Jim's Books

A Time to Kill

David Mack

A Time to Kill
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ISBN: 9780743491778

Description

At the height of the Dominion War, the Federation sends devastating weapons to the planet Tezwa, in violation of its fragile treaty with the Klingons, but the plan goes dangerously awry when Tezwa's ruthless prime minister launches his own scheme for power.

Reviewed on 28th February 2010

David Mack has produced what is easily the best book in the A Time To... series so far with this one. While the storyline is still a little slow paced, Mack manages to successfully distract the reader by providing a host of alternative viewpoints, adding local residents, federation politicians, and Worf to his character list. This makes the plot feel much more rounded and enables a lot more background detail to be filled in without sounding like exposition.

The book is still clearly working toward getting all the pieces in place ready for the film Nemesis, but unlike it's predecessors manages to do so (for Worf) in a way that actually feels natural rather than forced, and in character. In previous volumes a lot of the characters have seemed a little over emotional and self-centredly obsessive over small things regarding their future - but Mack doesn't write this way, giving more focus to the plot than to his 'main' cast. This is not really a drawback, as Trek is not particularly good at dealing with characters' emotions, and the plot is still rounded enough not to feel like solid action.

I actually now feel that deciding to eventually read this series has been worth it, if only because it meant I got the chance to read this one volume. Hopefully though Mack's second part and Keith R A DeCandido's finale will round the set off in style.

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