A Time to be Born
Star Trek: The Next Generation Series
By John Vornholt

     What happened just preceding the events in Star Trek: Nemesis to set the Enterprise crew on so many different paths? If you have wondered this, then wonder no more for the tale is to be told in this new nine-part series. In this opening book the Enterprise travels to the Rashanar Sector, the site of one of the worst battles of the recent Dominion War. This is a strange, haunted place where wrecks of ships float in an unstable environment, the space-time continuum disrupted due to the battle and therefore not a safe place to be. As the Enterprise keeps watch, other ships recover bodies of the honored dead, but there are also looters looking for some free salvage. The worst of these seem to be the Androssi, but what are the mysterious Ontailians up to? When things go wrong both Data and Picard are suddenly facing a bleak future.

     This is a character-lead story, where we get to see the crew of the Enterprise facing some tough decisions and meeting up with some old friends and enemies. We also get to find out what Wesley has been up to, and some old plot strands are picked up again. To its detriment this is a fairly linear tale, and not as pacy as it could have been. The eerie Rashanar battlefield somehow does not quite come to life as it should, and more could have been made of its spooky atmosphere to make it truly scary. However, I am aware that this is part one of a long series, and more plots and plans are in the offing, so there is sense in not springing all the surprises at once. Where the book truly excels is in the re-creation of all the various characters, and it is they rather than the plot or descriptions of places that make this book something of a page-turner. Expect the next installment soon…