Star Trek: The Next Generation: Reunion

Back in 1991, one of the very first Star Trek: The Next Generation hardcover novels published by Pocket Books was Michael Jan Friedman’s Reunion. I remember this being an exciting event at the time, because the novel fleshed out the backstory of Captain Picard’s time on the Stargazer, the ship he had commanded before the Enterprise (which was abandoned and thought destroyed at Maxia Zeta, as established in the first seasin TNG episode “The Battle”). I read this book back in ‘91 and I remembered enjoying it.

After going back and reading, for the first time, the “A Time To…” novels (published in 2004, they told the story of the events in the year prior to Star Trek: Nemesis), I went on and re-read Michael Jan Friedman’s novel Death in Winter (which was released soon after the “A Time To”… Series). Set after Nemesis, Death in Winter brought a satisfying resolution to the story of Captain Picard’s relationship with Beverly Crusher, an important storyline established in the TNG pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint,” that the show never did much with. (I never found the seventh season episode, “Attached,” to be a very satisfying resolution to this story.) Death in Winter also served as something of a sequel to Reunion, as several of the Stargazer characters who Mr. Jan Friedman had established in Reunion were brought back. So after re-reading Death in Winter, I decided to go back and re-read Reunion as well.

I am happy that the novel holds up extremely well and was just as enjoyable as I remembered! Set around the fourth season of TNG, the story involves a reunion of several members of the Stargazer command crew on the Enterprise. One of the officers, a Da’vit named Morgan, is leaving Starfleet to assume the throne of his homeworld. The Enterprise is ferrying Morgan to his home planet, and he has invited his Stargazer colleagues to serve as the honor guard for his installation.

What should be a happy event is colored, for both Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher, by memories of Jack Crusher, who died on the Stargazer. And things take a more serious turn when several unexplained mishaps aboard the ship build to an assassination attempt on Morgan. What could have turned one of his former friends and colleagues from the Stargazer into a murderer?

This is a great book. I love all of the Stargazer characters Mr. Jan Friedman created. He did a great job at crafting these new, interesting, three-dimensional characters. It’s no wonder that Mr. Jan Friedman would return to these characters several times again in the future. Not just in Death in Winter, but also in a four-book Stargazer series (which I’ve never read, but hope to someday). This story would be boring if these Stargazer characters weren’t interesting. But they are fantastic. Every one of these new characters is multi-layered and well-developed. I enjoyed each and every one of them. (So much that now I’m thinking about tracking down that four-book Stargazer series, to get to see more of these characters!)

At the same time, Mr. Jan Friedman doesn’t ignore the main TNG characters. Both Picard and Crusher are given meaty storylines, as they are forced to face painful memories from their past. TNG, for the most part, avoided exploring their shared backstory too deeply. That always felt like a missed opportunity to me. I’m glad to see Picard and Crusher’s shared history explored here in this novel. Worf has a fun story in which he is forced to find a way to find common ground with Morgan, whose warrior race has long been blood enemies with the Klingons. Meanwhile, Geordi has to puzzle out a solution to a subspace anomaly that has snagged the Enterprise — one more threat to the starship beyond the murder stalking the corridor of its interiors.

That murder mystery, by the way, is well told. The reader is presented with a number of potential suspects, and we’re kept guessing right up until the end.

One of the most memorable aspects of the book is the revelation, towards the end, of the true story of Jack Crusher’s death. This is a fascinating addition to the Star Trek canon. It’s a bold extrapolation of what we were told on TNG, but it works beautifully. So beautifully, in fact, that this has always remained in my head as the actual story of Jack’s death, even though it was never actually a part of the on-screen Trek continuity.

I’m pleased this 1991 novel, written in the early years of TNG, holds up so well!

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Previous Star Trek novel reviews:

Star Trek – Unspoken Truth , Troublesome Minds, Cast No Shadow, Excelsior: Forged in Fire, Allegiance in Exile, Legacies Book 1: Captain to Captain, Legacies Book 2: Best Defense, Legacies Book 3: Purgatory’s Key, The Face of the Unknown, From History’s Shadow, Elusive Salvation, Assignment: Eternity, The Rings of Time, The Weight of Worlds, No Time Like the Past, Foul Deeds Will Rise, The Antares Maelstrom, The Shocks of Adversity, Crisis of Consciousness, The Latter Fire, Serpents in the Garden