Customer Reviews

The Battle of Betazed (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Battle of Betazed by Susan Kearny and Charlotte Douglas is set approximately two months after the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "Tears of the Prophets," and a few months prior to the events of Star Trek: Insurrection.

This book is about the how Betazed fights the Dominion complete with Vorta and the Jem'Hadar. Deanna Troi has to choose between the survival of her homeworld and her ethics. A struggle that is ongoing and she trys to sort out the consequences of what is asked of her.

This is a good book revealing more of Deanna Troi as a breathing person and what she goes through, as she comes to grip with the reality that the people on Betazed want her to do something she is repulsed by, (releasing a tellepathic killer). The Dominion War has fallen to one of it most ominous points. The Federation is battling the Dominion on several fronts. The Cardassians allied with the Dominion make things extremely difficult on Betazed... can you imagine Lwaxana not having a bath in months and she has another child.

This book keeps your interest, it builds and builds upto a climax that is fascinating. We see the kindling of the gone cold relationship between Riker and Deanna. As the stresses build the relationship begins to heat up. I hope this will continue.

The evil Dr. Crell Moset, one of Cardassia's foremost exobiologists is here making things worse for the Betazeds by running horrifing experiments...but in the end his research is used with a justified twist. The pace of the book is excellent and the clever intrigue made the book readable...obviously this is a book for all those who are Deanna Troi fans as it works deeply into her soul.

A very fast read...captivating...fascinating.

I recommend reading this book and the book has a good picture of Deanna in her SOB suit on the cover.

Being a huge fan of Deanna Troi, I had to get this book when I saw it on Amazon. I knew I would love this book, and in fact, I finshed it in one day.

This book is very thought provoking, especially towards the end. The story tells of the occupation of Betazed during the Dominion War. Being peace loving and having few weapons of their own, Betazed fell easily to enemy forces. After only four months, the Cardassians and The Dominion have a new space station under construction and operational around the planet.

They plan to use the station, Sentoch Nor, to launch attacks on the inner worlds of the Federation, such as Vulcan and even Earth. The Federation is well aware of this fact, and has launched several attempts to regain Betazed. Unfotunately, they have al ended in disaster.

With starfleet sources stretched thinly, the Betazoid resistance (partially headed by Lawaxana Troi) comes up with a plan to retake their world with minimal help from starfleet. Unfortunately, it will require them to take an action that could destroy everything Betazoid society stands for. The peace and tranquility of Troi's homeworld could be forever destroyed.

With this new plan from the resistance, the Federation forms a plan to destroy Sentoch Nor and retake Betazed. Troi, Crusher, and Data, along with starfleet Commander Vaughn, are sent to a Betazoid outpost to obtain a serial killer named Tevren. This Betazoid has an ability that could save their world, if it was taught to other telepaths. Doing so would go against every moral and ethic Deanna has learned from her people.

While Troi and company attempt to secure Tevren, the Enterprise, supported by only three small light cruisers, is forced to take on a fleet of Cardassian and Dominion ships. They need to distract them, while Troi completes her mission. They also need to weaken Sentoch Nor's shields long enough for Riker, O'Brian and LaForge to beam in and destroy the station.

In the end, this books comes down to one question for Couselor Troi. Is freedom worth sacrificing everything you believe in?

This book is powerful and though provoking. Unfortunately, having two authors often leads to conflicting chapters and statements. I think they took the "I'll do one chapter, you do the next" approach. This often makes the writing style choppy and a bit confusing. Fortunately, the strong points in this book more than make up for it.

This book is a must have for fans of Deanna Troi. You'll love it's in depth look at her inner struggles and pain resulting from the conquest of her world. The way it focuses on her moral dilemnas and decisions will keep you from putting this book down until you're done. And then, you'll want to know even more of how she'll deal with the knowledge and skill she has acquired.

The Battle for Betazed can pretty much be summed up in it's title, it is about how the Feds reclaimed Betazed during the Dominion war, in a covert operation that involved the TNG crew.
The plot flows along rather nicely, the authors know their stuff pretty well, except for a few continuity points which I will outline later.
The central character is, of course, Deanna Troi, and the book is highly descriptive of her feelings over the conquering of her homeworld, played out mainly in conversations with Riker and Picard.
The other major story is that of the actual people on Betazed, the members of the resistance and the occupying forces are both portrayed very well. Typically, Lwaxana is in the middle of everything, and the writers do her good as well.
The crux of the book deals with the age old question, of death or shame? Do a species defy their principles in order to survive? In this book, the Betazoids want to enlist the services of a Betazoid criminal who can kill with his mind, however only he knows of it, so Starfleet needs to bring him in. This is where Troi and the covert team come in, with a bit of help from the Enterprise and the Defiant(including Worf and O'Brien).
The plot resolution is fairly neat, it invents a solution from the circumstances, but I won't reveal it here.
Now I don't like to be a nitpicker, but there were some serious problems in this book. The first of which was the setting, the authors said it was set in mid 2375, after Dax's death but before Insurrection. However, as we know from DS9, at this point the Federation was winning the war, and had gone on the offensive(by taking Chin'toka). I find it hard to believe Starfleet would try to invade Dominion territory while one of the core Federation worlds was still under occupation. I was under the impression the Romulans took back Betazed when they first entered the war, but that's just my impression.
There was a slight technical fault, the writers used something called a 'scramble field', this doesn't exist. But, if these inconsistencies are overlooked, BFB is a solid book and well worth the read for TNG and DS9 fans.

One of the many questions Star Trek fans were asking during the long Dominion War arc of "Deep Space Nine" was "What was the Enterprise doing during all of this?" Some of those questions were answered in a couple of other novels, as well as the movie Insurrection. But what about Counselor Deanna Troi's homeworld of Betazed? I remember the astonished feeling when I heard that it had been taken over by the Dominion, and I knew there had to be a story there. This brings us to Charlotte Douglas and Susan Kearney's The Battle of Betazed, where Counselor Troi is forced to come to terms with what her people may have to become in order to rid their world of the Dominion. Unfortunately, the book has horrible pacing and is quite pedestrian all the way around.

Betazed has fallen to the Dominion and the Cardassian forces, and a new space station is being built in its orbit, similar to Deep Space Nine. The Resistance movement on the planet is running dangerously low on food and resources and isn't causing much damage. They are in desperate need of relief, but an entire fleet of Federation ships is destroyed in an attempt to retake the planet. Why is the Dominion investing so many resources into protecting it? What horrible crime is one Cardassian, Crell Moset, committing in the name of scientific discovery? The Enterprise is sent on a desperate mission to free a man who may do more harm to Betazoid culture than the Dominion is doing, even as they discover what the horrible result of Moset's experiments might be. If he succeeds, it may spell the end of the Federation and the beginning of ultimate Dominion victory.

Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Ok, maybe my description doesn't do it justice. However, the back cover blurb does make the book sound very interesting. Unfortunately, Douglas and Kearney don't succeed in making the *book* interesting. It takes forever to get going (at least as a percentage of its very short length). We get a lot of Troi angst, as she has to decide whether to go through with a mission that could bring down the Betazoid culture she's trying so desperately to save. After a while, the angst just got tedious. We spend a lot of time getting to know Elias Vaughn. Even if this is his first appearance (I'm not up on the publishing dates of all the books he has appeared in), we spend way too long learning about him. There's also the predictable friction between the Cardassian in charge of the occupation and the Vorta who oversees everything. Add to this Moset's insanity, which gets demonstrated way too often, and it all boils down to a lot of set up.

When the action finally does start, the authors do a decent job of describing it. The starship battles are kind of interesting, though not exactly logical at times. The Enterprise and its support ships go into battle vastly overmatched, with all parties wondering if *anybody* will get out alive, but then everything suddenly becomes too easy. Meanwhile, the action down at the prison, where Troi, Vaughn, Crusher and Data are, is also illogical. The party happens upon a Jem'Hadar patrol and manages to talk them into letting them go despite not having their identification cards. The Jem'Hadar *I* know would have just shot them on sight if they were the least bit out of line. My last complaint has Troi managing to stun somebody holding Data prisoner by firing *through* Data. I'm sorry, but if your phaser shot burned a hole through an android, there's no way it's going to only stun the target behind him.

While the prose and characterization is somewhat pedestrian (Moset is very stereotypical of the single-minded scientist), there are a few nice scenes here and there that seem to set up what happens in the Insurrection movie. Riker and Troi seem to grow closer together as he helps her deal with the weight of what her people might have to do to survive. Especially nice is the final scene between them (though I can't go into detail, because of spoilers). The plot itself is fairly interesting (despite the logic flaws in some cases). There's only one major coincidence, and while it's a doozy, it's still forgivable given everything else. The final solution doesn't come out of left field and is, in fact, quite good. It's not a perfect solution, unlike a lot of plot resolutions. It has its price. Unfortunately, the price that we expect that Troi will have to pay after what happens doesn't come to pass, as she's let off the hook by developments. It's a shame when that happens, as that really would have grown her character.

One final compliment to the book. The characterization of Lwaxana Troi (Deanna's mother, for those of you not in the know) is actually very nice. She's one of the leaders of the local resistance cell, and while she is not unrecognizable, all of the changes that the invasion and four months of occupation have wrought have taken their toll on her. She still has a couple of bantering comments with Picard, but you can tell they are just old habit and her heart's not in it. It's wonderful stuff, and unfortunately she is underused (and anybody who knows my Trek reviews knows how much I hate the character, so that's really a compliment).

Ultimately, I'm glad I read The Battle of Betazed, as it's good to know what happened (it's referred to in some subsequent books, especially Articles of the Federation). It's a very quick read, so you won't waste much time on it. I just wish it had been as interesting as the description promised it would be. A missed opportunity for sure.

David Roy

First, I recommend you read both "imzadi" and Joe Zika's reviews and know I agree with them both. (On to my review.)

After having just read "A Hard Rain," I can only say I'm glad I saved this one for last. This was one story that needed to be told. It's fast-paced and meaty, and packed with real-life decisions and hard truths about less-than-ethical compromises that must be made in times of war.

Though this is going to sound perfectly ridiculous, the one thing that satisfied me the most had nothing to do with the battle but with a bit of continuity I applaud: We learn about the existence of Barin, Deanna's two-and-a-half year old half-brother.

...And this time, halleluia, the cover art *does* have something to do with the plot!

This was one of the better Trek's I've read lately. It keeps moving and I finished it quickly. There is plenty of action and plenty of mental anguish as characters choose among bad choices. This book includes some more info on Elias Vaughn and another story about Deanna's past before Starfleet. The romantic element with Riker is tame, emphasizing the platonic, but they are always Imzadi.

War is all hell, and no more so for a people who long ago gave it up. The Betazoids have been one of the most seen and least discussed of Star Trek's alien races, despite Deanna Troi's pival role in the lore of the Next Generation.

Is the freedom of a world worth the violention of their core beliefs? Can an entire race be turned into killers and still maintain the Federation's moral high ground? And will Deanna Troi allow her own Hannible Lector turn her own mind into a weapon?

Very well done novel, fast read, with action and ethics.

A Commander Vaughn novel...

Deanna Troi is the heart and soul of this book, set before the final conquest and retreat of the Dominion, as Deanna is faced with a true moral dilemma: she can perhaps save her homeworld of Betazed from the Dominion/Cardassian conquerors, but the method she must use is morally repugnant to her. Making things worse, she has not heard from her mother, the indomitable Lwaxana, or her two-year-old brother Barin, who are trapped on the planet, since the invasion. The mysterious Commander Elias Vaughn, who has appeared in several other TNG & DSN books, has provided her with this chance to save the Betazed and possibly the Federation, as the withdrawal of Dominion/Cardassian control from Betazed would remove them from a position of proximity to other Federation worlds. Deanna, along with Vaughn, Data, and Dr. Crusher, form a commando troop to carry out the mission on Betazed, while Riker, Geordi, and Miles O'Brien, have a mission of their own on the Cardassian space station orbiting Betazed. Worf joins O'Brien in a welcome return to TNG from DSN. This is an exciting book and, as a Deanna Troi fan from day 1, a book I highly recommend. Even someone who does not enjoy the "science" in "science fiction" can follow this plot easily. Buy it; you'll like it.

THIS BOOK IS GREAT! GREAT WRITING, PLOT MOVES ALONG WITHOUT ANY LULL, GREAT CHARACTER INSIGHTS, ETC. A GREAT READ!

This book has me rather baffled. On the one hand, the space-borne battle scenes are rather good. On the other hand, the planet-side battle scenes are rather not.

I can't really say I recommend this one as a purchase, but pick it up at the library for a half-way interesting read.

Oh, and note to the authors: the climax of the book traditionally falls somewhere near the END of the book. Not the middle.