{"id":20989,"date":"2011-05-08T14:17:12","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T20:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=20989"},"modified":"2014-06-16T10:53:59","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T16:53:59","slug":"book-review-star-trek-new-frontier-missing-in-action-by-peter-david-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/08\/book-review-star-trek-new-frontier-missing-in-action-by-peter-david-2006.html","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: “Star Trek New Frontier: Missing in Action” by Peter David (2006)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Missing<\/a>Missing in Action<\/a><\/em> by Peter David<\/a><\/p>\n

My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been plowing through the last several New Frontier novels to get to the most recent three — ones that I’ve bought but never got around to reading (because I hadn’t had a chance to plow through the previous books recently). This is the first of those, a sequel to the “only okay” After the Fall<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Somebody dies in this one. Somebody major to the series. And, ironically (and intentionally), it happens completely offstage, making for a particularly gruesome reveal.<\/p>\n

I offer that up in as non-spoilery a fashion as I can because it points out an ongoing difficulty or two of the series. It’s become so complex and character-ridden that it’s practically impossible to deal adequately with the secondary characters, while at the same time, the leads (including Mackenzie Calhoun himself) are forced to spend increasing time outside of the limelight. The fact is, I’m much more interested in some folks (Calhoun, Shelby, Burgoyne, Soleta, Cwan) than others (Mueller, Lefler, Xyon\/Xyon\/Moke, Kalinda) (and we’ll leave the New, Improved Zak Kebron aside), but with the tale including so many folks onstage, plus incidental characters from the immediate plot lines themselves, nobody here gets enough stage time (save, perhaps, Soleta) to satisfy me.<\/p>\n

The New Frontier series has drifted from being highly personal tales to being “merely” intricate plots, with motivations presented in a sketchy fashion so we can quickly move on to the next scene, the next ship \/ base \/ planet. Enjoyable, but not as much as earlier. And it turns that death I mentioned above into a simple dramatic trick, designed to impel some future actions and close out another story line.<\/p>\n

While this book resolves the second half of the tale started with After the Fall<\/em>, and sets up the potential for some future conflicts, it’s not as much fun (or as interesting) as it feels like it should be. Still looking forward to the next.<\/p>\n

Recommended for Peter David and New Frontier completists. Not a good hopping-on point. But still more enjoyment (for the long-time series reader) than a lot of books out there.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Missing in Action by Peter David My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’ve been plowing through the last several New Frontier novels to get to the most recent three — ones that I’ve bought but never got around to reading (because I hadn’t had a chance to plow through the previous books recently). This is … Continue reading “Book Review: “Star Trek New Frontier: Missing in Action” by Peter David (2006)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,360],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-books","category-media-tv-star-trek"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11665,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/23\/book_review_missing_in_ac.html","url_meta":{"origin":20989,"position":0},"title":"Book Review: Missing in Action (Star Trek: New Frontier)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 23-Jul-07 10:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"Peter David's Star Trek: New Frontier series is a guilty pleasure of mine.\u00a0 It's vaguely embarrassing to be caught reading Star Trek stuff, but David's wit, his great ear for...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21008,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/10\/wrapping-up-my-star-trek-new-frontier-marathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":20989,"position":1},"title":"Wrapping up my “Star Trek: New Frontier” marathon","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-May-11 7:13pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been playing catch-up on Peter David's Star Trek: New Frontier series.\u00a0 Here are the last two book reviews, for books 16 and 17 of the series. Treason by Peter David My rating: 4 of 5 stars Rather than \"Treason,\" the better title here might be \"Madness.\" It seems, at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135750,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/01\/books-of-2017.html","url_meta":{"origin":20989,"position":2},"title":"Books of 2017","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 1-Jan-18 10:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking at my Goodreads records, in 2017 I read 92 books. In fiction, I read 26 new books, and reread 27 (including a (re)read of all of Peter David Star Trek New Frontier series and quite a few Rex Stout Nero Wolfe). Nine were 5-star books; I think my favorite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/all%2Bthe%2Btime%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bworld.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/all%2Bthe%2Btime%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bworld.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/all%2Bthe%2Btime%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bworld.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":24241,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/05\/space-the-final-frontier.html","url_meta":{"origin":20989,"position":3},"title":"Space, The Final Frontier","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Dec-11 7:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"Memos to\/from Gene Roddenberry on the crafting of Kirk's famous voice-over on Star Trek. #ddtb Embedded Link Letters of Note: Space: The Final Frontier","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12527,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/01\/book_review_before_dishon.html","url_meta":{"origin":20989,"position":4},"title":"Book Review: Before Dishonor","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Apr-08 9:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Peter David has written a lot of very entertaining and well-crafted Star Trek novels. This, alas, is not one of them.\u00a0 Star Trek: The Next Generation - Before Dishonor by...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21236,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/11\/tweets-from-2011-06-11.html","url_meta":{"origin":20989,"position":5},"title":"Tweets from 2011-06-11","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 11-Jun-11 12:45am","format":false,"excerpt":"After reading the Star Trek New Frontier novels, amusing to actually watch an TNG episode with Admiral Jellico in it (\"Chain of Command\"). # On the other hand, less amusing to be reminded of the days when torture \/ \"enhanced interrogation\" was what the Bad Guys did. # 4 of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43055,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20989\/revisions\/43055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}