Teaser

The Enterprise-E encounters a planet phasing through space and time. Twenty years earlier, Captain Riker of the Enterprise-D encounters the same phenomenon. And a hundred years before that, the Romulans seek answers of their own . . .

Review

I really like the Star Trek literary canon, but one complaint you can fairly level at the Litverse is that it strays more into political and military drama than the exploration-based stories that spawned it. partly that’s the legacy of Deep Space Nine, but it’s also what happens when you give writers an open canvas and unlimited budget. It’s all perfectly entertaining, but the Federation and its neighbours have been beset by all manner of galaxy-ending threats in the final decade of the Litverse.

Headlong Flight then is a return to old-fashioned science fiction adventures. There’s a mysterious planet. There’s an ethical debate. there’s a wide cast of characters who all have something to bring to the table. All the hallmarks of a classic Next Generation episode. In particular, the dimension-shifting nature of this one gave me flashbacks to ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’ and ‘Parallels,’ which is not a bad thing. Like those episodes, Headlong Flight gives us multiple versions of the Enterprise crew, with major difference being that in one timeline, Picard was killed by the Borg.

Parallel universes are a well that Star Trek has dipped its toes into many times, the most obvious example being the Mirror Universe. Headlong Flight, however, isn’t interested in giving alternative versions of the same character. Between the two crews, only La Forge is duplicated. The rest of the alternate crew consists of familiar faces who have drifted away from the ‘real’ crew over time. Wesley, Data, Pulaski, and Yar. if this was a TV show, I’d say it was to save the cost of having characters interact with themselves all the time. This being a book, however, it’s not so much a ‘what if our lives were different?’ situation, as it is a chance to show how far the crews have come. There’s no tiresome comparing of life events, just two very different crews joining together with a common goal in mind.

The Romulans, coming from a third timeline, complicate matters, while also providing an antagonistic element to a story that is otherwise just a bunch of scientists getting along with one another. The science forms the core of the story, and it’s all very engaging, but the odd phaser fight livens things up nicely. But such action is not the focus of the story, as it shouldn’t be, and the highest drama comes from more diplomatic solutions.

Headlong Flight is one of those Star trek books that feels like a continuation of the series in theme as well as timeline, and that is a wonderful thing to be.

Deeper Dive: The Temporal Prime Directive

Just as Starfleet is forbidden to interfere in pre-warp civilisations’ natural development, so to are people from the future forbidden from changing the past. there’s a long catalogue of Star Trek episodes to illustrate why this rule is such a good idea. However, it’s not as easy in practice as it is in theory. One of the debates Picard has with himself is whether he should give the alternate Riker a weapon to use against the Borg. Not only does this line up nicely with another alternate Riker’s experiences in ‘Parallels,’ but it also adds another layer to an already complex issue.

This alternate Federation is clearly on much the same ideological axis as the one Picard knows. Different faces, but the same goals. Likewise, the Borg are the same in both realities. Arming the Federation of Riker’s timeline will unquestionably save lives. And yet, does Picard have the right to interfere in the development of another timeline? How can he possibly know what will happen further down the line? Might the Federation’s new weapon lead to untold suffering?

Such questions are beyond the scope of one man’s ability to think. And so, regardless of Picard’s personal thoughts on the matter, it’s both good and logical that the Temporal Prime Directive exists.

Book Stats

• A Novel of The Next Generation Relaunch
• Published by Pocket Books in 2017
• Time Travel
• 333 pages