Customer Reviews

Requiem

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Star Trek: The Next Generation, Requiem by Michael Jan Friedman and Kevin Ryan is a classic. Where could you get Captain Picard, everyones favorite gnarley lizards (Gorn), time travel, interplanetary war, and camios by Kirk, Spock, and McCoy... only in this book.

This book starts out on the U.S.S. Stargazer Captain Jean-Luc Picard's first command, twenty-five years prior to his command of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Picard works on negotiations with the Gorn, but as we know the Gorn are sneaky for lizards and can hardly be trusted. But the Enterprise and her crew are now sent to finish the negotiations with the Gorn some twenty-five years after Picard's initial contact. While on their way, the Enterprize comes into contact with an alien space station, as the crew begins to evacuate, Picard is caught in a blinding light and is transported 100 years back in time to Cestus III.

At first Picard does not know where he is, then befriends the Doctor on the colony. All this time that Picard has been missing, Riker and the Enterprise crew have been searching , but to no avail, and the Gorn negotiations are going to hell in a hand basket. While on Cestus III, Picard witnesses the Gorn invasion and is in a position to change history.

This is classic TREK at its very best. You will not be disappointed reading this book, as it keeps the reader well engrossed with a tale written for the trekker in mind. You will be thouroghly entertained as war looms over the galaxy.

Picard is the key, the challenges are great, only now will the future of the Federation be held in the past?

I had so much fun reading this and many other Star Trek books in High School. Particularly good are books that elaborate on the more mediocre average Star Trek episodes. This book is one of them. It elaborates on the episode Arena, the first and only time we ever saw the Gorn in Star Trek. Time travel, another fun Sci Fi idea is also a part of this book. Seeing (in my imagination) Picard going back in time to the Original Star Trek is better than watching the DS9 episode Trials and Tribbilations (A crossover of the orginal classic episode Trouble with Tribbles). I good book. I highly recommend it if you're a Sci Fi buff.

Although this exceptional numbered novel is today considered to be one of the early "Stargazer" novels, it is most definitely considered one of the best novels written to date by Star Trek's most prolific author Michael Jan Friedman and former Star Trek editor, Kevin Ryan. Few of the numbered novels can even compare to this fast paced, "historically" rich Star Trek novel. This novel is a pure sign of MJ Friedman's "true" genius and one of the reasons why he is Star Trek's most prolific author; he knows what the fans want to read about, primarily because he's a fan who also has the best job for a fan and the talent to back it up.

Within these pages you'll find a story involving both the crew of the Enterprise NCC-1701-D and Captain Picard and the crew of the USS Stargazer, some twenty five years earlier. You'll also have a chance to visit Cestus III, first seen in the classic Star Trek episode, "Arena" and of course, the Gorn, who claimed sovereignty over the planet.

Although the cover art does contain an "interesting" image of a younger Captain Jean Luc Picard and a drawing of the Gorn from "Arena," it's pretty much standard fare for the time in which this novel was published.

The premise:

Twenty five years prior to this story; Captain Jean Luc Picard, captain of the USS Stargazer, negotiated a breakthrough with the Gorn. Now, on the twenty fifth anniversary of that breakthrough, Captain Picard and the Enterprise are headed for the Gorn Homeworld to continue those negotiations.

While en route to the Gorn Home world, the Enterprise discovers a mysterious alien artifact and suddenly, Captain Picard disappears. Just as Commander Riker and the Enterprise begins the investigation in to what happened to their Captain, the summit with the Gorn goes terribly wrong and war now looms over the Alpha Quadrant and Captain Picard is desperately needed to prevent it. Captain Picard finds that he's been transported through time and is now on Cestus III, shortly before the Gorn attack it, leaving only one survivor.

What follows from there is, as stated above, one of the best numbered Star Trek The Next Generation novels to date. I highly recommend this novel to any and all fans of the genre and especially to those who've read MJ Friedman's Stargazer novels and would like to read as much on Captain Picard's time as the Captain of that ship as possible. {ssintrepid}

The original series of Star Trek introduced so many original characters, including several new species that an entire sub-industry was created. New species introduced in the series include the adversarial Klingons, Romulans and the Gorn. This book is a follow-up to the episode "The Arena", where the Federation outpost on Cestus III was destroyed by the Gorn and Captain Kirk and the Gorn captain are pitted against each other in single combat.
The time frame is decades later and the Gorn leadership has requested the presence of Captain Picard to help quell some internal disturbances in the Gorn system. Years before while he was captain of the Stargazer, Captain Picard had been the Federation representative that had established a rather unusual dialog with the Gorn.
While the Enterprise is on its way to rendezvous with the Gorn, it encounters a very large and very old ship. Captain Picard makes the decision to stop and investigate and while he is on the alien ship, it activates and sends him back in time to Cestus III. Picard is then is a situation where he must struggle to stay alive and maintain his adherence to the Prime Directive. Meanwhile, the crew of the Enterprise is engaged in a desperate search for the captain and is they are under very specific orders that they must keep their appointment with the Gorn.
The good aspect of this book is that it extends the initial contact with the Gorn that took place in "The Arena" and gives us a small amount of insight into their culture. However, this is completely overshadowed by the negative aspects of one of the plot devices that I dislike the most. The Enterprise encounters an element of an alien and unknown technology, it works well enough to create the primary difficulty to be overcome in the episode, the Enterprise crew struggles to master it and then when it is no longer useful, it is somehow destroyed. Most of the time this destruction is only a few seconds after the Enterprise crew manages to get away from it. With so many possibilities in the imaginative universe of Star Trek, using this tactic is shallow.

Marvellous story idea, wonderfully executed. The characterizations are handled exquistitely, the pacing is superb, one of the best of the Star Trek Novels.

One quibble: the word you're looking for on page 184 is "genteel", not "gentile".

Welcome back the Gorn! You Trekkies should remember them. Greenish lizard like creatures, one which Kirk battled one on one on Cestus III?

Well, enter the diplomat, Jean-Luc Picard. The story starts out with a younger Picard on the Stargazer. They encounter the Gorn, and Picard transports over to their ship and eventually to their homeworld. With very little known about the Gorn, except for accounts from Kirk's encounter, Picard somehow figures them out.

This sets up the current time, where the Gorn want to establish diplomatic relations with the Federation. Picard is the only one who is fit for this of course. While traveling there, the Enterprise comes upon a huge space station. While investigating it, power surges take place, and some of the crew manage to get transported back to the Enterprise, but Picard. Then, he is caught in a blinding beam, and wakes up 100 years or so in the past in an infirmary. Guess where? Cestus III, although the captain is not aware of this yet.

Eventually, he learns where he is, and in the meantime, is considered suspicious by all the colonists there, except the doctor, who he becomes attracted to. Going by the name of Dixon Hill, he finds out what Stardate it is, and knows it will not be long, before the Gorn invade and destoy this colony. He plans his escape, but before he even has a chance to move out, they find out he is not who he says he is.

Picard then reveals some information to the doctor about who he really is, since she is the only one who trusts him. Picard manages to save the colony from a reactor core overheating, but has to use force to do it, as everyone things he is sabotoging it. After doing this, he runs away into the canyons, trying to find his communicator, in the only hope of being found 100 years in the future. The Enterprise 1701-D, get the help from Bajoran pirates. As Picard is being pursued by the colonists, the Gorn invade. Being torn between obeying the Prime Directive, or helping the colonists, and the doctor who he cares about, he decides to help them, hoping it will not affect the future timeline. While helping them, he is beamed away back to the future, or his time. Toward the end of the book, Kirk, Spock and Bones appear.

All in all a great book. Was mislead a little, thinking Picard would be facing one on one with a Gorn like Kirk did.

I picked this oldie up because of the time travel theme. In it Picard, while enroute to critical negotiations with the Gorn (ref TOS episode `Arena'), is hurled by an ancient artifact they find floating in space back to Cestus III just days before the outpost is attacked. While there, he struggles with his mandate not to alter the timeline and his feelings about the eminent massacre of the colonists.

This is one of Michael Jan Friedman's MANY novels and reads just fine, but a couple things bothered me. The story doesn't make it clear why the artifact sent his to that exact time and place; random chance? Wow, even for a Star Trek novel that is a lot to swallow. Perhaps it knew what was on his mind just before sending him. And the story sure ended abruptly.

I wouldn't say this is one of the better STTNG novels out there. Still, if you'd like to read another TNG story, read this one.

I cant belive how great this book is. A must read for anyone who likes TNG or the Gorn!!!