A review by caterpillarguy
Armageddon's Arrow by Dayton Ward

4.0

I had never read a TNG relaunch novel before this one, but I started here because the story arc with the Enterprise crew exploring the Odyssean Pass seemed interesting to me. I was a bit worried about jumping in so late in the Star Trek novel timeline, but the book does a good job of filling the reader in on necessary backstory without giving too much detail.

I enjoyed the way the book used the character of T'Ryssa Chen as somewhat of a POV, getting her perspective on a lot of the important story events. Initially, I was a bit put off by such a focus on a novel-original character that I knew nothing about (from what I can tell, Chen is a fairly major character in the TNG novels, so this is probably just a me problem), but it ended up being a non-issue because I found her a really fun character to spend time with. Interesting as well, because she is a half Human, half Vulcan who leans more towards her human side, something we don't see super often in Trek. Plus, she's just super adorable.

My only issue with the book, is that the ending let it down a little. The twist towards the end didn't really land for me
(we learn that the aliens in the time ship are actually double agents working for the other set of warring aliens, but this doesn't really change much in the end because they decide not to blow up either planet anyway)
, and the way the conflict was resolved felt just a smidge cheap IMO.

Never mind all that, I'm off to binge the rest of the post-TV Next Gen novels and then the Voyager relaunch after that and then might as well do a TNG rewatch while I'm at it somebody please send help