Debtors' Planet (Star Trek Next Generation 30)

Compared to most of the new wave Star Trek books at least these books had style. They read as if they could have been additional episodes of the TV pretty much everything published since about 2000 took its cue from the Star Wars expanded universe, filling in the missing pieces. A planet overrun by Ferengi is begging for help who does the federation send? Probably the last human capitalist in existence Mr. Openhouse from season 1 trying to see this man explain the basics of economics to people who just don't get it is truly hilarious and not to be missed by any serious Star Trek fan. Overall-The old books were better even if there are parts of this particular installment that read like bad fanfic namely Riker and Wolf having a movie night.

Good plot, good handling of characterization, including the odd (but interesting and plausible) use of the character Ralph Offenhouse, introduced in the episode "The Neutral Zone", a very successful businessman from the 20th century who was frozen when he died until a cure could be found, awakening in the 24th century and very much an anachronism, as a Federation Ambassador dealing with the Ferengi. The man is still an anachronism, but having had some time to assimilate into his new time period, we find that the skills which made him successful in his own time are not completely without merit in his new time. Another item worthy of note: the syntax of the language of the aliens in this book is complex enough that the Universal translator, while making the words and even the meaning understandable, doesn't completely eliminate the sense of the exotic. A nice touch. Well above average as Star Trek stories go.

I found "Debtor's Planet" to be one of those truly rare Star Trek novels where the author tackled something different that other authors haven't tried too often. Given the time in which this novel was written and published, the Ferengi hadn't been explored too greatly on Star Trek The Next Generation just yet. From what we had seen, we saw they're "merchant" militaristic types, which are completely in contradiction to the civilian types we grew to love on Deep Space Nine."Debtor's Planet" is the first of only two Star Trek novels by this author and I found their writing style to be fairly fluidic and the pacing to be, for the better part, fairly engaging. I couldn't quite rate this one as highly as I'd like to though, given the characterization errors that seemed to jump out at a fan. The overall plot development and pacing does overcome these blaring errors for me though. It would be nice to see this author make another foray into the Star Trek genre after such a long absence.The cover art is, not much better than the standard fare for the time though, but it does lend a bit to the story, letting the reader know that there will be a memorable character from the first season in this novel.The premise:A Vulcan space probe reports that the Ferengi are advancing the people of the planet Megara, from a pre-warp, primitive agricultural state to a sophisticated, technological society. The Enterprise is ordered to transport a rather odd "Ambassador" to the planet to deal with this problem. The Ambassador, Ralph Offenhouse, who was introduced in the first season's closing episode "The Neutral Zone," is a ruthless, twentieth century business man whose character gets some decent fleshing out in this story.Besides greatly advancing the Megaran people technologically, the Ferengi, who turn out to only be the puppets here, are turning the hard working and honorable people into vicious, xenophobic killers. Captain Picard must now find a way to extricate the Ferengi and their puppet masters from this planet and in doing so, save the entire Federation.What follows from there, is a fairly decent first novel for this author and one that I would definitely recommend to any and all fans of the genre. {ssintrepid}

Another pretty good Trek novel. We have a planet being overrun by Ferengi, who have enslaved the Megarans, in order to industrialize a once primative society into building starships. Ambassador Offenhouse is sent by the Federation, aboard the Enterprise, to resolve this situation. We find out that Offenhouse was a businessman from the 20th century, who was frozen after death, then apparently thawed out after finding a cure. Thompson never got into explaining this. Some of the Eugenics War was brought up where Offenhouse lost his son. Meanwhile, Offenhouse uses his financier wit to tick off the Ferengi. An away team beams down to find out what is going on, then are attacked by the Megarans, or so they thought. Enter the Cardassians, who are the real string pullers on this planet. Of course, Worf gets involved as does most of the main crew of the Enterprise to figure out what is going on. The Cardassians are discovered by an Ensign, who is an insectoid, resembling a bee! The Cardassians use the Ferengi and try to ambush the Enterprise in orbit. All in all, this book had action and humor mixed in. All of the main crew gets involved at some point. The only gripe I had was the way the book ended. It seemed to just stop all of a sudden, and leaves you wondering what else was going to happen.

Ferengi, Cardassians, Danger, Intrigue, and a 20th century crooked businessman. What more could you want?"Debtor's Planet" is definitely a well written book, which focuses not just on the main characters, but has decent plot development on the side of the bad guys, the not so bad guys, and some of the lower echelon crewman...oh, and Wesley Crusher.There is a nice interplay of humor (some of Ralph Offenhouse's lines are hilarious) and action, along with the very interesting proposal of what would happen to a society if the Prime Directive were completely ignored.My only criticisms would be the overdoing of Worf ...his actions and thoughts weren't how I see his character...however that problem is nicely undone at the end of the book (having to do with his relationship with his son).Overall, a good read for Star Trek fans. Pick it up, and enjoy!