Finally, there is a "minipedia" packed with information about the engineers and the races and creatures they meet.

In my review of the first book I said that the short stories didn't give the characters a chance to develop, but in this second part the novella form was being put to better use. I was particularly impressed with the story Invincible that - unusually for a Star Trek story - had a main narrator and several other viewpoints in the form of a series of reports. This worked excellently, and allowed the reader to look over the narrator's shoulder and not only get an insight into several characters, but also lent a thrilling immediacy that made the tale very gripping. I also applauded the way in which the crew had been slotted seamlessly into the Star Trek mythos, and although I don't feel that we have been properly introduced to all the crew yet I hope that the subsequent stories will do just that.

 

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