The Lost Era: The Buried Age

Bennett is an incredible world builder. The Star Trek universe presented in this novel is every tiny bit as consistent and plausible as any series of science fiction ever released, and applies such copious amounts of ingenious spackle that even TNG's first two seasons almost make sense. The achievements in this area should not be overlooked; I almost feel like one should read this before ever watching Star Trek, in much the same way that Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy so entirely improved the original Star Wars trilogy. The appearances of Janeway and all the main characters were absolutely perfectly characterized and realistically developed, especially Data. And Bennett gives Picard himself the greatest tragic flaw the character is capable of as well, one that unfortunately foreshadows First Contact a little too strongly, but is otherwise perfectly compelling. Bennet's ability to make this world and these characters come alive is stunning, every bit as much here as in his similarly wonderful Ex Machina. Unfortunately, despite being a brilliantly conceived universe with perfectly realized characters, it still manages to be, well, sort of boring for about the middle half. Interesting stuff happens, it just happens very slowly and in a lot of detail. I'm not sure much of this could've been prevented, but the last quarter does an excellent job of skipping over important things to summarize them later, so I feel like the middle half could've been somewhat flensed. Still, ultimately the story is so wonderful, and so perfectly realized, that it overcomes its lack of narrative drive and delivers a sweeping and legitimately sci-fi wondrous conclusion. Bennett does more to legitimize the show than the show does, and it's a fanboy's abject joy to read.

I can't praise this book more. Just to fair, Prime Directive is still my favorite Trek book of them all, but this one is in contention. C. Bennett has out-done himself (as well as most of Trek writers) with this terrific Trek addition. This author is clearly a fan of Trek as a whole and has seen through a novel that truly embodies the vastness of scale that the Trek Universe so wonderfully encompasses. I've been a Trek fan as long as I can remember, and have read many Trek novels, but have encountered nothing like this. The sheer scale of Time and Space and the inclusion of the many older races like the Q, Dwoud, El-Aurian, and the Organians makes for one of the purest Trek books ever written. Perhaps it is to Gene Roddenberry's credit that the versatile nature of the TNG characters plays out so well, but Bennett wields these characters with the skill of a Maestro.

One of the best TREK books so far. You see and learn many things happen in this book. Below are just a very few examples: 01. The true reason behind why Kathryn Janeway decided to strand herself and VOYAGER in the Delta Quandrant. 02. The reason behind why Guinan was able to perceive that it was the wrong reality in "Yesterday's Enterprise." 03. The incident with Natasha Yar at the Carnellian minefield. 04. How the Q came up with their name! And MUCH more! I highly recommened this book!

I don't usually post reviews but feel I should after reading this book. It's by far the best Star Trek fiction I've ever read. The author's grasp of scientific concepts and understanding of Picard's psyche and the entire Star Trek universe comes together so perfectly, it actually made me want to rewatch all of the Next Generation from the very beginning, with a brand new understanding of the motivations behind everything. It could have worked as 3 or 4 separate novels (that's how in depth it is), but this "condensed" version of Picard's missing years is a great read.

This is an exceptional book for Picard fans, and explains a lot of Picard and Guinan's relationship before TNG, and goes into detail what happened after Picard lost the Stargazer. It also has a good sprinkling of theoretical physics for science buffs, that personally I feel is lacking in many ST novels, and makes this book that much more appealing. The plot is terrific, the science is terrific, the book is a must read for TNG enthusiasts.