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A review by irenevh
The Good That Men Do by Michael A. Martin, Andy Mangels
3.0
3,5 stars
As someone who has watched pretty much all of Star Trek but never dived into the books, I was recommended this particular one for one simple reason; the retcon of the most stupid of stupid deaths for a character I really liked. I knew very little of the content of this book going in other than good ol' Trip Tucker would live and with that created my own expectations, which unfortunately for me, weren't fully met.
The story started somewhat slow for me, introducing too many new characters that didn't interest me, when I would have much rather started with the familiar enterprise crew. This left me slightly demotivated at the start to really get going, but as we got further along, we spend more time with our known characters and the story picked up.
Still, in some ways Trip's story line felt like a lot of a build up, compared to his conclusion, while the enterprise story line had a shorter buildup and a long part in which they were trying to resolve the issue. As both stories started to become more tense, the constant switch between story lines after every chapter allowed for constant cliffhangers, but also annoyed me how short a time we had per story before moving back to the other. I personally would have like two chapters between the many switches.
Overall, I did enjoy being reintroduced to characters I liked when watching the show. Phlox is just as likable, and Archer is well represented. Although I do think Reed's character suffers a bit from not having the distinguishable accent and delivery we saw in the show.
In the end I am glad to see a version of Star Trek where the stupid death was retconned, but the story overall isn't one that completely enthralled me. I enjoyed reading it, but wheter or not I will pick up the sequel remains to be seen.
As someone who has watched pretty much all of Star Trek but never dived into the books, I was recommended this particular one for one simple reason; the retcon of the most stupid of stupid deaths for a character I really liked. I knew very little of the content of this book going in other than good ol' Trip Tucker would live and with that created my own expectations, which unfortunately for me, weren't fully met.
The story started somewhat slow for me, introducing too many new characters that didn't interest me, when I would have much rather started with the familiar enterprise crew. This left me slightly demotivated at the start to really get going, but as we got further along, we spend more time with our known characters and the story picked up.
Still, in some ways Trip's story line felt like a lot of a build up, compared to his conclusion, while the enterprise story line had a shorter buildup and a long part in which they were trying to resolve the issue. As both stories started to become more tense, the constant switch between story lines after every chapter allowed for constant cliffhangers, but also annoyed me how short a time we had per story before moving back to the other. I personally would have like two chapters between the many switches.
Overall, I did enjoy being reintroduced to characters I liked when watching the show. Phlox is just as likable, and Archer is well represented. Although I do think Reed's character suffers a bit from not having the distinguishable accent and delivery we saw in the show.
In the end I am glad to see a version of Star Trek where the stupid death was retconned, but the story overall isn't one that completely enthralled me. I enjoyed reading it, but wheter or not I will pick up the sequel remains to be seen.