Customer Reviews

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Greater than the Sum (Star Trek Next Generation (Unnumbered))

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Back in 2004 and 2005, the A Time To... series led straight into Titan: Taking Wing which lead straight into Articles Of The Federation, and all these books nicely referred to each other, mutual characters and continuity, all sorts of good stuff. Unified whole. Even Death In Winter, Michael Jan Friedman's post-Nemesis novel about Picard and Crusher, fit in to the universe pretty well.

So after all this nicely done continuity, the only thing I can figure is that the editor (editors?) decided at least one series needed to stand on its own and not bother with the overarching details, because then we got Resistance, J. M. Dillard's thoroughly underwhelming Borg story, and suddenly there were no references to the earlier novels. Or established continuity about the Borg, or events from the A Time To... series, or anything. It was jarring.

And from that book on this series has gotten it completely backwards. All the stuff that should stay the same from book to book - consistent characters, long-term relationships, that kind of thing - has been scattered and random, and all the stuff that should vary from book to book - variety in storyline, villains, that kind of thing - has stayed the same. For instance, in Resistance, we were introduced to a new helmsman, tactical officer, and counselor. The helmsman and tactical officer die. Then, in Q&A, the next book, we get a new tactical officer and (finally) an ops officer, to replace Data. That's all well and good until Before Dishonor, which manages to stunningly mischaracterize all three ongoing characters so far. And then we get this entry, which takes two of those characters and kicks them off the ship and introduces three MORE new characters, in the mean time explaining to us the story of at least one OTHER character that came on the ship only to leave a few weeks later. It's just... a complete failure of an ongoing series.

And, get this - Resistance and Before Dishonor were both about the Borg! And so is this one! So overlayed on top of this inability to keep track of characters or any traits thereof, we get the numbing repetitiveness of the same villain three times... oh, and, by the way, they're going to be the villain in the NEXT three books, too.

Now, I should add that Bennett is a fantastic writer, and given these circumstances, this book is probably the best it could've been. It's as different a story about the Borg as one could do in a standalone, and there's some attempt to turn the lack of consistent new characters into a story about family. It would almost have worked, had there not been so many problems with the TNG relaunch so far that the entire first third of Greater Than The Sum is just fixing plot holes and abruptly tying off character arcs.

It's funny, because the Star Trek books these days are spectacular, utterly fabulous, better than they've ever been. Between Vanguard, Titan, New Frontier, the Deep Space Nine Relaunch, The Lost Era, and all the others, there has never been a better time to be a fan of the Trek novels. And, despite the fact that it'll be Borg-centered again, the Destiny trilogy that starts in October - written by the biggest, baddest, most epic Trek author ever, David Mack - promises to be pretty fantastic.

But somehow, in all that awesome, the TNG relaunch has been all but a total failure. This is four books in a row now that, despite using the same subject matter over and over, seem bound and determined to re-relaunch the whole series with each novel, with a completely new supporting cast. I sincerely hope we're done with that now, and everything after this stays consistent, because this is really irritating.

If you're a completest, you probably already own the TNG-relaunch books; if you aren't, I think I'd pretty much recommend reading Death In Winter along with all the other books that take place right after Nemesis, and then skipping right to the Destiny trilogy. There's no possible way it could make less sense than actually trying to decipher logic in these four novels' mishmash of failed arcs and 'continuity'.

Ok...ok...I see all the negative reviews out here for this book and I understand some of your complaints. Yes, the Borg are being used heavily and yes, the Enterprise senior staff keeps getting shuffled. Valid points.

But Bennett turns out a good read in the latest relaunch novel. We see some final settling among the crew. After finishing the book, I really feel like the senior staff of the Enterprise has finally settled in and is starting to mesh together. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say we'll likely see this crew remain together.

Some surprising character growth occurs among the leading cast as well. I won't spoil anything, but Worf is showing more depth, as is Picard, Crusher and LaForge. They were starting to run the risk of turning Picard into a two-dimensional Borg fighter, but Bennett does a good job of seeing that the good captain remains as deep as he ever was. There are a couple of new additions, including a contact specialist, counselor and tactical officer, and even a familiar face from the SCE crew. These new additions seem to be the final piece of the puzzle missing from the command crew and were brought into the book and the crew smoothly.

I'm not sure yet if I like the new "evolved" Borg, but here we see them taking the next step toward all out war with the Federation. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the Borg, if the ending of this novel is any guide, but I believe the intensity of the relaunch is about to be stepped up a notch or two.

Greater Than the Sum is worth your time and really, to my mind, is beginning the smoothing out of the TNG relaunch. I've yet to put these novels on the level of the DS9 relaunch, but this one is an indication to me that they may soon reach that level of greatness.

It seems the TNG relaunch had been stuck in the mud but with this release, it has started to move forward. Several well known characters are explored here and the Enterprise-E has finally started to settle on a new and unique command crew. This isn't your daddy's TNG! The themes of family, growing up, and facing your worst demons give this a complex and satisfying feel. The Borg are almost an afterthought which isn't a bad thing here. A perfect setup for David Mack's Destiny trilogy to come later this year. Pick this one up!

First let me say that i'm a 3rd generation Trekker and up-to-date on all of the most current ST movies, books, comics, conventions, exhibits etc. etc. etc. This review will not be written in "trek speak". So enjoy!

This book is hard to review because it sucked but at the same time its necessary. Why did it suck? Well, I'm sorry but I like my Vulcans to be vulcans Sarek, Tuvok, Spock those are my boys and I love it!! So to have this Vulcan who doesn't act like a vulcan is a little jarring. Plus to put it mildly the book was a little boring in parts. To have a main character be a goof off and a silly goof off makes me wonder exactly who in "star fleet land" is vetting these applicants. I mean was she related to a high ranking admiral? Then, Picard to me was a tad bit whinny. I'm all for putting emotions and exploring the character but he's the captain of the flagship of the fleet is he really that petty?? (HMMMM to answer my own question he does get a little crazy when it comes to the borg). I actually like the new security chief she's pretty cool, but again she's a crier. Where's Worf when you need him (OH right he's first officer - See the A Time To series) I miss Data!! When is Geordi going to move out of engineering?? Everyone else is moving up why is he standing still??? (okay don't mean to use this to vent back to the book)

Why do I think this book is necessary? Well I just ordered the Destiny trilogy and from the reviews (and my friends) you would need to know whats going on in the Borgs head and why Picard is even more intense. (SPOILER ALERT - I should say why the Picard's are even more intense)

So all in all I would say if you're an avid trek fan and you can follow "trek world" bypass this book unless you just have to read every story (like me)!!

Greater than the Sum is a very well-written post-Nemesis Trek novel that pits Picard's Enterprise-E against the Borg once again.

In accordance with true TNG style, Christopher L Bennett explains everything. From the intricacies of stellar cartography to anecdotes about character backgrounds, and detailed battle tactics to deep personal contemplation, we see the whole lot under Bennett's scope. Thanks to this, many questions about Trek lore are answered, like how a Starfleet officer assimilated at Wolf 359 could end up with the Borg in the Delta Quadrant, and what the difference is between assimilated Borg and incubated drones. One cannot help but come away from this book without a full understanding of everything that happened and why. But lengthy conversations and encyclopedia-like descriptions come at a price. Sometimes it's a bit too much to sift through, and after a while one might yearn for a little less explanation and a bit more action.

The plot is relatively simple: Picard is ordered to stop a rogue Borg ship, the assimilated USS Einstein, from reaching the collective with critical new information. I won't spoil any more than that, but excitement-wise, this book isn't at the same level as the previous TNG relaunches or Star Trek: Destiny.

Nonetheless, Greater than the Sum offers a fresh start to the TNG crew. It takes place after the events in Before Dishonor, and in the interim Lt. Leybenzon and Counselor T'Lara have left. (Good riddance, in my opinion!) The new crew members are much more pleasant and mesh better with the oldies. I really like the new tactical officer Choudhury--she provides a good contrast (but not conflict!) to Worf's Klingon demeanor. I also like Lt. T'Ryssa Chen, the Human/Vulcan contact specialist who shuns her Vulcan side and embraces emotion. She's great because she has to learn to deal with her Vulcan ancestry, unlike Mr. Spock who had a hard time understanding humanity. Dina Elfiki is the new science officer, but she contributed relatively little in this story.

Hugh and Guinan return and both play pivotal roles. I loved seeing both of them once again. They and the rest of the Enterprise crew are written true to character.

Bennett did a wonderful job of constructing this story around Picard facing his fears about having a child with Beverly Crusher. In the end, I got a real sense of satisfaction in knowing that this story went beyond regular sci-fi and captured the essence of Star Trek's journey to explore the human condition. All in all, reading this book was a positive experience.

There is much hating on the TNG relaunch paperbacks, mostly from Borg fatigue. But I feel this one gets right what Before Dishonor got wrong. It isn't just more rehashing, the Borg are truly evolving, while the crew theorizes about their past while encountering here to fore unknown life forms at the same time. While the new character is a bit much, I like her anyway, and the book does kind of stumble in the last few chapters, but the arrival of faces from the TV series is always welcome (wish there was more of that in the movies). If you're a Next Gen completist you can't skip this; it's way better than the last one and about on par with Resistance and Q&A. Make it so.

Overall the book isn't bad at all, maybe too centered on procreation at times. It could be better and these are reasons why:

1) Some events it referenced from actual events that happened in series/movies were slightly factually incorrect at times. Not that I expect a book to be prefect but when it comes to specific things being incorrectly stated--just bugs me--when it happens more than once.

2) I noticed that the book had several part where the sentences were missing words and you would have to figure out that it was missing a word and which word it was. And it happened a lot.

3) From the things I observed... to be honest I feel that it was written in a rush and lacked a look over. Compared to the many other Star Trek books I have read... this one seemed like an off-brand.

4) I have read a book of Bennett before from the Titan series (Orion's Hounds) and didn't have these same issues; I just expected better quality.

I had read Christopher Bennett's _The Buried Age_ and really enjoyed that novel. I picked this one up, hoping for the same kind of read. Unfortunately, this one really failed to deliver.

The storyline is seriously implausible--Crusher, at her age, wanting a child (and being capable of conception)? I can buy the marriage of Picard and Crusher, but beyond that? Not so much. I'm not sure how things work in the _Star Trek_ universe, but I'm pretty certain the laws of biology really haven't changed THAT much. Worse, Picard as a father? Please. The man is married to the _Enterprise_. A wife? Possibly. A child? Never. The request for the suspension of disbelief really was too much for me.

I can see this novel being given to some guy whose significant other has decided the time is right for a child--the whole book being all about the glories of being a parent and reproduction. But the way it was written really insulted my intelligence. Nothing is thinly veiled. The message is being smashed against my head with a sledgehammer--very un-Star Trek-like. _Star Trek_ is all about making a reader/watcher THINK. There was no thinking allowed for the reader.

The final nail on the coffin was that Picard was written totally out of character. Some (and I emphasize SOME) dialogue was classic Picard, but the idea of his "eyes still dart[ing] down to her womb" (350) was simply too much.

If you want a fast read and don't mind the gross affront to your intelligence, this is probably an o.k. book for that purpose. Otherwise, please, Bennett. Get a better editor.

I hated this novel when I first read it, and I recently gave it another chance. Yep, it's terrible, all right!

For the record, I disapprove of the very idea of the STNG "re-launch". What made the actual series, and the novels closely based on it, so wonderful was the ensemble cast. Yes, that includes Data. Yes, I realize that Brent Spiner couldn't go on playing an ageless android forever. Yes, I realize he was killed off in the final movie. And, yes, I also realize that there's only so long you can have the whole ensemble standing around waiting for promotions that never come so that they stay with Picard on the Enterprise.

But trying to move the novels forward in time in anything like a consistent way smacks of soap opera, and leads to bad novels like this one, in which more pages are spent on exposition than on plot.

I'm not exaggerating! I counted out the pages in one particularly tedious passage and found that it went on for SIX PAGES. No dialogue, no action, no passage of time within the novel's universe. Just the narrator telling us what supposedly happened in the novel's past. And this passage was not early in the novel, nor was it by any means the only one. It happened again and again. If the only way to re-launch was to have novels like this, then the re-launch should have been scrapped.

After all, the best of the early Classic Trek novels simply interpolated events in the midst of the period covered by the TV series. There's plenty of time between episodes to do that with TNG, too, and for this ardent fan, it would be far more interesting and far more true to the characters than pretending the story goes on.

In trying to describe how terrible this book was, I'm not sure where to begin. It has, of course, all of the standard failures that you expect from Trek lit; mischaracterization of the main characters, no actual or long-term character growth and painfully predictable plot-twists. But having read Bennett's most recent two forays into Star Trek I can tell you his works are best to be avoided.

Don't get me wrong, he does a marvelous job at TELLING a story. His writing is tight and he's technically competant. It's just that the stories he tells seem like they sprang from the imagination of a middle schooler. Reading this book, you get the feeling that he never grew or developed past the age of 12 or 13. Important conversations that occur seem like they are what a 12 year old envisions as a "grown-up" conversation. Character decisions & actions are rewarded with the kind of consequences that a 13 year old imagines happening.

Bennett created a character for this story that is a half-Vulcan. I hated this character more than I hate wet socks. I will spare you a 30 page diatribe about her and will suffice to say that this character was based upon a Dungeons & Dragons charater that he or one of his friends played when he was a child. I'm not kidding. He says as much in the book's acknowledgemnents section.

Finally, it took me a year and a half to read this book b/c I couldn't stomach more than a few pages of it at a time. But I'm comitted to reading the relaunch so I pushed through it. Fortunately I didn't pay for the book. So my advice to you is: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK! Go online & read a summary of it. The summary will tell you everything you need to know and you won't feel the need to write poison pen letters to the idoits who hired this hack to write this book.