Title: Star Trek: The Next Generation The Battle of Betazed
Authors: Susan Kearney and Charlotte Douglas
Review by Jacqueline Bundy
In the Deep Space Nine episode "In the Pale Moonlight" we learned that the planet Betazed had fallen to the Dominion. A satisfying follow-up to that startling turn of events has finally materialized in the new TNG novel The Battle of Betazed. Written by first time trek authors Charlotte Douglas and Susan Kearney this book offers a surprisingly palpable look at the horrors of war. Darker than the average Star Trek novel, this story will not be to everyone's tastes, but I thought it pensive, well paced and fulfilling.
This book is more than just the story of the liberation of Betazed. It is more than a Deanna Troi story. It is more than a tale of bloody battle and horrific brutalization. The Battle of Betazed is all of those things, but it is also a substantive look at the psychological toil that war takes. Not only on individuals, but on society itself.
The setting is four months after the conquest of Betazed and things are getting desperate for the planet's population. The occupying army is brutal. Using slave labor the Cardassian's have succeeded in placing a space station in orbit around the planet and the Dominion has successfully repelled all of Starfleet's attempts to retake the system. Entrenched in the very heart of the Federation, the Dominion stands poised and ready to strike the final decisive blows of the war.
Disconsolate, the leaders of the Betazed resistance decide to pursue a personally dangerous and pontentially ruinous course. They are willing to learn to turn their telepathic abilities into an instrument of war, taking a step off an abyss that could change their peaceful society forever. One man possesses the knowledge they need, Tevren, a psychopathic mass murderer, imprisoned on one of Betazed's outer planets. To free Tevren, and their planet, the resistance manages to get a call for assistance to Starfleet, who sends the USS Enterprise to help carry out their desperate plan.
What unfolds as you turn the pages of this high stakes, at times melodramatic adventure is a story about the realities of war. Realities that force individuals to make difficult and painful choices. To often a war story is nothing more than an account of heroic deeds. The Battle of Betazed is much more than that. As this story so amply and touchingly illustrates, when you win a battle, whether you are on the winning or losing side, there is a price to be paid and things will never be the same again.
