Teaser

Jean-Luc Picard has achieved every Starfleet officer’s dream: to become a Captain. Taking charge of the USS Stargazer, Picard leads his crew on their first mission, to take down a mysterious pirate known as the White Wolf . . .

Review

One of the curiosities of Star Trek is that it asserts Jean-Luc Picard to be fifty-nine years of age when he is promoted to captain of the Enterprise-D. Significantly older than Patrick Stewart was at the time of filming, though the inimitable actor certainly carried off the role well. What this meant for the literary canon is that there was a significant amount of backstory to develop. A large portion of that life was chronicled in Christopher L. Bennett’s The Buried Age, a book which built heavily on the work established by Michael Jan Friedman in his six-volume Stargazer series. It is the first Stargazer novel, Gauntlet, that brings us here today.

Strictly speaking, the story of Picard and the Stargazer goes back to a novel called The Valiant. Though the events of that are referenced, however, there’s no harm in diving in without prior knowledge. After all, that’s what I’ve done, and I can happily say that this is one of the better Trek novels I’ve read so far this year.

The plot is a little simple – go here and fight a pirate – and the twist ending is resolved incredibly quickly, but that’s all secondary to why we’re here. This is a book about Picard learning the hard way about being a starship captain. Whether it’s being snubbed by jealous colleagues, dealing with unruly crewmembers, or facing the great, big unknown that is space, Gauntlet is a crash course in learning what kind of captain Picard is going to be. of course, we have the benefit of foreknowledge, but getting there is just as fun.

Of course, with a new ship in a new era, there’s a new crew. The dynamic between Picard and Ben Zoma is a great precursor to the famous Picard/Riker duo. Even if the book is a little cluttered with other crew, I’m sure they’ll be ample chances for them to come into their own over the next five novels. This isn’t the place to be doing deep dives. It’s all about setting up. We learn the basics of each crewmember, and then we deal with a few more problems.

The main thing Gauntlet has going for it is the sheer sense of fun. It’s good to have a romp every now and then, and this was the perfect reintroduction to Picard for me. Coming off the back of several Kirk-era novels, it’s good to be back in the twenty-fourth century. I have a feeling I’ll be sticking around for a while yet.

Book Stats

• Stargazer (#1)
• Published in 2002 by Pocket Books
• 266 pages