Star Trek The Original Series #29: Dreadnought! By Diane Carey
A good novel from 1989 of alliance and envisioning a future. Piper is recent Starfleet Academy graduate with her own Vulcan, doctor and engineer sidekicks. Assigned to Enterprise, she learns former Academy friends of hers have stolen a dreadnought. This leads to Piper and co uncovering a Starfleet coup.
This is a tale of pride and honour, a fawning tribute to Kirk and a baddie who is an egotistical maniac psychopath drowning in his own narcissism. This darkest crisis had a sequel in ‘Battlestations!’ and more tales of the Starfleet coup were planned, but never materialised. This has an emotional connection, author tracts on social cohesion and the perceived defects of certain political systems, people have crass dreadful self interest and live in a smug insular fug.
Piper is highly moralistic and lives in an orgy of self-congratulation and self regarding petulance. The thieves don’t know how to operate the stolen dreadnought and their plan leads to no stability or predictability. She helps Kirk save the social order. Piper has raptures over Kirk’s qualities of vision, will and character and his idealised façade. One is increasingly captivated by this enjoyable tale of Piper of dubious repute. Yes, it is a Mary-Sue novel but it is a good Mary-Sue novel. A truly awesome one in fact.
Best Lines:
“A mass of guilt - carefully absent of any real shame.”
“Not yet ruled by his ambitions.”
“Creeping miscreance.”
“The legendary officers of Enterprise.”
“Tone carried abject triumph.”
“Probably figuring the deaths of the whole crew, no matter how circumstantial, would be impossible to explain to Command.”
“Star Fleet against Star Fleet.”
“I want them scared of me.”
“How does transwarp work?”
“How do I know?”
~
Star Trek The Original Series: Best Destiny by Diane Carey
This 1992 novel is dull. Carey’s books sold very well so why doesn’t she write for Trek anymore?