The Sundered (Star Trek: The Lost Era, 2298) (Mass Market Paperback)

As stated in the book, this story is set in the year 2298, five years after the presumed death of Captain James T. Kirk aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-B in Star Trek Generations, and sixty-six years before the launch of the Enterprise-D in "Encounter at Farpoint." Now, we get to see what happens after Kirk and prior to Picard as Captain Hikaru Sulu takes command of U.S.S. Excelsior in an action character driven book that keeps the readers interest piqued.

The book is divided into ten sections giving the reader background to the characters within the story and it further carries the reader through the whole of the book. Making for an easy transition. There are space battles as the Tholians weave a web of vengence against the Neyel that have been approacing Tholian space via an interspacial rift, a tear in the fabric of space that allows great distances to be traveled in relatively short periods of times. This is the same rift in space that has trapped the Defiant from ST: TOS and later recovered by the ST Corps of Engineers.

We read about some of our favorites from the older Trek novelizations including Chekov, Janice Rand, Christine Chapel, Tuvok and Akaar as they interact with the story. Interlaced within the pages of this book are flashbacks to scenes of past adventures spicing up the story and jogging the reader's memory. The Tholians and the Neyel are the featured aliens in this novel.

The Tholians are a mineral based life that use musical tones to communicate and the Neyel have a past that leads back to Earth and look completely different from their original stock. Both lifeforms think the other is nonsentient, a leap of faith that you'll have to get over, as they are both spacefaring cultures where communication is a must. This is the crux of the problem, communication, where neither side has adquate universal translation skills and only the Excelsior and her crew can make communication possible.

The book is a very fast read for its 384 pages as I found that I read 150 pages in one short sitting as the action mounts and the situations get resloved. The command of writting and style keeps the reader engrossed within the story and you'll finish the story in short order.

This book is a solid 4 stars and is the third book that I've read from this duo of authors and it is the best so far. Captivating the reader and wanting to know what comes next are used with very powerful outcome, making for a delightful read.

This series "The Lost Years" fills the trek reader in on what happens in the universe between Kirk and Picard. I only hope that the other 5 books in this 6 book series are as well-written as this opening foray.

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The Sundered is an amazing and compelling book, one that should have great appeal, on a number of levels for a wide variety of readers. Utilizing both familiar and unique characters, the authors paint a picture with their prose of three distinct societies: the Federation of that era, the Tholian Assembly and the Neyel Hegemony. The authors take the time to introduce the characters. Instead of rushing the plot, they patiently allow the characters to become `real'.

Martin and Mangels depiction of the Excelsior crew is of a group of individuals who have developed deep and lasting relationships over a long period. There is a real comfort level in the way they interact. The Tholian society portrayed in The Sundered may not meet every reader's preconceived notions of that alien species, but I thought the author's depiction of the Tholians was incredible. Building on what little is known about the physical appearance of the non-humanoid Tholians, Martin and Mangels skillfully illuminate an intricate and fascinating species and provide our first real look at their unique civilization. The Tholian characters are as fully realized as any of the other characters in this story.

The plot makes use of the classic story within a story framework. As the scenes shift from the current events to the past, we are gradually able to understand how the Neyel became who they are. How all they had gone through shaped their beliefs and how those beliefs shaped their actions. They went from being creepy to sympathetic by the end and it would be wonderful to find out some day if their hopes and dreams come true.

One of the great things about The Sundered was how the story would often raise questions in your mind, you would begin to wonder about something and then within a chapter or two all was made clear. It was actually more satisfying than if it had all been laid out to begin with. Additionally, the way the authors were able to cleverly explain previous inconsistencies while at the same time adhering to established continuity was very impressive.

Whatever way you look at it, Star Trek novels don't get much better than The Sundered. It is a true science fiction tale that amply demonstrates that the Star Trek universe is still a wonderful place to explore the human condition.

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And this month, Pocket books attempts to expand the series of original Trek fiction even further--this time by answering the questions of what happened between the death of James T. Kirk in Generations and the first time we saw the Enterprise in Encounter at Farpoint. It's an intriguing idea, if not necessarily an original one (TOS did it with the underrated Lost Years saga) and its really the type of thing the Trek fiction should be doing.

The first entry is the Sundered, written by the phenomenal writing team of Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels. The story is one of Captain Sulu and his time aboard the Excelsoir, negotiated a peace treaty with the Tholians. But along comes a new race of aliens who hold a secret that just may unravel the delicate peace process and drag not only the Excelsoir but the entire Federation into war. Along the way there is a murder, some space battles and some guest appareances by Trek characters we've all heard of before.

Martin and Mangalis take a page from the DS9 re-launch and allow the story to be character driven as well as dependent on the plot to move forward. We get moments to enjoy gettting to know the crew of the Excelsoir--both old and new friends--and we also get some exploration of the societies of the Tholians and the new aliens. It's the character moments that make the story a real page turner and help it rise to the level of quality that has been achieved by the DS9 relaunch.

That said, the story does fall prey to some rather heavy-handed foreshadowing. There are flashbacks that take place within the story to certain events that will impact the plot later. Unfortunately, by doing this, I was able to guess the plot twist that was coming about fifty or so pages before if happened. Also, the authors suffer from something that a lot of modern Trek writers are falling prey to these days--novelizing scenes from classic Trek episodes. While it's not nearly as bad as the Michael Jan Friedman trilogy "My Brother's Keeper" it's still annoying enough to take you out of the novel for the few pages its include (also, thankfully they don't fall into Friedman's trap of novelizing the entire episode for us).

But the good points far out weight the nitpicky points in this novel. This is one of the more enjoyable Trek novels I've read in a while and it's got my interest up not only for the next book but the entire Lost Era series. It also makes me wonder if a series featuring Sulu and his Excelsoir crew wouldn't be welcome. I know there are already a lot of on-going Trek fiction series out there, but if the stories for Sulu and company are going to be this good, I think I could make a bit more space on the bookshelf for more such stories.

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