Star Trek TNG: The Peacekeepers - Book Review
September 27, 2021
Captain Picard goes with Riker's "questionable" idea to get LaForge and Data back, but instead he loses Riker and Yar. Really Tasha, you volunteered for this - really?
From the Back Cover
Exploring a deserted alien spaceship, Lt. Commander Data and Lt. Geordi LaForge suddenly find themselves transported light years away - into the middle of a deadly conflict!
While Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise search feverishly for their missing crewmen, Data and LaForge discover they are in a station almost identical to the one they were exploring, high in orbit around an Earth-type world. Years before, the occupants of that planet stumbled onto the ship and its advanced technology - and since then, have used its weapons to keep the nations on the planet below disarmed, and at peace.
Now, their own arrival has precipitated a crisis on the station. Somehow Data and LaForge must find a way to restore trust between the planet below and the station’s guardians above - before a final, destructive war breaks out!
Details
- 1988
- Novel #2 of the TNG novelizations
- Written by Gene DeWeese
My Take on the Novel
It wasn’t all that bad. Seriously, I’m surprised.
The story starts out well, the Enterprise is exploring new territory and encounters a derelict spacecraft, at least 10,000 years old, that seems to be functioning on very minimal power. An away team is beamed over to investigate but unfortunately it’s a pretty boring investigation. I would have liked to have been given little bits of information of the aliens who built this spacecraft, or some crumbs as to what it was for … but nothing, nada - it’s just empty corridors with empty rooms.
Reading the book I see that DeWeese waited to the end to give us some details, but honestly, I would have liked a couple crumbs up front.
Anyway, spoiler free, LaForge and Data are transported off the derelict to somewhere else, leaving Picard and the crew shaking their fists at the apparently not-so-dead derelict. While Picard is making Worf run scans of every inch of space, ordering Riker and Argyle to search all the compartments of the ship, and wearing down the bridge carpets with his pacing, LaForge and Data wake up inside a smaller version of the derelict wondering how they got there and seeing a cryo-chamber (which is never explained) and a helmet ... yes, the helmet that is is important to the plot.
Fiddling around a bit must have triggered an alarm because LaForge and Data are approached by an alien away team (no, not the aliens who built the derelict) and are brought to the Peacekeepers station. These folks keep the peace on the planet below, sort of. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that there’s only one guy (Shar-Lon) that actually keeps the peace - LaForge and Data meet him and he goes on about finding the derelict and using it to keep the peace on the planet below. Why is it not a spoiler? Because the Peacekeepers as a organization do not play a role in the plot.
Again, no details on the aliens who built the derelict. Shar-Lon doesn’t know them either.
Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise, Riker comes up with a plan to get the missing crewmen back, a plan that is, quite frankly, crazy - but hey, it’s Star Trek so I’ll let it slide. Picard allows Riker to proceed and ends up losing another two crew members - Riker and Yar. Really Tasha, really?
What’s unbelievable is that Riker and Yar actually end up beaming to the same derelict as Data and LaForge were beamed to. That tells me that they are incredibly lucky; or, that the main derelict was programmed to beam occupants to only that destination - again DeWeese gives us nothing. Nothing in the story implies LaForge and Data were still alive - their atoms could have been dispersed throughout space or transported into a Sun. We only have Riker’s “hunch” which, turns out, was right.
Long story short, Riker and Yar find Data and LaForge and they are reunited with the Enterprise. Oh, of course there are the peacekeepers orbiting the planet and one guy trying to kill another guy, that same guy vying for power, another guy lying to the guy whose life is in danger, then most of those guys ganging up and beating Worf in a team building exercise. Worf, by the way is acting (they’d never stand a chance against Worf).
Likes and Dislikes
I liked the derelict, or at least the idea of a 10,000 year old spacecraft that is a mystery dying to be solved. I wish DeWeese would have given us more concrete information on it’s purpose and the aliens that built it. All we really got were stories that might have been true. Yeah, it’s like me saying Stonehenge was to track the sun for farming purposes - plausible, but we don’t know - we can only hypothesize.
I definitely did not like the ending. I’m with Picard on this one - even he didn’t like it.
The story with the peacekeepers was typical run of the mill sci-fi. Megalomania gone wild, lies, deceit and murder on a mass scale that only our heros can stop.
Recommendation?
Would I recommend this story? Yes. It’s a good ST:TNG story. It was well written and kept a good pace. The characters were true to the television series.
