The Enterprise War by John Jackson Miller (Website, Twitter)

Genre: sci-fi

Setting: spaaaaaaaaaace! 

I read it as a(n): paperback

Source: my own collection

Length: 420 pp

Published by: Gallery Books (30 July 2019)

Her Grace’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars

So you know how season two of Discovery says the Enterprise was ordered to sit out far away during the Klingon War? This story fills in what they were doing during that time. 

Christopher Pike and the crew of Enterprise are on a year-long mission to the Pergamum nebula, a dense cloud of plasma that wreaks havoc on the ship. While exploring, they encounter a ship called Boundless, which is run by a crew kidnapped from various species and forced to work together in the Boundless’s war against the Rengru. The crew of Enterprise is on a survey of a nearby icy moon when they are attacked. Enterprise is damaged and Pike orders an emergency saucer separation, leaving the stardrive damaged in space and the saucer spinning out of control to who knows where. The survey crews, thought to have been killed in the Boundless’s attack, are conscripted into military duty against the Rengru. Pike and Number One have to reunite their ship and then figure out how to reunite their scattered crew before they become victims of a war that is not their own.

This was a really fun Trek novel. Some of the novels lately, across all the various series, have been a little slow. This one read like an old fashioned Star Trek episode. Lots of exploring, plenty of humor, and Battles in Spaaaaace^TM. The way the Rengru were described made me think they were space-capable pillbugs. Kinda icky and with too many legs. The crew of Boundless and all her sister ships is like the Breen, one cohesive nation made up of disparate species. 

At its heart, this novel was an essential Star Trek story – the crew overcoming obstacles, learning new things, and helping others to attain peace and understanding. The chief engineer, who is decidedly not Scotty, is a genius on paper but an absolute moron in practice, so they’re kind of screwed when the ship gets wrecked. The commander of the Boundless has been fighting a war that she inherited from her forebears and they no longer know why. 

My only quibble is that the ending was a little too tidy, but it was just untidy enough to be acceptable. I also tend to vacillate between being super lenient and super picky about my Star Trek books; sometimes I expect them to be of the highest caliber and have complex plots dealing with a shitload of ethical issues, and sometimes I just want to be entertained by characters I know and love. This fell somewhere in the middle of that. 

Enthusiastically recommended!

Favorite part/ lines:

• I LOLed at how stupid Baladon’s crew was. For example, “You are all equally incompetent. You function together as parts of a machine that does absolutely nothing. When the end comes, I will be able to say with pride: each crewmember aboard brought me to it.” Several on the bridge erupted in self-congratulatory cheers. 
• “Need more torpedoes.” 
• (After a nasty battle) Raden’s eyes opened a fraction. Woozy, he does Pike and mumbled, “Did…I leave…a mark?” “Your head will be fine,” Pike said. “We’ll get you help.” “I mean…did I leave one…on the bulkhead?”
• “We don’t even tell our own people, because it’s too horrible. The Rengru inject feeding tube into the backs of their victims’ necks – and devour their brains. Then they implant their young in the empty skulls!” “Wouldn’t it make more sense if they implanted the young first and let them devour the brains?” Pike looked around to his crew. “I mean, I’ve heard some scary monster stories in my day, and what really sells them is logic. … Now, Vulcans – you’d think they’d be great at writing horror.”