A Time to Love (Bk V)
A Time To Hate (Bk VI)
Star Trek series

By Robert Greenberger

      In this nine-part series the crew of the Enterprise are being put through their paces as never before. Picard and his valiant band have thrown the rule book away before but have been commended for it—this time they are very much in disgrace following the events in the four earlier books. Now it looks as though they have got another bum mission. Delta Sigma IV is a planet colonized some years before by two warring races, the Bader and the Dorset. Now they are part of the Federation and living in harmony, but something is making their lives shorter and in a few generations they will die out. A new vaccine has been tested for a whole year on several people, but suddenly one of them has done the unthinkable and murdered one of their fellow patients. Now the Enterprise crew must solve the problem and catch the murderer, along with the man sent by the Federation who is pursuing him and has also gone missing. Trouble is, this is Kyle Riker, Will’s estranged father…

This set of books consists of four pairs of books and a final one to wrap it all up. This story could have easily been contained in one slightly longer volume, and as a result it suffers from repetition, especially in the first book of the pair. We know that it is a no-win situation too, for whatever Picard does it won’t be right and somehow this makes for rather downbeat reading, although perhaps more realistic due to this. The story of the two races and their plight is absorbing enough, and as ever the chase across the planet in the face of insurmountable odds makes for thrilling reading, but of the sort that would have benefited from being more tautly written. On the plus side, this pair of books is very much about relationships and is full of the sort of details that make Star Trek the most enduring and best-loved of all the SF series. It is about Will and his father, Will and Deanna, Beverly and Picard, various crew members with each other, a “model” alien family, and Data without his emotion chip. While down below on the planet a war rages, on the Enterprise everybody is trying to sort themselves out. Pace notwithstanding it makes for a thoughtful and very character-centered read.