The Badlands: Book One

Susan Wright

Jan 2000 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this eBook

Located dangerously near the Cardassian border, the unstable region of space known as the Badlands has long been a hazard to interstellar navigation, characterized by violent plasma storms and other even stranger phenomena. Many starships have faced destruction there, including at least two incarnations of the Starship Enterprise™.

James T. Kirk braves the perils of the Badlands to confront a Romulan Bird of Prey that has entered Federation space in pursuit of a fleeing smuggler. But trespassing Romulans may be the least of Kirk's problems when the mysterious forces at work in the Badlands threaten both his ship and his crew!

A generation later, Jean-Luc Picard faces the same phantom menace when he commands his Enterprise into the Badlands on a mission vital to Federation-Cardassian relations. With Will Riker's life on the line, and the entire ship in jeopardy, it's up to Lieutenant Commander Data to determine the true nature of the Badlands' hidden danger!

Ratings and reviews

The Badlands is a collection of four Star Trek novellas. There are two in this volume and two in Book 2. This volume has one set in the days of The Original Series and one set in the days of The Next Generation. The volume is rounded out by Chapter 5 of the serialization of Starfleet: Year One. The two novellas are each about the right length. The first is mostly a Spock story. Enterprise seems to be the first Starfleet vessel to survey The Badlands, one of the features of the Deep Space Nine series. This story is set not long after Kirk and Spock have had their first personal encounter with Romulans, so when they have dealings with Romulans in this story they do a lot of comparing of the two incidents. In this case, it adds to the story. Author Susan Wright does well in dealing with a scientific problem at a particular level appropriate for the time setting of this story. The Enterprise-D story has Ensign Ro on board. (Query: Do I not remember that Ro did not wear the earring that was part of the Bajoran faith? Or was that Kira?) This time the bad guys are the Cardassians, two Obsidian Order operatives in particular. Riker and Data have large roles in this story, but Wright gets right the difference in storytelling with the larger ensemble with this generation as opposed to the Original Series generation. She also gets right the differences in the natures of the "enemy" races. Finally, she gets the 100 year advance in science right in dealing with what is essentially the same problem. The serial does not fare so well this outing. Michael Jan Friedman is a wonderful author. By the time the serial is transformed into a complete novel, all the kinks are worked out. Read the complete novel. (Of course, the later TV series Star Trek: Enterprise made all of this alternate time line stuff anyway. Tough luck.)

About the author

Susan Wright is the spokesperson for the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. In that capacity she has appeared on the Fox Network’s The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes, as well as on various programs such as NBC’s Dateline, and others on CNN, CNN Headline News, ABC, NBC and FOX affiliates in New York, St. Louis, Chicago, and more.