Customer Reviews

The Buried Age (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Just finished reading this book and I think it's a good bridge between the end of the "Stargazer" series and the beginning of "Next Generation". Be warned, this review is chock full of spoilers.

There are good scenes with several Star Trek characters early in their Starfleet careers. Picard meets Data years before his Enterprise assignment, encouraging him to assert himself and advance his career. Within this timeframe, Picard also meets up with Troi. Upon their first meeting, she disobeys an order from an admiral so as not to betray Picard. I liked this, as she seems to have a lot more backbone than is initially portrayed in "Next Generation". There is also an interesting cameo by a young Kathryn Janeway and the revelation that Picard attempted to recruit her for his crew on Enterprise.

Some interesting facets about Picard emerge as well. One passage explains how Picard's approach of asking for opinions came from a short stint of teaching archaeology in the years following the loss of the Stargazer. Another passage shows a much-darker Picard heading up a tactical division of Starfleet. In fact, Picard's story takes him down many avenues I didn't expect and shows just close he was at times to NOT taking his place on the Enterprise.

I also recommend reading "The Valiant" and "Oblivion" from the "Stargazer" series. While "Buried Age" stands well on its own, these two other books will give you some good backstory.

I don't usually post reviews but feel I should after reading this book. It's by far the best Star Trek fiction I've ever read. The author's grasp of scientific concepts and understanding of Picard's psyche and the entire Star Trek universe comes together so perfectly, it actually made me want to rewatch all of the Next Generation from the very beginning, with a brand new understanding of the motivations behind everything. It could have worked as 3 or 4 separate novels (that's how in depth it is), but this "condensed" version of Picard's missing years is a great read.

This is an excellent addition to the Star Trek series, illustrating the origins and motivations of one of the seris most celebrated figures, Captain Jean Luc Picard. Bennett does a fine job portraying Picard's struggles with doubt and his shaken confidence, interweaving both episodes of the hit Star Trek: TNG TV series and the expanded universe of the novel line. A dark but uplifting tale of Picard's voyage of self discovery in becoming the man who will one day captain the Enterprise, and thereby explore so much more. An entertaining and informative read, well worth purchasing, that rounds out an already full and rich personality. Bennett has a masterful grasp of the characters and characterizations involved, and has written a fine addition to the trek universe.

The Buried age covers the time from the loss of the Stargazer up until Picard steps onto the Enterprise-D, a rather long period. I was surprised that the Star Trek Gods approved this as it blocks out a lot of time for one adventure. It seems to me that there was room for more Picard stories in those years.

As it goes, though, it is a saga with multiple stories including the loss of the Stargazer and resulting turmoil for Picard, his season as an academic, the archaeological expedition, and his relationship with the ancient Ariel.

And, as stories go, this is on a grand scale or space and time. While investigating a gap in the history of intelligent species in the galaxy, Picard and his team rescue a 250 million year old being who promptly falls for Picard. The story moves along pretty well and aside from the main storyline, we see how Picard meets each of the command crew of the Enterprise and Guinan.

It is a good story with a good tie-ins to Star Trek TNG.

First of all I have to say that I agree with the reviewer who said the author spends too much time on science in this novel. If I wanted to know how a black hole worked, I would read a non-fiction book. As it is, the science overwhelms the story in this book.

Having said that, I will also say that if you skip this book, you will miss a lot of "bridging" storylines. It is a good novel for giving character back-story...however, I cannot honestly say I would've seen the characters that we know and love act in the manner that they do in this book.

That is, I think, what made it so hard to get through. Our Picard, valiant captain that he is, has grown since this novel and it shows. All I can say is that I am extremely happy that very few (if any) of the novels are official canon.

I have to agree with many reviewers. I found part of "The Buried Age" to be good. We are indeed treated to a look at what Picard was doing between the years of losing the U.S.S. Stargazer and taking command of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D. My problem with the novel is, like many note, all the techno-babble that comes off as Christopher Bennett's attempt to make a simple novel overly complicated. It felt as if it dragged on. There is little action and even character development for Picard, the subject of the novel, who comes off more as a jilted lover by the end of the book and simply out of character.

The Good: I liked how the book attempts to setup the whole 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' world. Yet, this really does not occur until the end of the book. We get to see why or how Picard came to know the familiar crew of the Enterprise-D, from his first (and unspoken of in the series) encounter with Data, a very complicated Guinan, Deanna Troi who by far was the most well-written of the TNG bunch in this novel and goes beyond her typical restating of the obvious role, to even an appearance and explanation of how TNG's longest running arc/foe began. This for me was what I came in expecting from the novel and enjoyed immensely as a reader and fan of this series.

The Bad: Honestly, the book didn't feel like it really picked up and kicked things off until page 313. The majority of the novel did not 'feel' like Star Trek or The Next Generation. The entire time I was reading this, I was simply distracted and bored by this. The premise of the majority of the book is Picard loses his confidence and goes on something of a journey to 'find himself'. Yes, a rather over-used plot coupled with a dull archaeology find that is supposed to liven the plot. The only problem is the plot is predictable. When you read of the conflict in the story, your mind goes 'I bet she's ...' and you're pretty much right. It was disappointing and I found it hard to believe that Picard would spend so much time and years hung up on one thing or person. It felt completely out of character. The description of the book is quite deceiving as well as it hints at the appearance of Guinan, Troi and Data ... and while Data appears early on in the book along with another big Trek character cameo, Guinan and Troi don't really play a big role until the last 100 or so pages of the book! The rest is this drawn out, boring, over-the-top plot that was pretty skip-worthy.

I'd probably give this book another half of a star if I could simply for the last three sections of the book which answered a lot of TNG era questions. It was fun, interesting and a good way to bridge the eras of Picard's life. I still feel like we've missed out on the true story of Picard's lost era with how the plot is setup, and after you read it and get to the big reveal and answer as to why things feel a bit off and out-of-character, you'll probably feel like a majority of the book is a waste of a read with only 150 or so pages really being necessary. Simply did not meet my expectations based on the description of the book and a poorly executed, tad bit soap operaish, execution of the story and plot. If you read, buy it used for sure to save your money.

This is an exceptional book for Picard fans, and explains a lot of Picard and Guinan's relationship before TNG, and goes into detail what happened after Picard lost the Stargazer. It also has a good sprinkling of theoretical physics for science buffs, that personally I feel is lacking in many ST novels, and makes this book that much more appealing. The plot is terrific, the science is terrific, the book is a must read for TNG enthusiasts.

I just finished Christopher Bennett's book, THE BURIED AGE. Overall, I liked the book, but as I seem to say too often lately about many books recently published, it could use some more editing. Has there been a big cut back on editors at publishing houses or what?

That being said, I will share (other) observations I made on the book. First, the book flows much better in the first half than the second. I thought the court martial scenes were well done. Unlike some other reviewers, I thought the science was interesting - why do people who are bothered by science read Star Trek books anyway? If anything, I thought the author could have explained the science a little MORE than he did as not everyone can follow quantum mechanics and related topics with ease. I did find it interesting how the author illustrated the immensity of both time and space in the galaxy in the archeological parts of the book.

I thought the author did a wonderful job with the Data character in this book! Guinan figures in quite a bit and is pretty well done. I had some problems with the handling of the Picard character. Picard here didn't seem enough like the Picard we know from the TV series - too many girl friends and a little too trigger happy in the latter part of the book. It isn't like this was supposed to be a very young Picard and that he matured before we see him in the TV series. The Ariel character could have used some work in the middle of the book - she was too different from what she was at the start and then at the end; maybe an editing issue.

As some other reviewers have noted, the book does explain much of the background that the TV series apparently didn't. This may have been part of the flow problem in the second part that I mentioned earlier. Things seemed choppy. Maybe the author just tried to do too much here and/or needed some better editing. This was a good (4 star) book, but could have been a great (5 star) one.

Bennett is an incredible world builder. The Star Trek universe presented in this novel is every tiny bit as consistent and plausible as any series of science fiction ever released, and applies such copious amounts of ingenious spackle that even TNG's first two seasons almost make sense. The achievements in this area should not be overlooked; I almost feel like one should read this before ever watching Star Trek, in much the same way that Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy so entirely improved the original Star Wars trilogy. The appearances of Janeway and all the main characters were absolutely perfectly characterized and realistically developed, especially Data. And Bennett gives Picard himself the greatest tragic flaw the character is capable of as well, one that unfortunately foreshadows First Contact a little too strongly, but is otherwise perfectly compelling. Bennet's ability to make this world and these characters come alive is stunning, every bit as much here as in his similarly wonderful Ex Machina.

Unfortunately, despite being a brilliantly conceived universe with perfectly realized characters, it still manages to be, well, sort of boring for about the middle half. Interesting stuff happens, it just happens very slowly and in a lot of detail. I'm not sure much of this could've been prevented, but the last quarter does an excellent job of skipping over important things to summarize them later, so I feel like the middle half could've been somewhat flensed.

Still, ultimately the story is so wonderful, and so perfectly realized, that it overcomes its lack of narrative drive and delivers a sweeping and legitimately sci-fi wondrous conclusion. Bennett does more to legitimize the show than the show does, and it's a fanboy's abject joy to read.

I can't praise this book more. Just to fair, Prime Directive is still my favorite Trek book of them all, but this one is in contention. C. Bennett has out-done himself (as well as most of Trek writers) with this terrific Trek addition. This author is clearly a fan of Trek as a whole and has seen through a novel that truly embodies the vastness of scale that the Trek Universe so wonderfully encompasses.

I've been a Trek fan as long as I can remember, and have read many Trek novels, but have encountered nothing like this. The sheer scale of Time and Space and the inclusion of the many older races like the Q, Dwoud, El-Aurian, and the Organians makes for one of the purest Trek books ever written. Perhaps it is to Gene Roddenberry's credit that the versatile nature of the TNG characters plays out so well, but Bennett wields these characters with the skill of a Maestro.