Imzadi by Peter David; Star Trek: The Next Generation hardcover novel (#2), August 1992, paperback July 1993.

We begin in the future (in reference to general ST:TNG continuity) with an embittered Admiral Will Riker, commanding an out-of-the-way, backwater starbase. He cares little for duty any more. Meanwhile, Data, now a starship captain, seeks an audience with the Guardian of Forever, a time-traveling machine that is also a historical viewer. Word reaches Riker that the ambassador from Betazed, Lwaxana Troi, is dying and wishes to see him. Captain Wesley Crusher's ship, the Hood, comes to pick him up.

On her deathbed, Lwaxana accuses Riker of being responsible for the death of her daughter, and his lover, Deanna Troi, many years earlier. This is what has embittered Riker, for he too blames himself. We give way to an extended flashback of how the relationship began.

After a vignette revealing the circumstances of Deanna's death, most of the book looks at how the relationship of Riker and Troi began. He was a young officer, posted on Betazed between starship assignments, to help defend the planet from space raiders. She was a university student. The young military man is smitten with the empath's beauty, and pursues her, but she can see what he is out for, and reads the usual impermanence of his "flings." This one, somehow, is different. A stormy but deep bond forms between the two, through months on the planet. Both find their views of the universe expanded. They meet again, when both are assigned to the newly designed Enterprise.

Riker is informed by Data that Deanna was likely killed due to actions she would otherwise have taken, and lives in an alternate history. Riker has Doctor Crusher perform an autopsy, which reveals a poison developed only in the years since her death, leading Riker to suspect a time traveler. He proposes to go back in time, but Data refuses, saying use of the Guardian is against regulations. Riker goes back to his starbase, still a beaten man.

Of course, things can't remain that way, and the action builds to a quick conclusion as Riker determines to act. Data is just as determined to stop him. Deanna's life hangs in the balance.

It is another Peter David triumph, tying together pieces of Star Trek history and blazing new trails, opening new paths. It also provides an interesting look into the formation of one of the central relationships of Next Generation, and how it came to be. It is a very plausible and fascinating explanation of how these two very different people came to be so attached.

Given the gravity of the story, it becomes hard for David to use much of his trademark humor, but there is room for that in the flashback session. Riker discovering Betazoid customs, such as nudity at weddings, is always amusing. The novel moves along quickly, and provides an interesting read. It also rings true in Star Trek history, with one exception: Betazed is referred to as a Federation "ally" rather than a "member." A strange distinction, and one that doesn't seem to work. It makes more sense for Betazed to be a Federation member.

Still, the book works very well. There are those who simply do not like Peter David's writing, but for a fun, adventurous, and sometimes funny novel, about a very serious subject (for Star Trek fans, at least) this is a terrific book.

Reunion by Michael Jan Friedman, Star Trek: the Next Generation hardcover novel, November 1991 (hardcover), August 1992 (paperback).

Captain Morgen, skipper of the Excalibur, is going to be promoted...to the leader of his people, the Daa'V. This Starfleet officer and former member of the crew of the Stargazer, Jean-Luc Picard's old ship, is gathering with him a number of the members of that crew as an "honor guard" of sorts. Seven members of the Stargazer crew join on the decks of the Enterprise to travel for the ceremony. But while there is joy in reunion, and pathos over the remembrance of their former crewmate, Jack Crusher, there is a problem: someone begins trying to murder the former crew of the Stargazer. The former Stargazer crew and the current Enterprise crew must join to find out who is doing this, and why.

Some references are made in Star Trek to the Stargazer and its crew and mission during the original series. It is part of Captain Picard's backstory, and his command prior to his appointment to Enterprise. As part of the crew of the Stargazer, Picard took command of the ship when the captain was killed and the first officer injured. When Picard resolved the situation, he was appointed captain of the ship, a post he would hold for 22 years on the deep-space exploration vessel. It was on the Stargazer that Picard is said to have come up with his strategem, "the Picard Maneuver," to defeat a Ferengi ship at Maxia. The ship, however, was heavily damaged and had to be abandoned after this action.

This is the first of what turned out to be a series of novels by Friedman about the Stargazer and its crew. After this one and another, the books were identified as their own series. It is part of the expanding universe of Trek in books.

The novel offers the opportunity to look into the characters of Picard and Doctor Crusher, who comes face to face with her husband's memory in the form of his old shipmates. Also, Wesley Crusher sees in the flesh the people he has heard about only from his father's tapes. It is a rich area of Trek history, mostly unexplored. There is a vast world available to explore.

That is perhaps the most disappointing part of the book. Given a rich palette to use in creating a novel, Friedman produces a so-so murder mystery with a lot of hand-wringing by the main characters. If you pay attention, the would-be killer is telegraphed about the middle of the book, although the motives are leaked out only a bit at a time later. It isn't even a real "fair-play" mystery, where the reader gets enough information to figure out the killer on his (or her) own. This is a common problem for Friedman's books: they promise much, but don't deliver very well.

The writing style is straightforward adventure stuff, with limited humor, and a serious expression all around. There isn't much fun here, and while there is some reminiscing, it gets lost in the main thrust of the plot. This may be why so many other Stargazer books were required (I only read this one) if only this much of the backstory gets revealed here.

I am not a fan of Friedman's books, though I was sometimes lured by the storyline as I was here. I was often disappointed. Such was the case with this one.

Q-In-Law by Peter David, Star Trek: The Next Generation #18, October 1991.

The Enterprise is to play host to a wedding: not just any wedding, but a wedding that will cement an alliance between to factions of a spacefaring trading race, the Tizarin, something like the Ferengi but fair dealers. The occasion is momentous, enough to require the Federation's flagship and guests of the highest rank, including the ambassador from Betazed, Lwaxana Troi. Since Mrs. Troi always brings out the worst in her daughter, Enterprise counselor Deanna Troi, and fear in the object of her affections, Enterprise captain Jean-Luc Picard, this promises to bring difficulties. Since she is both a powerful telepath and unafraid to speak her mind, Mrs. Troi can also bring discomfort to a variety of situations. So much more so, then, when the seemingly all-powerful being Q shows up. Q states that he intends to study that most curious of human emotions--love.

This pairing of two of the most popular guest stars of the Next Generation series, Lwaxana Troi and Q, is a story made to be written by Peter David. With the humor and sense of adventure that accompanies the appearance of either of these popular characters, David combines the abilities needed to write such a story. He does not disappoint here, bringing a comical tone at times, and a note of pathos at others. Lwaxana becomes infatuated with Q, a being whose mind she cannot read, and finds herself marvelling at his power. When he shares that power, then rejects her love, the tale becomes the story of a woman scorned on a level never before seen in the galaxy.

This would have made a great TV episode, except that it would have been too expensive to film. That's the great benefit of books, the effects budget is unlimited. The age of computer graphics has brought that down somewhat, but some of these scenes would have been the devil to film. It makes great mind pictures, though.

David juggles character bits with the regulars, builds lives for the new characters (mostly the Tizarin) and shines the spotlight on the two "guest stars," all with the deft hand of the confident writer. David would go on to write several other Q books, and continue to display an affinity for the character. After all, characters who can do virtually anything are not easy to write. How do you beat them, for instance? Not an easy task, to write a believable outcome with such an antagonist.

David also excels at getting into the minds of his characters. When Kerin, the bridegroom-to-be, comes upon a waterfall in the holodeck, he expresses amazement: "I've never seen anything like it." Q is somewhat nonplussed: "Running water? Something as trivial as that, and you've never seen it?" Kerin replies, "When you've lived your entire life in space, nothing to do with nature is trivial." David gets his characters, really gets them and what makes them tick.

It's another fine book by Peter David, and features two of the most popular Next Generation characters. It's a win-win all around.

Strike Zone by Peter David, Star Trek: The Next Generation novel #5, March 1989.

An alien race called the Kreel is considered barbaric even by the Klingons. Brutal and relentlessly warlike, they scavenge what they can and take whatever they can bully away from others. However, few races will trade with them, and their technology and weaponry trails far behind other races, making them something of the jackals of the universe. Then, one ship of Kreel stumbles onto a planet with a large number of weapons, powerful weapons. Weapons that allow them to destroy a Klingon ship, and give this group of Kreel some very nasty ideas, indeed.

Things are going as usual on the starship Enterprise when the crew encounters the Kreel. The alien weapon clumsily attached to the Kreel ship cuts easily through the Enterprise shields, but when the Kreel stop firing to make demands, Captain Picard orders the weapon to simply be beamed into the cargo bay. Thus disarmed, the Kreel are of little more trouble.

However, Kreel still occupy the planet with the weapons, and this poses a problem. The Klingons prevail upon the Federation to broker a deal, and so the Enterprise is dispatched to pick up Klingon and Kreel ambassadors to go to the planet and at the same time negotiate an agreement. This proves touchy, seeing as how Klingons and Kreel cannot stand the sight of each other. Picard must cleverly navigate the parties involved, and find a way to keep these deadly weapons out of hostile hands, which turns out to be even harder when the advanced race that created them shows up.

This was Peter David's very first Star Trek novel, a number that now numbers dozens, and includes his own series, "New Frontiers." David was a veteran comic book writer, Star Trek fan, and was writing the Original Series comic for DC at the time the novel was published. He uses some of his own characters from the comic book, a practice frowned upon from time to time in the novels, but at other times allowed, as well as people he knows, a common practice by Mr. David. In this case, his former Marvel Comics cohort Bobbie Chase pops up as an ensign with a crush on Cmdr. Riker.

One of David's characters is in fact a key character, the Klingon ambassador. David had placed a half-human, half-Klingon in his comic, abandoned by the Klingons but adopted by a Klingon defector in the Enterprise crew and his human girlfriend, later wife. In this book, the dwarf now named Kobry has become an honored Klingon for brokering the peace between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. In fact, he is always addressed with the honorific, "The Honorable Kobry." It is quite a step up in the world for the character, and those of us who had read the comics were glad to see it.

The novel is set in the time period early in the second season. Dr. Pulaski is the medical officer, and Guinan is now on the ship. The second season had apparently not yet aired, and David was just working from notes, because there are some references that ended up changed in the TV episodes. Ten-Forward of often referred to as the "Ten-Four Lounge," which had passed out of use by the time the season began. Picard is still a bit stiff, and Worf's character not yet fleshed out, common problems of the time. David does deftly handle Wesley Crusher's character, taking the often-reviled (in those days) boy off the main story line and giving him a problem he cannot solve. Wesley does return in time to help save the ship, but it is a narrow thing.

David's trademark humor is apparent throughout, as it usually is. Picard remarks to Kobry, "I cannot recall seeing a Klingon of your advanced years." Then Kobry replies, "The advantage of my stature, Captain. I'm a smaller target." This is a mild example, as the best ones come out of the situations. But while there are some who cannot abide Peter David's humor, many of us love it.

This is a top-notch ST:TNG outing, albeit early in the show with characters that were still developing. It makes for an interesting adventure nonetheless.