Customer Reviews

Engines of Destiny

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was a bit reticent when I first read about the story behind this formerly "lost" book; I mean, really, how could one man become such a catalyst as to cause the Borg to be "everywhere" (to paraphrase the TNG episode "Parallels")? I was expecting a Kirk/Picard narrative, and I was grateful when my expectations were quickly proven wrong. DeWeese has written a thought-provoking, temporal-shifting, character-driven novel that builds upon the notion of the Borg in first contact; that they are indeed a force to be reckoned with, not some laughable nuiscance pillaging the Delta Quadrant.

At the heart of the story are Guinan, Scotty, and Sarek; it was these three characters with whom I thought DeWeese developed extremely well. Guinan must wrestle with the knowledge that repairing the timeline will restore the Federation (and Earth)--but cost her her homeworld of El Auria, which was overlooked by the Borg on their conquest of Earth. It was a rare treat to see two Guinans in one universe, and even though some of Guinan's mystique is explained in the epilogue, it did more to further develop her character and raise many more questions
Scotty was a bit broken at the beginning (it was, though, nice to meet Ensign Frankling) but he did come to the fore and live up to his title of miracle worker. "Engines..." sets the stage for Scotty to head up the SCE and make an even greater difference to Starfleet.
Sarek and the Romulans were, in my opinion, not in the novel as much as they could have been; I would have loved to have seen more of Koval and the always tragic Commander Tal.
The crew of "Enterprise" was not terribly drawn-out in terms of characterization and we saw only a few of them briefly, but this was a strength of the novel; we know plenty about these characters, and as such can see their reactions and actions in our minds, not needing it spelled out.
At its heart, "Engines of Destiny" was a novel about coming to terms with the past and mistakes, and, ultimately, what it takes to be human.

It's hard to review this book without giving away too much of the plot. I'll start by saying the back cover text is a little off. While the plot does involve Scotty attempting to save Kirk from his death on the Enterprise-B, it is not the focus of the book.

One of my few complaints about the book is that DeWeese sets up this interesting situation; what if Kirk hadn't died on the Enterprise-B as seen in "Star Trek Generations"? Kirk doesn't do anything worth mentioning in the plot. He interacts a bit with Picard who appears to look down on Kirk and is jealous because the old Enterprise captain has a close relationship with his crewmen, enough for one of them to want to travel back in time to save him from death. I find that to be a little hard to believe given "Generations" and Picard's willingness to work with Kirk without much complaint. Scotty gets them into the plot only to be reduced to a small role at the end.

Given that main flaw, the book is really about Guinan. She acts as the threat that Picard has to deal with. She leads them into the "alternate universe" that the back cover speaks of. She then holds a secret as to why they are there. The author digs into the character of Guinan, offering an interesting new and fresh look at her. I wish he had gotten more into her, describing her past, perhaps dealing with her life before leaving her planet, her children, her family. There's even an alternate universe Guinan that steps in and shakes things up.

Perhaps another problem with this book is that it reads at times like a fan-fiction more so than a novel. There are cameos galore; Guinan, Sarek, Tal, Kirk, Scotty, the Borg Queen, the Guardian of Forever. Some of these are handled better than others. The entire premise seems to be a time-travel novel that serves as a prequal to both "Generations" and "First Contact." It's not exactly clear until the end of the book how these movies factor in. Most of the novel attempts to continue the events of the TNG episode "Relics," mixing in the new knowledge of Kirk's death and making it all work.

As one reviewer noted, it was nice to have the Borg be true enemies. There are a few plot elements that are never fully developed and perhaps some of that is because of all the time traveling that busies the plot and makes it a little confusing. It was a little frustrating that for a good portion of the novel, the Enterprise-D crew is reduced to Guinan, Picard, Data and brief appearances by Riker and Worf. There were obvious places where Troi's telepathy and counseling skills could have been used more than Guinan's "feelings." With Picard suffering from Borg thoughts, it would have been nice to see someone, Troi, Crusher, Riker, step in and help him through them. Instead, Troi barely appears and Crusher doesn't make an appearance until the final leg of the book.

Given all of this, by the end, the plot does manage to come together. I had a lot of questions, including how Guinan could go the entire book not knowing that the Nexus Ribbon was so close by. Or why Picard didn't seem familiar with Kirk in "Generations" if this had already occured. Or what was the point for Kirk even being included if he wasn't going to do anything in the plot. Or how could an altnerate universe develop advanced weapons when they appear to be lacking resources and they didn't seem to have the same development that we've watched evolve.

Perhaps what holds this book back is that there are a lot of things crammed into the plot that simply aren't explored enough. The author obviously wanted to bring Kirk back from the dead and tie it into the rest of Trek history, yet Kirk's ressurection comes off as just a ploy to get into the situation (or perhaps to get people to buy the book). The focus is obviously on Guinan and her past, but the author fails to take us deeper into Guinan's past when the opportunity is right there. We could have learned more about Guinan, enough to see her family perhaps, to learn about the Borg attacking her planet. This seems to be a revisit to "First Contact" with the Borg haunting Picard's thoughts and the Queen being involved. If the Enterprise and Guinan easily could identify the Nexus Ribbon in "Generations," then why is it such a mystery in this book to them? It too was hardly used to it's full potential.

The book is okay, an interesting read but it ends as if it's more like a sophisticated fan-fic than it does a real professional novel.

All right. I'll be right up front -- you won't find all that many people who love Scott more than I do. My childhood icon. In as such, in the many years that I've been rather starved for any reading material that gives him even a decent cameo, I decided to give this book a shot. Indeed, I reviewed it on my own blog and the world shall breathe a sigh of relief that I'm making even an attempt at tact here.

This book is just terrible. The characterizations are so bad that I spent a good deal of time with my jaw dropped, wondering where Mister DeWeese is getting his characterizations. I can only conclude that, in his drive to worship Jim Kirk and fanboy a crossover, he somehow completely missed the notion that characters aren't puppets that you can reduce to a handful of (not even accurate) traits. Not only did Scotty seem utterly out of character, but everyone else did, too. The plot, if you could call it that, was less thought-out than even some of the most mediocre fanfiction on the web... and there is a considerable amount of that.

I could likely write as many words on why this novel reeks of amateurism and a lack of even the most fundamental principles of storytelling, as the novel itself actually has.

There is something rather irritating about reducing an intelligent (if not humanly flawed) character to little more than a whining parody of himself. DeWeese not only did it, but did it within a handful of pages. I would call this ability to turn Montgomery Scott into little more than a painful puppet admirable, but it's not. Instead of writing a story about a man who, at least throughout all visible canon, had a rather pragmatic view on death (see ST:II and Generations), Scotty suddenly becomes obsessed with the notion of saving Jim Kirk. Well, heck, if you're going to write about him time-travelling to save anyone, don't you think his own nephew would get first consideration?

Alas, no. Instead of the solemn, rather realistic 'Aye' Scott gives in Generations, suddenly he's all in pieces. I could even maybe stand that notion, if some real effort would have been given to getting into the man's head and really showing (rather than telling, assuming or just badly writing past it) how he got to this point. The sheer emotional and psychological ramifications of Scott's life, given canon, are fodder for whole novels of their own where he could be given a chance to shine as an individual instead of just a plot point. Therefore, the notion that this... entirely sub-quality book makes print is rather galling.

Gene DeWeese's book could perhaps be used (or the crumpled pages could) to package Christmas presents.

But that's about all it's good for.

The premise and the buyildup to the end are very good, but the resolution just makes no sense. Why the choice made "corrects" the timeline is in no way obvious. Too bad.

Certainly, a great idea: Scotty, finding himself alive in the 24th century (following the events in the TNG episode "Relics") coninues to be consumed with guilt over the apparent death of Captain Kirk during the maiden voyage of the Enterprise B, and decides to go back in time to pluck Kirk from the deflector control room moments before the energy ribbon destroys it. Of course, Scotty has no way of knowing that Kirk's presence in the Nexus will be necessary to aid Picard years later at Veridian III, and that without Kirk's help, Picard and the Enterprise D crew will die on Veridian III, leaving no one to prevent the Borg from traveling back in time to 21st century earth as they did in "First Contact." As Star Trek fans, we are not surprised to see the time line that Scotty creates as a result of Kirk's rescue, but we are forced to endure the characters in the book trying to figure it out for a rather long time. When the reason for the altered time line is finally discovered, it is meant to be a climactic moment in the book, but it is hardly satisfying since we figured it out right away. The main disappointment in the book, however, is the use of Kirk and Scott. Once the rescue is completed and the altered time line comes into existence, Kirk and Scott essentially become bit players, having very little to do. Worse, the dialogue written for Kirk does not ring true at all; it just doesn't sound like Kirk. The other problems with the book are what I would call "coincedences." Scotty just happens to find a Klingon Bird of Prey that he can use to go back in time; that is coincidence # 1. Before using the Bird of Prey, he visits Enterprise D to access its databanks to obtain the formulas that Spock used to slingshot the first Bird of Prey back in time. Rather than leave Enterprise D quietly to return to the Bird of Prey, Scotty takes off in a highly suspicious manner, leading Picard to follow him to the Bird of Prey and into the slingshot; that is coincidence # 2. Given what Scotty had planned, it seems he would have been a lot more discreet in leaving Enterprise D, which is yet another reason why I thought the characters were not handled properly.

I looked over the reviews and was suprised that no one made the observation that in the film Generations it was QUITE clear that you can't go to the Nexus, the Nexus must come to you. That's why the evil genius blows up all these planets to change gravity, hence change the Nexus' course to come to him.

Well, in this novel that all changed. Here, it's possible to transport into the Nexus. For that matter, why doesn't Guinan transport in there too since she misses so much. For me, this spoiled the book. What was the author thinking?

A friend of mine who frequents the Star Trek related site, Trektoday, commented in her post regarding this novel: "What happened to Scotty?"

Like me, she wasn't able to finish the book. (I believe there were others who didn't have the patience to read through to the end either).

Author Gene DeWeese gives us a negative portrait of Trek's infamous Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (aka 'Scotty'). Scotty is a self-pitying, lonely alcoholic in the 24th century who goes throught the novel feeling that he could have prevented the death of James Kirk (who died on the ENT-B in 'Generations'). Scotty decides that he will risk the entire universe to save James T. Kirk.

Not his nephew Peter (who died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), or ladies he had been interested in: Mira Romaine, or even Carolyn Palamas--ladies whom we had previously seen on the classic series.

The Scotty we know was a character who went by the book, but was rational. Moreover, even in the series, he wasn't that close to Kirk that he would risk the universe to save him. (Even Spock or McCoy would be a bit more rational if they had thought to undertake that action).

A character--even on non-Trek terms--is not a sane person. DeWeese gives us a Scotty that is a bit insane.

This novel is a sequel to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode 'Relics' (where we understood Scotty feeling out of place, but somehow our Chief Engineer would have found a way to move on; and even if he was taking a little while to do so, he wouldn't needlessly endanger people).

A decent Star Trek book marred by 1) too much plot and action; 2) too much of Scotty's self-pity and Guinan's "feelings."

I see that here on Amazon, this book is correctly listed as a Next Generation story; the book cover does not say "Next Generation", merely "Star Trek", probably because it is a bit of a crossover with the original series, prominently featuring Scotty and somewhat less Kirk, and largely taking place in the time period of Kirk's disappearance into the vortex from the Enterprise B. Still, make no mistake, it is a Next Generation story, set (before the time travel) in the period between Scotty's return in "Relics" and the "Generations" movie. The book was well-written, the characterizations, plot, pacing, and action were all quite good, and the handling of the temporal paradoxes quite good right up until the end, when the author cheaped out and used the old "and then they all woke up, and none of it had ever happened" copout. Granted, I can't say that I know what would happen if one were to time-travel and alter the time-stream, since it's a theoretical impossibility, but I truly don't think it would happen like that, ESPECIALLY since it didn't the first time they changed history, but only when they changed it back. That, as a certain character I'm sure we're all familiar with would say, is illogical.

Other than feeling that the ending was cheap, I fully enjoyed this book and would still recommend it.

While reading this novel, the feeling that the writing was too contrived was consistent.(Possible spoiler alert) While I can grant the Kirk Borg link, all the plot devices appeared entirely too convenient and made only for this story not really in keeping with the Trek franchise...for example, why would any being - not protected in a time catastrophe - have any recollection of an alternate timeline?

That being said, it was still a decent read, an interesting take on what might have happened if the Borg Queen had indeed succeeded in the First Contact scenario.