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Posted:
11:14:35 on October 07 2001
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: TrekWeb Features
Book Reviews
"Broken Bow" Novelization by Diane Carey (Hardcover)
Written for TrekWeb by Bill Williams
Once again Pocket Books has stepped up to the plate with the latest Star
Trek novelization, the adaptation of the Enterprise premiere, "Broken
Bow", written by Diane Carey.
In my previous review I shared that many adaptations of films or
television episodes will share either a great amount of information
beyond the final filmed product or nothing at all. I am sorry to say
that the newest novelization falls into the category of dry bare-bones
adaptation.
In her novels from "Dreadnought!" to "Battlestations!" to "Best Destiny"
Diane Carey delivers solid stories and strong characterizations that add
to the Star Trek tapestry. Here, as in her previous adaptation of the
Voyager finale "Endgame", she has resorted to a slim,
paint-by-the-numbers retelling of the pilot and offers very little to
almost nothing original in terms of characters. The fact that this is
also a 195-page novelization doesn't help matters, either.
Another hindrance I spotted is in the novel's hardcover presentation.
The dust jacket is bland and uninspiring, and the hardcover presentation
of the novelization is an uneven way for Pocket Books to present their
latest effort. The previous novelization of "Endgame" was produced as a
larger-sized trade paperback publication, and many other novelizations
of series episodes have mostly received mass market paperback printings.
The only previous episode novelization to receive a hardcover
presentation was Michael Jan Friedman's adaptation of TNG's "All Good
Things...", which had many more interesting character insights and
developments in a 250-page presentation and even contained an eight-page
full color photographic spread and a more attractive dust jacket at
that. The "Broken Bow" novelization doesn't even have that, only a
single photograph of the Enterprise NX-01 on the cover. The only other
supplement is a 32-page afterword on the development on the series,
which offers little new information at all.
This is a poor, uneven effort on the part of Pocket Books and Diane
Carey in their presentation of the first Enterprise episode, and it is
again strictly for the completists. With a $19 price tag it is not worth
the purchase. Better to save that money for something more useful, like
blank videotapes for recording many of the Enterprise telecasts or
getting the next two or three trade paperbacks. I hope the next
Enterprise novel has something much more interesting to offer, because
this book doesn't have it.
