A Time to Sow & Harvest (Spoiler)

S P O I L E R

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After reading the first two books of this series, I was hoping that some
of the background of the story that didn`t make much sense to me and
sometimes even felt wrong would become clearer now. Instead mainly "Sow"
repeated what was established before without any further explanation.
Repeating how important the membership of the Ontailians is doesn`t make
it more believable to me without delivering any facts that can convince
me why. And although Nechayev showed at least a bit of a change of heart
(well, that is at least something, I guess!), I still don`t see it why
Picard and his crew are treated this way especially by the Admirals in
Starfleet. After having been a captain with an excellent record for such
a long time, suddenly Picard is disgraced because one ship is destroyed
by the Enterprise under very dubious circumstances!? No, that is not
good enough. Maybe some people would condemn Picard for this, but this
general attitude supposedly also captains, even lower ranking officers
have who don`t know him well, doesn`t make sense to me. Even the end of
the Stargazer and the Borg encounter are held against him, he is
labelled as reckless and a danger. I don`t buy it but obviously, these
are the facts nevertheless and it certainly doesn`t help me to find
Starfleet likeable.

First of all, these two books are exploring a new species, the Dokaalan,
who just discovered warp drive when their homeworld was destroyed by
natural causes. They are a remarkable people whose skills and spirit I
very much admired. I very much felt with them how they struggled to
survive, how they built and kept building a future for themselves. But I
also found it remarkable to read about their mentality. They are not
only strong and inventive but also a very compassionate and forgiving
people. This is an interesting combination you don`t find often.

I especially enjoyed reading the personal journal of Hjatyn, the
remarkable Dokaalan leader. I very much hoped he would survive so that
he would be able to visit their fully terraformed new homeworld, but I
always had the feeling that this isn`t likely to happen. Nevertheless,
although his death wasn`t a surprise, it saddened me a lot but I liked
the idea to give Picard his journal so that the Federation can get to
know his people.

Even with the faults the foundation of this series has, both books could
have been excellent. Unfortunately the writing style of the authors
spoiled the otherwise remarkable story of the Dokalaan quite a lot.
Sometimes I had to force myself to keep reading. First of all, the
second book suffers from continuous repetitions of what happened in the
previous book. I skipped a lot of paragraphs. Sometimes the second book
even explained basic facts of DS9, something I found to be completely
unnecessary. Not only that, it was repeated constantly, also in the
first book, how remarkable and great the Dokalaan are, how dangerous the
intruders are, how brilliant Dokaalan achievements are. When something
happened, what usually followed was a string of orders and status
reports as well as pseudo-technical descriptions, nothing I find very
engaging to read. I am more of a people person and this dry writing
style put me off quite often. The whole story seemed artificially
stretched to me. With all of this going on, even the few extended
descriptions of various people drinking tea or coffee started to get on
my nerves. It also didn`t help that these books were a throwback to the
Deanna Troi who was mainly there "sensing" something, often things that
were very obvious to me, and afterwards conclusions that were no less
obvious to me were debated. It is a shame, but because of the way the
Dokaalan story was written, I found a lot of these books very tiresome
to read.

Putting the main aspect of the Dokaalan story aside, these books also
offered some elements I liked reading. The friendship between Data and
Geordi was beautifully written, very different from the style describing
the Dokalaan story. The conclusion towards the end of the book, that
Data`s neural net might have permanent imprints from the emotion ship he
no longer has, is not only a very interesting idea but I liked it a lot.

Another nice positive aspect was showing us readers how Picard regained
his self confidence and overcame his depressions. I can understand very
well why Picard felt that way and I liked it not only because it takes
strength to move forward into a positive direction from such a personal
crisis but also because the books showed very well that the Enterprise
bridge crew is in many ways like a family. I understand why nobody of
these officers is in any hurry to leave it for a new career.

On the one hand, it is nice to read that Starfleet is willing to help
both peoples although neither of them is a member of the Federation and
how people remembered why they joined Starfleet in the first place, but
on the other hand, it should also have been made clear that the Dokaalan
had been very lucky: They JUST qualified for being helped because
looking at the letter of the law, helping a pre-warp civilization - no
matter what the circumstances - is against the Prime Directive.
Especially in this case I find this law so annoying and unjust: The
Dokalaan were exploited by a space faring race. There should be special
considerations in such a case and that is the absolute minimum. Pre Warp
civilizations that are altered, sometimes even openly oppressed by a
space faring species, should be helped to regain as much of their
independence to develop naturally as possible. Being a NF fan, I
immediately had to think of the Xenexians and their history as another
example.

It was good to meet Taurik again, who made me smile sometimes when
reading these books. I am glad he is alive. I very much prefer this
version to what was mentioned in the "Dominion War" novels, so that I am
not complaining this time. I also prefer the first meeting of Picard and
Ro in DS9 Relaunch to what had been written before.

I know that Vale appeared in other books but I only remember that I
liked her, nothing else. At least my positive impression didn`t change
when reading these books and I hope in future "Time to..." books I will
learn more about her. But I don`t think I met Dr. Tropp, the Denobulan
doctor, before. He certainly didn`t appear often but nevertheless, he
already left a very good first impression on me. It must be because he
very much reminds me of Dr. Phlox in Enterprise. Hopefully I will read
more about him in future, too.

What I found very interesting is what Kell Perim said about being a
joined Trill and why she refused to be joined. It made a lot of sense to
me and I must admit, I have never looked at this aspect from this point
of view before. I also wouldn`t have thought that there are limits for
modern regeneration techniques when it is about healing ligaments so
that Dr. Crusher recommended replacing a knee.

Looking at what I like and what I like less, I would also classify this
two part story within "A Time to..." as average. Hopefully I will enjoy
future books of this series more.

Baerbel Haddrell