This is the first part of a duology (with A TIME TO HATE) in this nine part Star Trek series chronicling the activities of the Enterprise and crew between the two movies Insurrection and Nemesis. The first four books were great. This one, not so much.

The basic premise is that two warring cultures were colonizing planets and both laid claim to Delta Sigma IV a hundred years ago. Rather than fight over the planet, the two races--the Bader and the Dorset--decided to work together and forged a new peace on the planet, even while their home planets continued their aggressions. Delta Sigma IV became a member of the Federation, because of their spirit of cooperation and peace. Unfortunately, something on the planet is shortening both races' life spans, to the point where their entire culture will die off in a matter of a generation or two. They appeal to Starfleet, which researches the problem and devises a cure. The five test subjects are returned to the world for the celebration of its colonization . . . only to have one of the test subjects kill another. This initial outbreak of violence--not experienced on this world in over 100 years--appears to precipitate violence across the world and Picard and the Enterprise are dispatched to find out what's going on.

I can't say what's going on without ruining the surprise and mystery of this first book, but this idea is the best thing about this book. It was a cool idea, and I'm certain it's what got the books sold. The issue, and the quandary it sets up for Picard and crew, especially Dr. Crusher, is interesting with lots of thought-provoking ramifications. The problem is that the plot of the book and the writing don't do the idea justice. My most significant critique is that no one seems to do anything of any importance in this first book at all. We go from scene to scene, but nothing ever seems to actually happen. I felt like Picard and crew should have arrived, sized up the situation, and then acted. But no one acts. And there's really no reason given for WHY they aren't acting. When it becomes clear that the Bader and Dorset aren't going to act themselves, I expected Picard to take control. In fact, he doesn't even offer suggestions for how the leaders of the planet CAN take control. Everyone sort of stands by and waits and I felt frustrated with them, especially when I didn't see why they couldn't act.

I also had problems with the secondary plotline, which is that Riker's father is on the planet and may know something about the murder and the situation. Riker is sent to find him, of course. But everyone on the planet seems bent on blaming Riker's father, when it's clear based on the story and witnesses that he had nothing to do with the murder. AND NO ONE POINTS THIS OUT in their discussions. No one simply says, "Well, he obviously didn't do it himself, so why do you think he did?" There's no evidence at all implicating Riker's father, merely evidence that he tried to stop the murderer as he left and then vanished. Then, as the novel progresses, we see more of this blindness and inability to speak up.

So the book suffers from inaction on many levels. It's one of those cases where if someone had just done something, or said something, all of the problems everyone is experiencing could have been resolved much faster. Which of course is why no one acted or spoke up; that would have made the novel into a short story. But this kind of manipulation in order to keep the story going is just annoying to me. Someone could have acted or spoken up and then discovered that whatever they did or said just makes matters worse in some way. That's how a plot works.

In the end, the book is simply frustrating, because the characters aren't behaving in realistic, believable, and most important INTELLIGENT ways. They are making unexplained dumb decisions, which bogs down what could have been an interesting exploration of a cool concept. I'm hoping something more significant happens in the second book, so save this duology. We'll see.