Review of
The Good That Men Do
Published:
February 2007
Reviewer Rating:
Avg User Rating:
(4.07)
Although it has a faming story set well after the end of DS9 when Jake is an older man, "The Good That Me Do" follows directly from the events of the final episode of Star Trek Enterprise, "These Are The Voyages…" While it does forward to Romulan plot that will be the background (and more than nor foreground) of the next four enterprise novels, the main point of this novel seems to be setting right what happened in that final episode of the TV show.
It doesn’t just ignore or totally retcon the episode, but changes the underlying context, which has the benefit of not only fixing the problems that episode created, but actually makes the episode better in retrospect. It even goes so far as to show some of the events from the episode, word for word, but from a new direction that makes them mean something different.
The authors can't seem to help themselves from taking a swipe at the writers of that episode however, having Jake mock the really weak points in the "recorded history". Many of his points were direct quotes of complaints I’ve read since that episode originally aired.
I really enjoyed this book, for the most part. The story telling was solid, the characters generally stayed true to how they were portrayed on the show, and the plot moved ahead a good speed. Other than seeing how the book wove itself into the events of “These are the voyages”, I really enjoyed the setup for the Romulan war. You can really feel the story is building to something, and I’m excited to see the often referenced conflict with the Romulans in the early days before/during the Federation.
The only miss for me in this book is the stuff with Trip off playing spy. Given the history of Trip up to this point, I have trouble swallowing him playing spy. On top of that, half the scenes involving Trip behind Romulan lines are confused and poorly described, making it hard to invasion what was actually happening.
It spite of that, this is a quality book worth reading, especially if you hated the last episode of the show.
It doesn’t just ignore or totally retcon the episode, but changes the underlying context, which has the benefit of not only fixing the problems that episode created, but actually makes the episode better in retrospect. It even goes so far as to show some of the events from the episode, word for word, but from a new direction that makes them mean something different.
The authors can't seem to help themselves from taking a swipe at the writers of that episode however, having Jake mock the really weak points in the "recorded history". Many of his points were direct quotes of complaints I’ve read since that episode originally aired.
I really enjoyed this book, for the most part. The story telling was solid, the characters generally stayed true to how they were portrayed on the show, and the plot moved ahead a good speed. Other than seeing how the book wove itself into the events of “These are the voyages”, I really enjoyed the setup for the Romulan war. You can really feel the story is building to something, and I’m excited to see the often referenced conflict with the Romulans in the early days before/during the Federation.
The only miss for me in this book is the stuff with Trip off playing spy. Given the history of Trip up to this point, I have trouble swallowing him playing spy. On top of that, half the scenes involving Trip behind Romulan lines are confused and poorly described, making it hard to invasion what was actually happening.
It spite of that, this is a quality book worth reading, especially if you hated the last episode of the show.
