Customer Reviews

The Belly of the Beast

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In the late 1990's the producers of Star Trek literature wanted to expand their franchise into a new market called eREADERS. The first product to roll-out was a series of short novellas introducing a new series based around the engineering class of Starfleet personal. The first author to be commissioned for the task was Dean Wesley Smith, an accomplished writer whose work includes novels in franchises like Smallville, Spider-Man, X-Men and Aliens.

Dean Wesley Smith, limited to about one hundred pages, created a handful of characters that were intelligent and powerful, much like the story itself. The first pages of the book start out with a bang as the Enterprise is in a blow-for-blow battle with an enormous craft of unknown origins. After narrowly defeating the Beast, as it comes to be known, Picard allows Geordi and Christine Vale to leave the ship and meet up with his longtime friend Captain David Gold of the Federation starship da vinci.

Captain David Gold is a strong intelligent man from the Bronx and the husband to a Rabbi of a Jewish synagogue. Getting along in years the Captain has become set in his ways and demands a strong and professional crew but is willing to relinquish some authority to his staff.

Commander Sonya Gomez is Captain Gold's First Officer and is in charge of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. A capable officer with a questionable past chooses to focus on the task at hand rather than the love that lingers for a fellow crewman.

110 and 111, two Bynars with he ability to communicate with computers and are essential to the story. One has a fate that is both heartbreaking and a little funny as well.

Many have said that the book itself is poorly written but I found the short story to be very smooth and fun. The characters are well described and their personalities are well rounded, making for compelling people. By the end of the book I found myself rooting for the crew and was satisfied with just how much was packed into this short story.

I didn't mind the story: it was pretty interesting and it does set up a more than acceptable stage for the series to come. On that level I was pretty satisfied, considering the low price and the story's moderate length. What I didn't love was Dean Wesley Smith's writing, which is sloppy at best. Some ST novels are exceptionally well-written, such as most by Peter David and some by Michael Jan Friedman, so this isn't a problem with the medium itself: it's a problem with SMITH himself.

For one, descriptions are often awkward and terribly unoriginal. From the first page: "Only Data, his emotion chip turned off, seemed as unruffled as ever. Picard envied that android calmness at times." Seriously? In EVERY Star Trek book there's someone who "envies that android calmness." I'm tired of hearing about it. Picard is often made to sound like a weasel, completely lacking any self-confidence and making the weirdest observations ("Picard would give anything to learn how [those alien shields] worked" and "Picard sat back in his chair, studying the alien ship, letting his people have a few seconds to get ready"). Is this the most highly decorated captain in Starfleet, who defeated the Borg almost single-handedly and told his Cardassian torturers to piss off? Bah!

The dialogue is also terribly stilted and completely unrealistic for a TNG crew. Picard: "I'm open to suggestions here, people" or "Give me targets, people!" WTF is he, a public employee? or perhaps Kirk? 'Cause that's the way Kirk would address his officers; not Picard. Smith is also apparently unaware of proper operations on a Galaxy-class starship. When the Enterprise (still in the first two pages) needs to maneuver closer to the alien ship, Picard orders Data to take the helm. Was the conn officer not even there? Was s/he not good enough? What sense does it make to order your OPS officer to "take the helm"?

As I said, the novella itself isn't bad plot-wise, and it does set up the rest of the series nicely... but if THIS is the standard of writing of some Star Trek novels, then even I have a shot at being published!