Pazlar recruits the redoubtable
supporting character Reginald Barclay to help her convince Picard to abandon
their current mission and investigate. The captain resists until Counselor
Troi has a similar dream, but the ship soon sets course for Gemworld.
Upon arrival, the Enterprise
encounters a dark matter rift that cripples the ship and forces its crew
to take refuge inside Gemworld's artificial atmospheric shell.
Picard deduces that the rift
is responsible for the impending destruction of the planet. He joins a
hand-picked team on a quest to locate the keys needed to deactivate the
planet's control systems and dissipate the rift.
Along the way, Pazlar is
forced to decide between her duty to Starfleet and her loyalty to her own
people.
Add 2 tablespoons Riker
and stir well
Star Trek is all about formula.
The franchise has survived for over 30 years by remaining faithful to its
master recipe, and Gemworld is no exception.
The story features all the
requisite ingredients of a textbook Star Trek episode - ingredients --
world shattering threats, moral dilemmas, misguidedly malicious aliens
who hamper the crew's efforts to save the day, and a torturous romantic
sub-plot.
Like televised Trek,
Gemworld also suffers from "last act" syndrome. Vornholt puts his characters
through hundreds of pages of questing after the items needed to save the
day.
Inevitably, this plan fails,
and the resolution of the story is delivered largely as deus ex machina.
The good, the bad and
the stupid
In some respects, this commitment
to formula works to Vornholt's advantage.
He has a strong sense of
the characters, and his versions of the crew speak, act and interact the
way Next Generation fans have come to expect over the last 13 years.
While solid, Vornholt's characterizations
aren't perfect. They suffer when a radical faction of Gemworld aliens takes
over the Enterprise, an attack that only succeeds because Vornholt forces
the crew to become temporarily stupid.
Riker, Geordi and the rest
overlook the obvious, and it is only after the invaders have taken over
the ship that the characters are allowed to recognize the evidence that
was before them all along.
As Vornholt himself reflects,
"The Jeptah had taken over the ship without firing a shot, and Geordi had
personally given that pompous thug Tangre Bertoran all the information
he'd needed to do it! He had wondered why they were so interested in the
ship, although all of their questions had made sense at the time."
As for the supporting
cast
Ultimately, Pazlar and Barclay
are the stars of the story. Although Pazlar is an established -- if minor
-- part of the Star Trek universe, she is still an unknown quantity. This
allows Vornholt to develop the character according to the dictates of his
story.
His treatment of Barclay
is less effective. Barclay's frequent guest appearances on The Next
Generation and on one notable Voyager episode
this season make him a much more defined character, and Vornholt's characterization
takes undue liberties with him.
The timid engineer makes
the transition to unlikely hero with remarkably little difficulty. He doesn't
become a square-jawed, aggressive hero, but he does accept the role required
of him without the hesitation that is a hallmark of the character.
This may be a function of
the novels' place in Star Trek history. Gemworld takes place after
the Dominion War seen in Deep Space Nine, and Barclay's quirks may
well have been tempered by living through a devastating war.
Taken as the sum of its often
impressive parts, however, Gemworld only rises to the level of a
mediocre Star Trek episode, a diamond in the rough at best.
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