Trek Novels - Star Trek: The Next Generation - Vendetta

It has been years since I’ve talked about any Star Trek novels here. Heck, it’s been years since I really delved deep into a Trek novel. I might’ve tapped myself out on Trek at some point, but I never lost that passion. I’ll do a re-run of old Trek from time to time.I’ve been trying to catch up with the rest of Discovery’s 5th season and have been watching the newest show, Starfleet Academy, on Paramount+. I’ll just say this about SFA… it’s better than I thought it would be. Maybe I’ll say a little something to help out the kids once I’m done watching it.

Anyway, I thought I’d finally read this novel. I think I bought it at this book store in Columbia, but it could’ve been McKay’s as well. It was actually stuck at my parents’ house for years until I decided to dust it off this year. I also wanted to read it because the author, Peter David, passed away last year. I’ve read quite a few of his comics and novels over the years, so I thought I might as well read one of his first tries with the TNG crew. Vendetta was released in 1991 through Pocket Books. Instead of being along with the usual batch of novels, this was a special “Giant” one. I can see why they may have done that with who’s on the cover.

Weird Star Trek Episodes - Regeneration aka "An Obvious Ratings Grab Gone Right!"

Oh man... someone get the flamethrower or Kurt Russell. Either will get the job done.

So, Enterprise used the Borg for an episode… Let me say that again. The prequel to the whole franchise decided to bring in the Borg for an episode. You might be shocked at what I think about this episode. “Regeneration” takes place during the second season of Enterprise. That was a pretty sub-par season, so you know the producers needed something to increase the ratings. Jolene Blaylock’s hotness wasn’t cutting it, I guess. So let’s see what happens.

The show starts out on Earth in the Arctic. A Starfleet team finds the remains of the destroyed Borg sphere from Star Trek: First Contact. They also find a couple of drones. Guess what happens when they decide to thaw them out. The Borg assimilates the team and leave Earth in the team’s ship. Starfleet Command contacts the Enterprise and orders them to find the ship. They find the pretty modified Borg ship attacking another alien ship. The ship escapes, so the Enterprise tends to the other ship.

I'll say this about Reed. At least he has more sense than most folk when dealing with the Borg. 

 They teleport the survivors to Sickbay but they were assimilated beforehand and try to take over the ship. They also assimilate Phlox, who handles the situation as well as he can.  The crew is able to stop the assimilated survivors by reluctantly jettisoning them out into space. While Phlox desperately searches for a cure, Archer wonders if he can save the Starfleet team. Eventually, he realizes he can’t do anything for them when they find the ship again. Archer and Reed transport over to the ship in order to place charges while Phlox uses the cure he concocted up (yeah, I’ll get to that). In the end, the ship is destroyed and Phlox is cured. Still, the episode ends on an ominous note as T’Pol reveals that the ship sent out a subspace message to the Delta Quadrant.

While I jabbered on about it was a push for ratings, I really enjoyed this episode. The Borg is one of Trek’s best villains, so I liked that they were used here. It also ties in well with First Contact. It would make some sense that some of that Borg sphere would end up somewhere on Earth since the sphere was really close to Earth when it was destroyed. I also liked the obvious homage to The Thing at the beginning. The Borg was treated as a real threat especially since this is the 22nd century we’re dealing with. The Enterprise crew was also good here for the most part. I liked how Archer struggled to deal with an uncompromising enemy.

The continuity issues it brings up don’t really bother me. You could probably explain most of the issues away with something. What I’m not a big fan of is Phlox curing himself from assimilation. That was a little too much though you could explain that big continuity issue up as well. Other than that and the Borg’s inconsistent adapting, I thought this was a good action-packed episode. While it’s not the greatest episode in general, it’s definitely better than a lot of the episodes from season 2.

Trek Novels - Star Trek: The Return

They couldn’t leave it alone, could they? I guess I can’t blame them. Kirk’s death scene in Star Trek: Generations was pretty sub-par if a little ironic. He died under a bridge instead of on one. That sucks if you really think about it. You’d think that comic books and soap operas are the only places where one can come back from the dead. Well, Star Trek did with one iconic character, so it might as well do it with the other iconic character.  In 1996, James Tiberius Kirk was resurrected in the pages of Star Trek: The Return.

 So, if anyone is going to bring this iconic character back from the dead, it might as well be some Canadian actor named William Shatner. Yes, Shatner has actually written some scifi novels and some of them are related to Star Trek. I’ve read some of the other Trek books he’s written on. He teamed up with known Trek authors Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens to write this tale. I vaguely remember seeing this book in stores when it was out. I believe I got my copy at a Waldenbooks in the 2000’s. So, this is a book that involves Romulans, the Borg, Picard, and Kirk pulling off a Spock-like resurrection. Should be fun!!!

Star Trek: The Return

Authors: William Shatner assisted by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens

BRIEF BLURB: The Borg and a group of Romulans form an alliance in order to take down the Federation. They plan to kill Captain Picard by sending a resurrected James Kirk to kill him.

Top 22 Villains - Part 3

Well, I'm at the end of the road for this list. Who's in my top eight villains? Let's find out:

8. The T-1000 from Terminator 2 

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of my favorite movies. The T-1000 is one of those reasons. In the movie, his main goal is to kill John Connor, the boy who would one day grow up to become humanity’s hero. While the T-800 from the first movie is the iconic version, the T-1000 kicks that version out of the water. The machine is just ruthless in the movie. He does all he can in trying to find and kill John Connor. He’s a shape-shifter, he’s virtually indestructible, and he rarely talks. Whoever decided that Robert Patrick should play the T-1000 should get an award or something.