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Title: Star Trek: TNG: Greater than the Sum (Star Trek, the Next Generation)
ISBN: 1416571329
Author:
Christopher L. Bennett
Publicate Date: 2008-07-29
Publish: 2008-07-29
List Price: $7.99
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.63
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.59
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: What a let down!!!!!
I am a huge fan of TNG relaunch. I enjoyed Death in Winter, Resistance & Before Dishonor, but this book did not match up.
The book starts out ok. Lt. T'Ryssa Chen is aboard the U.S.S Rhea and they run into the Borg and the U.S.S Einstein, and she is sent light years away as she is about to get assimulated by an Entity that we learn about as the book goes along. She is then trasferred to the Enterprise as they go into high warp to engage the Einstein. This is when you meet the new characters of the Enterprise. Lt. Choudhury who is the new security chief replacing Leybenzon plays an important part of the story as does Lt. Chen but for the most part as these new characters are getting introduced there is nothing else going on. Picard wrestles with the idea of fatherhood as he still has the fear of losing everything that he loves and it ties in nicely with the TNG episode "Inner Light" a fan favorite from season 5. However for the most part the middle of this book was extremely boring for me. Character developement is very important but it would be nice if something else was going on at the same time.
The important thing is if you can getting thru to about pg 150 or so the book does get better, as the Enterprise meets up with Hugh and other former members of the collective and of course you get to find out about the Entity, however getting to that was quiet a chore for me.
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2: I`m over the Borg
So I just finished the Terok Nor series and I have to say it was a difficult transistion. We go from a rich description of a culture and planet to this flat, boring and overplayed storyline. Almost all the DS9 books have so much depth and a continuation of their characters while TNG books have been a recyling of old material and a slidshow of characters. The first part of the book was a recap of the past few books. Yeah, I know what happened. I read them. Please don`t insult our intelligence with a refresher. Then of course we have to rehash all of Voyager`s adventures (loved the series, the relaunch was lame with those last two horrible books and looks like no one wants to touch it). So, we beat the Borg storyline to a pulp, as we will continue to do so in the next few books. And what was the theme of this book? Family and children. Yes, we understand it. It was so clearly played out in every aspect of the book that it felt like overkill.
My humble advice to authors. First, read the Terok Nor series and get some stylistic ideas from them. Second, get a new story (no more Borg!), third stop killing off and introducing new characters. Published books are no place to be testing out characters to see if they stick. We want to meet these new and exciting people and get attached to them. Can`t do that when they get killed or assimilated in each book. I know these are great authors, let`s finish off this story arc and move on to something new! Get a new Titan book out!
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3: Just more of the same. I am giving up on this now.
Honestly, I did not like this novel at all. Simplistic language, narrowminded dialogues, clich??d characterisations, and most importantly a dull storyline left almost nothing for me to appreciate. I had high hopes for this installment beforehand, since I really liked Bennett's TOS novel "Ex Machina", which I found to be very well written with a tight story.
After several mediocre TNG novels, this is just one more to add to the pile. For me, only Peter David's "Before Dishonor" has been worth its time and money, and obviously just because David's writing managed to push it up to at least a decent level. Picard, Crusher, Geordi, and even Worf seem more like shallow marionettes than anything else, these days.
I have read Trek novels for more than ten years, and while there naturally always have been better ones and worse ones, the overall quality of them seems to have decreased severely these last couple of years. Vanguard, SCE, and DS9 are still good, but I am stepping off the TNG train now. These books just do not appeal to me.
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4: Suffers from "middle child" syndrome
"Greater Than the Sum" suffers from "middle child syndrome."
The story is set between last year's 20th anniversary set of TNG novels and this year's big Trek publishing event by David Mack, set to hit stores in October. This leaves the usually reliable Christopher L. Bennett with a conundrum of a book that is supposed to set up the next set of novels and try to reconcile some of the inconsistencies of last year's set of stories, especially the rather disappointing wrap-up novel by Peter David. (Which it pains me to say that as I tend to love all of David's Trek universe offerings).
Set a few months after the last Borg attack, "Sum" picks up with...wait for it...another Borg threat coming into Federation territory. The threat is a new alien race that has the ability to create a new kind of warp conduits and holes in space, allowing faster travel. The Enterprise is sent into the fray to try and make contact with the aliens who have this technology and keep it out of Borg hands. With this new technology, the Borg would be even more seemingly unstoppable and able to invade the Federation at will.
Along the way, we have some interesting character developments and it appears a fresh start for the TNG relaunch. Instead of just being "TNG 2.0" it appears the series is finally allowing the characters to be who they are and develop their own stories instead of trying to craft them into molds of the old TNG crew. It's a refreshing development, but given that the DS9 relaunch decided to follow this path from day one, it makes you wonder why it took these books four books to get there.
The book does try hard to explain away some inconsistent characterization and some odd choices in "Before Dishonor," and to put elements in place for the on-going storyline. Bennett pulls together threads from previous Trek novels and the television run in ways that feel realistic and plausible.
And while I enjoyed the novel while reading it, I came away feeling as a bit unsatisfied when the final page was turned. A large part of this is that this story is being used to set up some things for the big three-part Trek novel epic coming soon to a bookstore near me. But I think another part is that while we can identify with the characters we've seen on-screen, there aren't any of the newer characters who jump off the page and into the imagination like Vaughn or Tarrantar for the DS9 relaunch.
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5: Borging
Bennett is a master Trek novelist. He has the ability to create stories that would fit perfectly as episodes of the series. His characterizations are top notch, and he weaves multiple character plots into the main story line.
What keeps this from being perfect is the Borg. I guess it is just the nature of TNG novels to be Borg fests but to me they are just too Borging. The problem is it has been done to death.
At any rate, the novel is excellent but the subject matter is redundant.
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