Customer Reviews

Deny Thy Father (Star Trek: The Lost Era 2355-2357)

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

 

 

My purpose is not to reiterate the plot which is already provided by the publisher and several reveiwers. My purpose is to express whether or not, in my opinion, the book is worth trading my hard-earned money for the price on its cover. I thought that "Deny Thy Father" was one of the better Star Trek books published lately.

I agree, to some degree, with each previous reviewer. But I gave the book its full five stars because I haven't particularly enjoyed Star Trek books lately, and I enjoyed this one for its entertainment value--not necessarily for its value to the Star Trek storyline. There is a separation of values here. I read the book as a reader looking for something to read solely for its science fiction entertainment merit, and this story entertained me.

The Star Trek books aren't exactly literary epic novels and I thought this book was very well done for its subject matter. No, we don't really get into the Ryker heads, but we see some action. While I admit growing extremely board with Ryker Sr's life on the run, overall, the story was entertaining.

Would I read a second Star Trek book by Jeff Mariotte? Yes. Did I think the cover price of the book was a fair exchange for its entertainment value? Yes.

I was very disappointed with this novel. It was not a terrible novel and I recommend that Star Trek fans-Riker fans in particular-take the time to get through this book.

Why I was disappointed was that I knew the end. Most of the novel is split between Will Riker and his struggle from the Academy and his father running from his problems with Starfleet and his past. I waited the whole novel to see if they would come together and see them clash. They never did.

One of the other problems was that Jeff Mariotte seemed to work too hard to get cameos from other characters. It seemed contrived that all these people seem to constantly cross paths even in these minimal ways. I do not object to reading and seeing how great characters like Sisko and Janeway grew to who they were but adding them in just to say you used them is a little tactless.

This was a terribly tough review to write. I did not want to sound too critical but still be accurate and honest.

My expectations for this book, after reading the reviews here and with the Lost Era series being 2 for 4, were not high. I found this to be good reading, though not spectacular. Obviously the book follows two stories, Kyle's and Will's. Will's story is a personal drama, without the dramatic Academy tests or conspiracies that Original Series books set there have. Still, I found it to be a well written, interesting, and entertaining depiction of Will Riker at that time. I don't really like Will Riker all that much as a TNG character, so making him interesting for me was a good achievement on the author's part. The cadets are rather clichéd, but apart from the eternally patient girlfriend I've known people just like them, and they work well as part of Will's story. Kyle's story has much more action in its beginning and end. The descriptions there and overall are very well done. This author understands how to make long descriptive passages interesting. The middle of Kyle's story was essentially filler, as Kyle himself puts it, to prepare him for the end of the story. It was entertaining and well done, but it had almost nothing to do with the central plot of Kyle's story. I would have preferred more time on the conspiracy. I did quite enjoy the resolution of that. It's refreshing, after "Serpents Among the Ruins", to see a murderous conspiracy be viewed by Starfleet Command as something to stop. All in all, I found this to be an enjoyable read. Nothing was spectacularly good, but lately just enjoyable has been too much for some Trek authors.

I'm amused by these reviewers who complain that there's no interaction between the two Rikers in this book. If they knew their Trek they would know that in the one episode Kye Riker appeared in, it was established that there had been no interaction since Kyle abandoned Will. Given that, I think this author did a good job of showing the effect these two had on each other without having specific interaction--it's a more subtle way to tell the story, but ultimately very effective. The author shows the ties that bind generations of Rikers in a unique and interesting way.

The Lost Era series of Star Trek books has been interesting, giving us insights into the time period between Generations (and Kirk's death) and the Next Generation series. The stories within the books, however, have been hit or miss, with two outstanding ones, one good, and one simply average. With Deny Thy Father, Jeff Mariotte gives us the fifth book, with William Riker's time at Starfleet Academy and the truth behind the Tholian attack on a starbase that horribly injured his father, Kyle. As the series indicated that they had not seen each other in many years when they finally do meet, Mariotte has to take great pains to make sure that they don't see each other in the book, and he does a pretty effective job of it. Unfortunately, what he doesn't give us is an interesting story.

Kyle Riker, after a couple of years of recuperation from the Tholian attack on Starbase 311, is working his normal job at Starfleet headquarters. Late one night, he's attacked in his apartment by a Starfleet officer, who ends up dying in the attempt. Meanwhile, anonymous accusations about Riker's survival of the starbase attack have brought him under suspicion of colluding with the Tholians. Another attack happens, and with somebody in Starfleet Security supposedly looking for him, Kyle has to get off Earth as soon as possible. Meanwhile, William Riker is just ending his second year at the Academy, and the final project for his Survival class goes fishily awry. He goes through plenty of adolescent angst as well, trying to balance a social life and his studies, when his first two years weren't that successful and he's really ambitious. Will Kyle ever figure out who's trying to kill him? And what happens when Will finally gets out there among the stars? And how do they mesh without them meeting? You'll find out.

The book starts off with a bang, with the first assassination attempt on Kyle, and then gets a little more interesting with Will's last assignment in Admiral Paris' survival class: trying to survive clandestinely, without any of Starfleet's technology, in San Francisco for a week, along with finding the clues that will lead them to their goal. However, after that, it grinds to a halt. Kyle goes off planet and gets involved in the politics of the planet he's hiding on (after a long trip that also seems to last for 400 pages, despite the book itself only being slightly over 300). The entire planetary plot bored me to tears and seemed superfluous. Yes, it builds Kyle into the man who must go back to face his tormentors instead of running, but Mariotte spent a lot of time spinning the wheels before he gets there. And what causes the tragedy that sparks Kyle's return had to be one of the stupidest maneuvers by a character that I've seen in a long time, but I don't want to spoil anything.

Meanwhile, Will goes through stereotypical "career or love" decisions during his last two years at the Academy. I did really like the character of Felicia, so these sequences were a lot more pleasant, but I didn't really buy her reaction to what ultimately happens between them, which made the pay-off very unsatisfying. One problem is that Will is never that recognizable as the Will Riker we know and love. Sure, the events in the novel begin to lead him to the path of the man he will become, but he never even gets close in this book. He shuts himself off from everybody because he's too dedicated to his studies. I guess the future romance with Deanna Troi is what makes him finally become a ladies' man, but those events take place years from now.

Getting back to Kyle, the resolution to his story was seen miles away, as it's the only logical solution from a dramatic standpoint. Yes, the identity of the traitor is left in the dark, but that's mainly because we get no information about any of the Starfleet characters except Admiral Paris (who we know is a good guy, as he's Tom Paris' dad), and what information we do get about the others comes right before the final revelation. It's almost anti-climactic, and having trudged through the story on the planet to get here, it was also a bit annoying.

My final problem with the book is the gratuitous continuity. I can take Ensign Janeway showing up, as she's well-known as being a protégé of Admiral Paris. I can even take the mention of Geordi LaForge (at least we didn't meet him), though if they went to the Academy at the same time, I feel sorry for him, as Riker's three ranks ahead of him at the beginning of the television series. But what really killed it for me was the Ben Sisko scenes. There was absolutely no reason for them. The part that Sisko played could have been played by somebody else, as the fact that it was Sisko brought nothing to the scenes other than the "wow, it's Ben Sisko!" factor. It really griped me.

There were some good things about the book, however. The book moved very quickly and held my interest just enough to not make me put it down (though there were a couple of close calls). Felicia really makes most of the Riker sequences, and to see them come so close a couple of times before finally succumbing to their attraction was quite gripping. I also enjoyed seeing Riker as a raw ensign on the Pegasus. That made the ending pretty good. I do have to question the existence of two separate mass-murderers in a book like this. That seemed to be overkill (pardon the pun).

The best thing I can say about the book is that it is bland. Nothing too annoying (though there are parts), but nothing that intriguing either. If you're reading the series and you want to see Riker when he's young, give it a try. Otherwise, forget it.

David Roy

Deny Thy Father jumps right into the action from the very beginning, and seems to promise an action filled book that will keep readers interested. It doesn't fail altogether, but the book does have issues with pacing and plotlines.

The A story involves a conspiracy against Kyle Riker, father of the famous Wil Riker, and how Kyle handles the threats against his life. It's a relatively interesting but sometimes rather slow story that has issues with keeping on topic.

The B Story is about Wil Riker's journey through Starfleet Academy. It is the weaker of the two stories, but ironically the more interesting of the two.

The major problem with the book is the pacing and plot point chosen to follow in both storylines. Kyle's progress with solving the conspiracy puzzle takes an abrupt halt early in the book into a tangent that proves frustrating and distracting in its resolution. The tangent in the A story could have been more interesting if given more space (due to a decision Kyle has to make, which I won't reveal), but as it stands in the book, I felt very frustrated with Riker's choices. I could tell they weren't rational, but rather the choice of the author to not only avoid keeping any strings attached, but to also get out of the tangent without working hard on the logistics of the story.

It wasn't until three quarters through the book that the purpose for the A story unfolds, in a terribly unsatisfying climax that not only didn't have a buildup (due to the tangent explained above), but also didn't explain itself very well. I was certainly a little nervous of the quality of the resolution when I saw there were only ten pages left, and Kyle had yet to begin solving the conspiracy puzzle. The final confrontation feels like a bad episode of Star Trek, where it's at 58 minutes in the hour, and everyone knows the resolution will only take two minutes. There's that sinking feeling that the buildup won't reach the maximum payoff because of space issues: it definitely came true in this book. The final pages are very disappointing, and laughable in the villain choice. I felt cheated.

The B story was, as I said, the more interesting of the two, but it read like what it was - a B story. Wil's time at the academy wasn't worth the space devoted to it, because it generally wasn't all that exciting. It's a story of a cadet going through school: nothing big happens, nothing huge occurs. It's just a student in school.

I wanted to scream at the writer with each "possible" threat from the A story against Wil Riker that didn't come true, because once again I could see it wasn't logic but the author's poor plot choices that were making those decisions. Why wouldn't Wil become involved with the A story? It's explained away much too quickly, and sounds too fake for my tastes. The author didn't seem to want to take any risks in the story, but instead kept bringing in new characters or events that he just as quickly removed via an unsatisfactory explanation.

By far, this is the worst of the series of The Lost Era books. Purchase it to complete the set, but don't expect much in the read. I'm not saying it's totally worthless - I stayed interested through most of the book, only losing interest within the last quarter when I could see my hopes for a good ending would be dashed. Keeping that in mind, there's a good chance a first read through will be more interesting for the reader who has heeded my warning.

Star Trek - The Lost Era "Deny Thy Father" 2355-2357 written by Jeff Mariotte is a two main character book, Kyle Riker and William T. Riker. This is the fifth book of a six book series and starts in 2355, sixty-one years after the presumed death of Captain James T. Kirk aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-B in Star Trek "Generations." The book concludes in 2357, seven years before the launch of the Enterprise-D in "Encounter at Farpoint."

"Deny Thy Father" is a three part book and takes us through William T. Riker's Starfleet Academy days to his first assignment on the U.S.S. Pegasus. As we read on in this book, we get to see what a cadet has to go through to become and officer in Starfleet. The other main character is Will Riker's father Kyle Riker.

"Deny Thy Father" is a look into a failed father son relationship. Where both father and son are too stubborned to realize that working together things would work well but they let their maleness take over and the relationship fails.

"Deny Thy Father" is essentially two stories one about Will and the other about Kyle as he trys to cope with someone trying to kill him for something that he might have done. "Deny Thy Father" is a fast read and you'll finish it quickly. The book has some mystery and intrigue as Kyle Riker is trying to figure out who is trying to kill him. And we get to see him try to cope with his situation making for an intresting read.

Will Riker, on the other hand, is making his way through Starfleet Academy in the course of the book and his first years are not really that good and he struggles. We get to read about his friends which aren't the best people in the world as they need to grow-up as well.

The rift between the Rikers never really gets resolved, but the father realizes his error and saves his son in a circumspect sort of way, making for some interesting reading.

I gave this book a solid 4 star rating as it gives the reader a glimpse of Will Riker's early Starfleet career and a glimpse into Kyle Riker as a man with problems and his estranged relationship with his son.

Reading Deny Thy Father is like watching a train crash. I fear to watch, yet I cannot turn away. Jeff Marriotte's first full length novel, the next to last installment (and I hope that won't be for long) in the Lost Era sub-series, starts out well enough but quickly becomes probably one of the worst Trek books I've ever read. Luckily, the book is so bad that it actually rounds the circle of taste to something actually kind of entertaining and not just plain bad like the Stargazer books have been.

There were so many things that I found amiss about the book that I don't know if I can list them all, but I'll try. First of all, the basic story structure is baffling since the stories of the two Rikers really don't have anything to do with each other until briefly at the end. One can see the theme of the sins of the father revisited upon the son in both their behaviors, but I could think of any number of different combinations that would have brought this thread more to the forefront and been more entertaining.

Continuity takes a hit here and there. Most questionable is in the opening when Kyle's apartment needs all sorts of security measures to just get in and this is utopian Earth? One of the many gratuitous and pointless cameos is Ben Sisko at the hospital for the birth of his child, who just so happens to slightly know Kyle Riker and is then of course willing to help him escape. Now, I had always assumed that since they used the TNG sickbay set for Jake's birth flashback scene in The Emissary, he had been born on the Saratoga. However, that was just assumption, so that's not really the problem as so much is the statement that Sisko was in security/engineering colors and not command like in the pilot episode. Ensign Kathryn Janeway also makes an appearance, if for no other reason than the fact that Admiral Owen Paris is also shoehorned into the story.

Details aside, the book's largest problems are characters, story and the aforementioned structure. It really felt like this book wanted to be two separate entities. We're not really informed which is meant to be the lead story: the political thriller involving Kyle Riker or the coming of age school story about Will Riker. The Kyle Riker story is the most interesting in the first segment of the book as we try to figure out who is behind it.

It doesn't help when we get several episodic stories for both characters that get only the most superficial of treatments. The 11th hour story set on Hazimot was really bland and completely got away from why Kyle fled Earth to begin with. Kyle meets the most inexperienced and frankly idiotic group of rebels fighting against your generic corrupt government where the rich get richer etcetera etcetera. The rebels pull a prank on a government parade that's, I kid you not, straight out of Animal House. Now, these rebels already know that Dean Wormer and his police state deal with the local rabble in the most violent of ways for the most minor of things (such as public gatherings). Yet Kyle's airhead rebel girlfriend is totally shocked and indignant at how the army immediately goes into their neighborhood and starts slaughtering everyone for their parade prank. I so wanted to toss the book across the room at this point.

Michelle was just one of many unappealing guest characters in this book. Just about all of Will's Academy buddies were grating in one way or another and I didn't blame Will at all for ditching them and trying to focus on schoolwork. In some ways, it is interesting to see some stories set in a regular character's Academy days, but if this is how they'll come across, it's just as well they never did an Academy series.

For example, Dennis Haynes has been Will's friend the whole book and then quickly becomes an unreasonable jerk out of the blue. Then Will's girlfriend has the audacity to get angry at Will for not sacrificing all of his time to help Dennis with his studies. Of course, this really isn't out of character for her since she regularly came across to me as condescending towards Will Riker. Now, I don't sympathize with Will's "career-first" personality. In fact, it's an attitude I find abhorrent. But at the same time, I found Felicia's attitude of underlying superiority even worse. Estresor Fil was the only real compelling person who had any kind of compelling character arc.

But wait, there's more! The book just keeps going and going as we move on to Will's first posting aboard the Pegasus. You'd think we'd see the tragic events described in the TNG episode of the same name as the ship. It sure would fit in perfectly with Will's story of being gung-ho about a career in Starfleet wouldn't it?

You'd be wrong. We instead get an absolutely meaningless trip to a planet to pick up a war criminal. There's much made about beaming down to get this prisoner when here I am just wondering why they couldn't beam up the guy with absolutely no fuss. This planet is part of the Federation, but they have no starbase or transporters? We also get another unbelievable scene where a security guard (probably an subordinate to an Ensign remember) comes to Will just a day or two after he arrives and confides that he'd like to kill this war criminal! I did not buy it for a second.

About the only real characters to survive this mess unscathed are the main characters. Kyle and Will still commit a couple mistakes of supreme stupidity (Will's race with Paul Rice at Saturn comes to mind instantly), but their characters seemed spot on. That's about all I can say positive about Deny Thy Father.

I suppose I could on and on about the hackneyed finale where there's an attempt to bring the two stories together, but it's involves a fairly anticlimactic fistfight (in front of several Starfleet brass who apparently couldn't be bothered to lift a finger to help) and then just sort of ends. All I'll say is that it involves mind control! Da-Duh-Dun! After reading Deny Thy Father, I wouldn't mind a little mind control that wipes my memory of this.

In this book, we see Will Riker as a Cadet and then an Ensign; we see his father; we see Katherine Janeway as an Ensign, and we see Owen Paris, father of Tom Paris, already an Admiral. The story centers around Will and his father, although the twain never do meet; already, they're estranged. The plot, both the main one and various subplots, are all handled well, competently and with flair. We get more insight into both Will and his father; not surprisingly, Deanna Troi is not the first potential love that Will has broken up with in the name of furthering his career, nor is it surprising that his father has trouble with relationships too.

Not, perhaps, of interest to the reader who isn't already familiar with the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" background world and characters unless they would find a study of a disfunctional father-son relationship in which both men are reasonable, worthwhile individuals of interest, but definitely a must for fans.

I hate to be critical of an author who writes well, but there are a lot of things about this novel that I have problems with. First, it's always nice to learn about a popular character's history. This book is essentially 2 stories, one about Will Riker and the other about Kyle Riker. Concerning Will, it was nice to learn about his Academy days. However, I didnt really get much from it. If Starfleet Academy were real, I would imagine most cadets would have similar stories to tell (if not better). As to Kyle's story, it was interesting to learn about his past with the Tholians. And the setup concerning the conspiracy kept you turning the pages. But then it goes downhill real fast. Kyle disappears to let things settle, and hence begins a story-line I cant imagine anyone would care about. I didnt care about what happened, and I didnt care about the characters. All that kept me going were the interludes about Will. Second, the ending couldnt have tied up any faster if it tried. It was 300+ pages of build-up, with 1/2 page for resolution. (It was like a cartoon ending.) And at the end, I didnt care about that either. I guess what Im saying is that this book was a waste of time. It's OK if you have nothing else to do, but I dont think I would recommend it.