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Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations #3
The Collectors
An all-new Star Trek e-novella featuring the Department of Temporal Investigations!
The dedicated agents of the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations have their work cut out for them protecting the course of history from the dangers of time travel. But the galaxy is littered with artifacts that, in the wrong hands, could threaten reality. One of the DTI's most crucial jobs is to track down these objects and lock them safely away in the Federation’s most secret and secure facility. When Agents Lucsly and Dulmur bring home an alien obelisk of incredible power, they are challenged by a 31st-century temporal agent who insists they surrender the mysterious artifact to her. But before they know it, the three agents are pulled into a corrupted future torn apart by a violent temporal war. While their DTI colleagues attempt to track them down, Lucsly and Dulmur must restore temporal peace by setting off on an epic journey through the ages, with the future of the galaxy hanging in the balance...
The dedicated agents of the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations have their work cut out for them protecting the course of history from the dangers of time travel. But the galaxy is littered with artifacts that, in the wrong hands, could threaten reality. One of the DTI's most crucial jobs is to track down these objects and lock them safely away in the Federation’s most secret and secure facility. When Agents Lucsly and Dulmur bring home an alien obelisk of incredible power, they are challenged by a 31st-century temporal agent who insists they surrender the mysterious artifact to her. But before they know it, the three agents are pulled into a corrupted future torn apart by a violent temporal war. While their DTI colleagues attempt to track them down, Lucsly and Dulmur must restore temporal peace by setting off on an epic journey through the ages, with the future of the galaxy hanging in the balance...
119 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 8, 2014
79 people are currently reading
372 people want to read
About the author
Christopher L. Bennett
66 books220 followersChristopher L. Bennett is a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, with a B.S. in Physics and a B.A. in History from the University of Cincinnati. A fan of science and science fiction since age five, he has spent the past two decades selling original short fiction to magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact (home of his "Hub" series of comedy adventures), BuzzyMag, and Galaxy's Edge. Since 2003, he has been one of Pocket Books' most prolific and popular authors of Star Trek tie-in fiction, including the epic Next Generation prequel The Buried Age, the Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations series, and the Star Trek: Enterprise -- Rise of the Federation series. He has also written two Marvel Comics novels, X-Men: Watchers on the Walls and Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder. His original novel Only Superhuman, perhaps the first hard science fiction superhero novel, was voted Library Journal's SF/Fantasy Debut of the Month for October 2012. Other tales in the same universe can be found in Among the Wild Cybers and the upcoming Arachne's Crime, both from eSpec Books. His Hub stories are available in two collections from Mystique Press.
Christopher's homepage, fiction annotations, and blog can be found at christopherlbennett.wordpress.com. His Patreon page with original fiction and reviews is at https://www.patreon.com/christopherlb..., and his Facebook author page is at www.facebook.com/ChristopherLBennettA....
Christopher's homepage, fiction annotations, and blog can be found at christopherlbennett.wordpress.com. His Patreon page with original fiction and reviews is at https://www.patreon.com/christopherlb..., and his Facebook author page is at www.facebook.com/ChristopherLBennettA....
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
July 10, 2016
Great fun! Two words- borg dinosaur!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 21, 2018
I always enjoy Bennett’s Star Trek work. He does a great job of picking up threads and weaving things together into a beautiful tapestry of the Star Trek universe. I hope that Bennett’s e-novellas are eventually collected and published in print.
July 9, 2018
Plenty of far future tech and some good callbacks, and just fun overall
March 18, 2015
This novella was alot of fun & well written. It went off in some directions I didn't really expect. I knew from other reviews that a Borg T-Rex came into play somehow, but not in the way I had anticipated at all. I really enjoyed this little story & it's prompted me to move the full length DTI novels (Watching the Clock & Forgotten History) up on my "to read" list. Highly recommend!
December 17, 2014
Hilarious. And, in an impressive feat, absolutely internally consistent and well thought out in every detail. I'm pretty sure I will be reading this one again just to savor the details I might've missed the first time.
Who could resist a book with a Borg Tyrannosaurus Rex, after all... ?
Who could resist a book with a Borg Tyrannosaurus Rex, after all... ?
August 9, 2016
Three words: Borg Tyrannosaurus Rex.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 20, 2021
This was a lot of fun and rather funny.
May 20, 2018
This is the most self-contained of the DTI stories so far, and also the shortest (a novella rather than a novel). The actual plot is fairly simple, and you could some up the whole book in a couple of sentences. However, it's not obvious from the start, and we follow the characters as they figure it all out.
On p31, someone suggests: "Go back to the twentieth century with a pair of gravity boots and a personal force field and try to become a superhero." I'm not sure whether this a reference to anyone in particular. Maybe Zot?
My favourite bit was
I think the main problem with this series is that the DTI agents were originally introduced as antagonists. It's safe to assume that anyone who reads a Star Trek spin-off novel is a fan of (at least some of) the TV episodes and films. Several of those involved time travel, and we would naturally root for the protagonists in those stories. So, it's hard to get behind Lucsly and Dulmur when they criticise Kirk for saving the humpback whales from extinction.
More generally, the sci-fi genre has entire series that involve time travel. This book was dedicated to the various actors who'd played the Doctor in "Dr Who", and his whole character concept is to change history. Or look at Quantum Leap: "putting right what once went wrong". What makes our (or their) history so sacrosanct?
I think that's partly why I keep mentioning the 2009 reboot when I review these books. While I like the new films, I'm not keen on the idea that TNG, DS9, etc "never happened". I realise that they're no longer canon in the new continuity, but I'd like to think that both versions can co-exist. That then helps me to empathise with the DTI, who also want to preserve their own timeline.
So far, this series seems to have fluctuated on what the implications are. Book 1 implied that one-way time travel is safe, and it's only a problem if you go to the past and then go back to the future. Book 2 said that even if you (or your corpse) stay in the past, it will still cause one timeline to be obliterated when you eventually catch up with your start point. This book offers a compromise (p54): timelines only merge together "under the right circumstances". I'm guessing that this depends on how much they diverged in the intervening time.
On p31, someone suggests: "Go back to the twentieth century with a pair of gravity boots and a personal force field and try to become a superhero." I'm not sure whether this a reference to anyone in particular. Maybe Zot?
My favourite bit was
I think the main problem with this series is that the DTI agents were originally introduced as antagonists. It's safe to assume that anyone who reads a Star Trek spin-off novel is a fan of (at least some of) the TV episodes and films. Several of those involved time travel, and we would naturally root for the protagonists in those stories. So, it's hard to get behind Lucsly and Dulmur when they criticise Kirk for saving the humpback whales from extinction.
More generally, the sci-fi genre has entire series that involve time travel. This book was dedicated to the various actors who'd played the Doctor in "Dr Who", and his whole character concept is to change history. Or look at Quantum Leap: "putting right what once went wrong". What makes our (or their) history so sacrosanct?
I think that's partly why I keep mentioning the 2009 reboot when I review these books. While I like the new films, I'm not keen on the idea that TNG, DS9, etc "never happened". I realise that they're no longer canon in the new continuity, but I'd like to think that both versions can co-exist. That then helps me to empathise with the DTI, who also want to preserve their own timeline.
So far, this series seems to have fluctuated on what the implications are. Book 1 implied that one-way time travel is safe, and it's only a problem if you go to the past and then go back to the future. Book 2 said that even if you (or your corpse) stay in the past, it will still cause one timeline to be obliterated when you eventually catch up with your start point. This book offers a compromise (p54): timelines only merge together "under the right circumstances". I'm guessing that this depends on how much they diverged in the intervening time.
September 4, 2019
That was a lot shorter than I expected. I was little disappointed the story hadn't been much broader in scope and more fully realized. Although, it definitely felt like an episode of TOS! Which has its pluses and minuses. Mainly, the first half of the story felt like it was going to be very serious, devastating, and existentially challenging for our heroes, but ended up taking a more comical turn with no lasting consequences for anyone involved. (I guess Dulmur and Lucsly DID get to learn some lessons for the day!) Problems in Star Trek usually almost always end up being triggered by some "advanced" alien life form of an incorporeal or evolved nature mucking things up because they are actually completely inept when it comes to understanding ethics or psychology - or just plain common sense. So, it was kind of a let down that this what the conclusion ended up being, which I thought had such promising and tantalizing ideas of an alternate timeline where the DTI were more like a military force and the threat of the Prime Timeline collapsing into the other! Then they got to go TWO MILLION years into the future, which I would have thought Bennett would have pushed his imagination a little to come up with something truly fantastic and otherworldly to explain the time obelisks. Nope, just some purple tentacle aliens with a hoarder complex and a glorified zoo. 😒
But there IS a Borg Tyrannosaurus Rex.
So, there is that, I guess.
(You can only get this kind of quality content from Star Trek.)
However, the story did make up for its lackluster plot by having a lot of fun character moments with Lucsly, Dulmur, and Noi! This dorky trio romping through time, messing things up, and being all together Time Detective Badasses! I really enjoy these characters a lot, and I'm definitely sailing on the Lucsly and Noi Ship! 🥰
Also, Lucsly with a prehistoric butterfly on his shoulder.
That is what I call, in one word, - pure.
But there IS a Borg Tyrannosaurus Rex.
So, there is that, I guess.
(You can only get this kind of quality content from Star Trek.)
However, the story did make up for its lackluster plot by having a lot of fun character moments with Lucsly, Dulmur, and Noi! This dorky trio romping through time, messing things up, and being all together Time Detective Badasses! I really enjoy these characters a lot, and I'm definitely sailing on the Lucsly and Noi Ship! 🥰
Also, Lucsly with a prehistoric butterfly on his shoulder.
That is what I call, in one word, - pure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 11, 2018
Star Trek: DTI: The Collectors is an interesting time-travel tale. It opens on a planet were an obelisk is found and is determined that it needs to be looked at by the DTI the Federations temporal investigators. Not too soon after they get it back to the DTI vault then an uptime agent comes in and takes it and two DTI agents with her but instead of returning to her time they jump timelines and wind up in a universe were the Federation Temporal Agency is now the Temporal Intervention Agency and a fight happens putting two versions of the FTA agent herself but in the end working it out until the original takes them far uptime to the point of origin for the obelisk. This book is great and it shows us that the DTI is needed as well as gives us insights into the temporal cold war that appeared in Star Trek: Enterprise. If you like time-travel then I highly recommend this book.
January 9, 2022
The Department of Temporal Investigations novellas are my most secret and most scandalous reading pleasure.
Minor late-in-the-book spoiler: If that's a guilty pleasure you can resist, there's something the matter with you.
They are also Christopher L. Bennett's greatest success. A perfect medley of speculative science, fan service, and setpiece excitement, centered on a couple of lovely characters who will never be deep but will always be charming -- and these novellas end before they can wear out their welcome. A perfect snack between weightier books.
Minor late-in-the-book spoiler: If that's a guilty pleasure you can resist, there's something the matter with you.
They are also Christopher L. Bennett's greatest success. A perfect medley of speculative science, fan service, and setpiece excitement, centered on a couple of lovely characters who will never be deep but will always be charming -- and these novellas end before they can wear out their welcome. A perfect snack between weightier books.
September 2, 2019
The Collectors was a fun, quick, romp through the world of Star Trek. In the 24th century, the Department of Temporal Investigations is responsible for securing anything having to do with time travel, except from future time travellers.
I enjoyed the novella-length for this story. It meant that the story was never unnecessarily laden with filler. The fun of moving through time but realities was also interesting.
I was less-happy with some of the up-time agents' powers. It stretched believe-ability and made some passages difficult to parse and understand.
A fun quick read.
I enjoyed the novella-length for this story. It meant that the story was never unnecessarily laden with filler. The fun of moving through time but realities was also interesting.
I was less-happy with some of the up-time agents' powers. It stretched believe-ability and made some passages difficult to parse and understand.
A fun quick read.
June 16, 2023
A neat, short adventure through time
This is a novella featuring the two time travel overseers introduced in the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." It's fun to have their characters expanded a bit, but the story gets lost among too many other minor characters that I couldn't tell from one another.
There's one particular time travel escapade that is delightful and you can tell the author had a ball with it, but I'd be spoiling the best part of the book if I detailed it here. Overall, this was worth reading but nothing of major consequence to the overall Trek ethos.
This is a novella featuring the two time travel overseers introduced in the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." It's fun to have their characters expanded a bit, but the story gets lost among too many other minor characters that I couldn't tell from one another.
There's one particular time travel escapade that is delightful and you can tell the author had a ball with it, but I'd be spoiling the best part of the book if I detailed it here. Overall, this was worth reading but nothing of major consequence to the overall Trek ethos.
February 24, 2020
Wow! What a lot of fun! I never saw the ending coming. The whole concept of having a dept. of temporal investigations paves the way for myriads of stories. The Collectors does not disappoint. Written in a somewhat jocular way that brings levity to the more serious parts continues the trend started in DS9 and Voyager
.
.
May 9, 2020
Great story
Great read! Very fast paced and exciting couldn’t wait to keep reading. My only complaint was when it came to one particular point in the book. There were just too many descriptions and it got too wordy for me. I would have made some serious cuts to the last bit of story. Just my opinion.
Great read! Very fast paced and exciting couldn’t wait to keep reading. My only complaint was when it came to one particular point in the book. There were just too many descriptions and it got too wordy for me. I would have made some serious cuts to the last bit of story. Just my opinion.
February 3, 2025
Rating 3
Enjoyable enough novella, first one I have tried in this Star Trek sub series.
Tbh didn’t really feel like Star Trek for me, even with the name dropping of ships, captains and alien races.
Definitely enjoyed the SCE sub series more.
Overall okay but didn’t really like it.
Despite that might try another of this series eventually.
Enjoyable enough novella, first one I have tried in this Star Trek sub series.
Tbh didn’t really feel like Star Trek for me, even with the name dropping of ships, captains and alien races.
Definitely enjoyed the SCE sub series more.
Overall okay but didn’t really like it.
Despite that might try another of this series eventually.
January 25, 2019
It's interesting, I love the concept of this series. I didn't love the first book, but I did *really* enjoy the second book. This third one is just a novella and it's only okay. I don't know why I'm not connecting with it because it's right up my alley. Star Trek and time travel.
May 31, 2023
Einstein Feynman Heisenburg Entanglement oh and Clarke
Take the best of relavistic and quantim physics, Star Trek, Dr. Who's Time Lords add a touch of Pam Grier mix in Time and you have a recipe for a good story. Well written and entertaining
Take the best of relavistic and quantim physics, Star Trek, Dr. Who's Time Lords add a touch of Pam Grier mix in Time and you have a recipe for a good story. Well written and entertaining
May 27, 2017
Three Words.
Borg T. Rex.
That is all I am giving up.
If that doesn't get you to read this book, then the child inside of you is dead.
Borg T. Rex.
That is all I am giving up.
If that doesn't get you to read this book, then the child inside of you is dead.
November 13, 2017
Time travel gives me a headache. A great story! Read it! Trek!
April 19, 2018
A fun romp through time and timelines with several DTI agents.
October 3, 2019
Crank the time techno-babble up to 11 and prepare for an awesome ending that sounds like a video game end boss. This is a fun spin off series
December 23, 2019
At times downright silly, but all around delightful.
August 11, 2020
Great fun! Always love reading more about the distant future of the Trek-verse and this book is a short, enjoyable, tightly written story that wouldn't be out of place as a TNG era two-parter.
September 18, 2022
Better as a novella
This was a tight story with good plotting. The characters were well formed. This has been the best story in the series because it followed two storylines.
This was a tight story with good plotting. The characters were well formed. This has been the best story in the series because it followed two storylines.
June 9, 2023
new series for me
This is the first of the Collectors series I've read, it was pretty interesting! I have another that I'll start shortly and am looking forward to it!
This is the first of the Collectors series I've read, it was pretty interesting! I have another that I'll start shortly and am looking forward to it!
September 14, 2023
Nice trek around time
We only saw two temporal agents once in a DS9 episode, I was left wanting more. A good page turner and well-writen story...leaving me to want to read more.
We only saw two temporal agents once in a DS9 episode, I was left wanting more. A good page turner and well-writen story...leaving me to want to read more.
December 11, 2023
best DTI yet, but still a slight waste of the premise IMO. why couldn't it go full cabin in the woods with all the evil aliens collected throughout time... now THAT would have been fabolous
December 27, 2023
A bit shorter than I like my Star Trek books...but still good.
March 2, 2024
The novella format made this a bit more digestible.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews