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A review by monitaroymohan
Star Trek: Picard: Firewall by David Mack
2.0
I was excited that there was a new entry in this series, but this book was not good. The main events, essentially, take place over the course of around a week. I’m sorry, what! And Seven is basically the cause of a lot of death, damage, and drama. It’s quite ridiculous and unbelievable.
The book doesn’t capture Seven’s pattern of speech that well. There are of few idioms and colloquialisms she uses that don’t work with how she speaks. Metaphors are not her thing, how would she be using them, and why?
She also cries a lot. She can have empathy, feel guilt and shame, and lash out or get angry, not cry. She rarely cries. We knew that in Voyager, but that’s evident in Picard as well. I really do wonder if, because a dude wrote it, he seems to want to go the polar opposite of the diktat given to the Voyager cast — don’t cry. She’s melodramatic here, that’s a weird choice.
I found the scenes of her life and loneliness on Starheim very very depressing. Her feeling of being a failure and being cast out of the life she wanted, and having to deal with it all on her own, were gut wrenching, but so well written.
The whole Soroya IV debacle — I get that the book is trying to show how idealistic and naive Seven is, but her manager, Harper, should have stopped her from making such a grave mistake. He should have corralled all the Rangers heading to that mission and talked over the likely retaliation scenarios. That’s the whole point of being a manager. It’s on you to guide the newbie, irrespective of how headstrong they are.
First American book I’ve read in a long time that correctly says “champing at the bit”.
The heist should have been longer and more suspenseful. But oof, what a gut punch that irrespective of when a story is set, corruption runs deep through every organization, even the Federation. I think giving the FSA a pass was a cop out though.
Seven’s journey to becoming a Ranger was too fast tracked. I get that, on Voyager, she became a senior officer in like one episode, but that was Captain Janeway pushing for it and Seven has skills. She’s completely clueless with the Rangers but they keep giving her chances, even after mess up after mess up. And why is no one on the Rangers corroborating or checking the plan and coming up with backup ideas? Lives could have been saved if someone had a brain.
I also didn’t realize Seven’s nanoprobes and implants were made inert. Was that obvious in the Picard show?
I don’t understand the point of the romance. Her loneliness wasn’t just about lacking a romance, it was that she didn’t have her Collective, her support system, her friends. I thought it was so reductive to make her life a banal Hollywood b-plot. The whole thing about her dancing in mosh pits was like, what? Maybe I don’t know enough about Seven, but I don’t think that’s her. And one night stands — jeez, it’s like there’s no other way for writers to consider people making connections with others.
I thought the new girlfriend was nice, but she’s not a person as much as the love interest. Why do these people like each other than because they’re good looking?
The whole book was ridiculously fraught, and I don’t think it did justice to the story of a person landing in an unknown land and not being accepted by her people. I think there was a really good character study brewing here, but the author couldn’t find it. He says in the acknowledgements that he needed help turning this from just an action novel to something else, and that’s obvious. There’s a lot of detailed action scenes in here, written with precision but not with pace or emotion.
From all the books in the series, this was the first to be a real let down. It’s like the creative team didn’t understand Seven or what makes us love her so much.
The book doesn’t capture Seven’s pattern of speech that well. There are of few idioms and colloquialisms she uses that don’t work with how she speaks. Metaphors are not her thing, how would she be using them, and why?
She also cries a lot. She can have empathy, feel guilt and shame, and lash out or get angry, not cry. She rarely cries. We knew that in Voyager, but that’s evident in Picard as well. I really do wonder if, because a dude wrote it, he seems to want to go the polar opposite of the diktat given to the Voyager cast — don’t cry. She’s melodramatic here, that’s a weird choice.
I found the scenes of her life and loneliness on Starheim very very depressing. Her feeling of being a failure and being cast out of the life she wanted, and having to deal with it all on her own, were gut wrenching, but so well written.
The whole Soroya IV debacle — I get that the book is trying to show how idealistic and naive Seven is, but her manager, Harper, should have stopped her from making such a grave mistake. He should have corralled all the Rangers heading to that mission and talked over the likely retaliation scenarios. That’s the whole point of being a manager. It’s on you to guide the newbie, irrespective of how headstrong they are.
First American book I’ve read in a long time that correctly says “champing at the bit”.
The heist should have been longer and more suspenseful. But oof, what a gut punch that irrespective of when a story is set, corruption runs deep through every organization, even the Federation. I think giving the FSA a pass was a cop out though.
Seven’s journey to becoming a Ranger was too fast tracked. I get that, on Voyager, she became a senior officer in like one episode, but that was Captain Janeway pushing for it and Seven has skills. She’s completely clueless with the Rangers but they keep giving her chances, even after mess up after mess up. And why is no one on the Rangers corroborating or checking the plan and coming up with backup ideas? Lives could have been saved if someone had a brain.
I also didn’t realize Seven’s nanoprobes and implants were made inert. Was that obvious in the Picard show?
I don’t understand the point of the romance. Her loneliness wasn’t just about lacking a romance, it was that she didn’t have her Collective, her support system, her friends. I thought it was so reductive to make her life a banal Hollywood b-plot. The whole thing about her dancing in mosh pits was like, what? Maybe I don’t know enough about Seven, but I don’t think that’s her. And one night stands — jeez, it’s like there’s no other way for writers to consider people making connections with others.
I thought the new girlfriend was nice, but she’s not a person as much as the love interest. Why do these people like each other than because they’re good looking?
The whole book was ridiculously fraught, and I don’t think it did justice to the story of a person landing in an unknown land and not being accepted by her people. I think there was a really good character study brewing here, but the author couldn’t find it. He says in the acknowledgements that he needed help turning this from just an action novel to something else, and that’s obvious. There’s a lot of detailed action scenes in here, written with precision but not with pace or emotion.
From all the books in the series, this was the first to be a real let down. It’s like the creative team didn’t understand Seven or what makes us love her so much.