ENTERPRISE: BROKEN BOW

By: Francesca Sorenson
Date: Monday, October 15, 2001

In this volume, Diane Carey's normally ham-fisted writing is somewhat tempered by the strong story that she adapts. ENTERPRISE: BROKEN BOW follows almost exactly the script from the series. In some ways the plot plays out better in print than it does on the screen, because alien locations seem somewhat broader and more well populated.

As any current TREK fan knows, the basic plot is a future history of man's first interstellar travel. On a pre-Kirk Earth, a mysterious alien called a "Klingon" is forced to land by the nefarious beings that pursue him. When the Klingon (out of self defense) hides in, and later blows up, a farmer's silo, the farmer shoots first and asks questions later. Earth's strict Vulcan mentors advise pulling the plug and letting the warrior die courageously. The Earth disagrees and decides to allow Captain Jonathan Archer go on a mission to return the alien, still alive, to his planet. Captain Archer commands the Enterprise, Earth's first interstellar star ship...and this will be her very first time out.

We meet the entire crew: T'Pol, the Vulcan Science Officer, who many regard as a spy; Charles "Trip" Tucker III, the "good ol' boy" Chief Engineer; Dr. Phlox, the alien new-age Chief Medical Officer; Travis Mayweather, the excited Helmsman; Hoshi Sato, the brilliant Communications Officer; and Malcolm Reed, the Tactical Officer. During the voyage the ship comes under attack by beings called the Suliban. The recovering Klingon is kidnapped right out of Sick Bay, dramatically changing the Enterprise's mission. Now Archer and his crew must travel to unknown worlds in hopes of retrieving the alien, and uncovering a cosmic conspiracy.

This novelization is a paint-by-the-numbers job that does little other than transcribe events. New insights into characters/races are not available, but on the other hand, the elements of the original story are not in any way ruined. If you liked the television episode, then you'll probably find the printed version acceptable. But if you don't have the money for the novelization, don't worry. Just get the script off the internet and write your own adaptation it will probably be just as good.

However, one feature this edition has that your version wouldn't is a special "behind-the-scenes" section by Paul Ruditis. Running about thirty pages after the end of the novel, Ruditis' article is just plain good journalism. Extensive interviews with Producer Rick Berman, Production Designer Herman Zimmerman and others give a great deal of interesting insight into the approach used to construct the series. Kudos to Ruditis for being able to avoid packing his report with fluff, as many other "making of" type articles can tend to do. In fact, Ruditis' contribution is so strong; one wonders why Pocket Books choose to attach it to the end of a run-of-the-mill Carey adaptation. It seems like it would have been better to expand the article and print it with photos and reproductions of Zimmerman's design blue prints. Alas, a publishing mystery the answer to which the world may never know.

ENTERPRISE: BROKEN BOW

Grade: C+

Author(s): Diane Carey

Publisher:  Pocket Books

Price: $19.99