Star Trek: The Brave and the Bold, Book 2

Star Trek: The Brave and the Bold #2

by Keith R.A. DeCandido

CONTINUING THE ALL-NEW ADVENTURE SPANNING ALL OF "STAR TREK"(R) HISTORY! Two of the Malkus Artifacts -- used as deadly weapons millennia ago -- have been uncovered since their discovery in the 22nd century. Now in the 24th century, two more artifacts lie in wait, ready to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting galaxy...

While on their shakedown cruise, Captain Kathryn Janeway and the "Starship Voyager"(TM) discover the third artifact in the Demilitarized Zone -- in the hands of the Maquis! With the aid of Captain Robert DeSoto of the "U.S.S. Hood, Voyager" security chief Lieutenant Tuvok infiltrates the Maquis, and must gain the trust of cell leaders Chakotay and Cal Hudson before the terrorists use the artifact to throw the DMZ into chaos!

When the final artifact is unearthed on Narendra III, it leads to several mysterious disappearances throughout Federation and Klingon(TM) space -- including Federation Ambassadors Spock and Worf. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the "Starship Enterprise"(TM) joins forces with Captain Klag of the I.K.S. Gorkon -- but even the greatest vessels of two nations may not be enough when the deadly secret of the final artifact is revealed!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Star Trek The Next Generation, Ebooks

292 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This proved significantly more compelling than book one, partly thanks to a larger page count that allowed DeCandido to go into more depth and weave a more intricate plot. The Voyager story line was fascinating for a pre Delta quadrant glimpse of the Voyager and Maquis crews, whose fates would soon become entwined and features some heavy intrigue. The buildup to the final confrontation was also excellent, neatly tying in all the story lines and also working in quite deeply the Klingon crew of the IKS Gorkon, who DeCandido's readers may already be familiar with. Few do Klingons better than DeCandido, and some of my favorite scenes involved the Gorkon crew, as well as some unexpectedly delicious scenes with Worf and Spock.

I think we can all agree that "The Brave and the Bold" is a horrible title for anything other than a soap opera. And despite featuring depictions of captains on each book's cover, the focus throughout was really on more minor characters, which was unexpected but ultimately made it all the more interesting. Tying together this many crews, characters and time periods was an ambitious project, and I was happy to see it all wrap up on a very strong note.

[Graff Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Star Trek: The Brave and the Bold, Book 2 by Keith R.A. DeCandido

challenging hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense

Medium-paced

Plot or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25 Stars

Fixed it myself, by deleting the previous entries of 211 pages on Saturday, June 7th and the finished entry on June 8th. Something must've got corrupted, and the below frustration happened:

Not sure WHY The Story Graph is not allowing the pages read in this book on Sunday, June 8th to have merit. I hope that the helpers in the app will be able to fix this situation...to allow the 81 pages I read today...to count for today. Ugh.

About the story, I liked this book slightly better than the previous book. Not sure why. I actually love Star Trek: ENT and Star Trek: TOS very much, but feel the story wasn't as strong as the ones in this book: Star Trek: TNG and VOY.

I cannot say that it a story that I would want more from, though. It ran its course...and I'm happy that it is over.

I do love how they tied everything together, though I wish the ending didn't seem so perfectly wrapped in a bow. Just saying.

Okay, I'm now moving on to Star Trek: IKS Gorkon: A Good Day to Die.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

2023 Review 76. Star Trek The Brave and The Bold Book 2 by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Page Count : 280

This book continues the story of the Malkus Artifacts from book 1 as the 3rd and 4th artifacts are located during the 2 different stories, with catastrophic results.

Part 1 is set a few weeks prior to the 1st season episode of Voyager, Caretaker and before the novel Double Helix 4 Quarantine.

At the beginning of this part, USS Voyager is on a shakedown cruise when the warp engines go wrong and propel the ship at breakneck speed straight towards the Demilitarised Zone. Before the ships systems fail due to low power levels, the sensors detect the emission of a Malkus Artifact.

The USS Hood helping recover Voyager's power levels, is later assigned to help Lt Tuvok begin a mission to infiltrate the Maquis who have located the artifact and are using it in the demilitarized zone to damage colonies.

This was a fantastic setup for Voyager's 1st episode and it bought greater detail to characters who you don't see much of in the first episode or not at all.

Part 2 of this book takes place approximately 2 years before Star Trek Nemesis and the USS Enterprise E and the IKS Gorkon are the featured starships which this book brings all of the previous characters (at least those who are still alive) and brings together all of the Malkus Artifacts with the final one.

Not only does this story introduce new characters to me at least in the part of the crew of the IKS Gorkon, it brings in several other characters from The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine especially Worf.

I really enjoyed this series and will definitely reread them in the future.

This is my 6th book finished during the #greatspaceread

5*
*****

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn't read this book since it first came out in 2002 and it only solidifies my opinion that DeCandido is one of the most underrated Trek writers. His works need to be thought of as highly as Peter David's, whose Trek writings I hold as the Gold Standard for Trek books.

This is the second and final book in a series, but the previous book need not be read to understand this novel.

Split into two separate, yet joined, tales, the first deals with Tuvok joining the Maquis to locate the newly discovered third of the Malkus artifacts, indestructible ancient devices that can destroy worlds. A member of the Maquis has found the weather controlling device and is killing all Cardassians in the DMZ in revenge for killing his spouses. Cal Hudson and his Maquis crew join with Chakotay and his to find this possessed rebel, with Tuvok assisting as well. Great action, stellar characterizations, and fabulous justification for showing how the Vulcan was able to infiltrate the Maquis before the events of the first episode of Voyager.

The final tale has the last device found, leading to possession of all the previous characters who touched the artifacts, including Spock, McCoy, DeSoto, Kira, and others. Malkus is attempting to unite the devices and reclaim his hold on the galaxy. Picard and the crew of the Enterprise join with the crew of the I.K.S. Gorkon and Captain Klag to stop his despot. Much of the adventure follows the Klingons and DeCandido excels brilliantly with these established and new characters. Great adventure and conclusion.

I was left wanting more of Klag and his crew and wondering why Paramount doesn't go to DeCandido to use his characters for a "classic" Klingon film or series. It would be glorious.

This is an absolutely recommended read for Star Trek fans.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think there are a lot of positives in this book but the ending was not really one of them. I liked the characterizations, the action and the dialogue plus I am looking forward to the IKS Gorkon series as the Klingons from that ship show up from Diplomatic Inplausibilty again to continue their adventures. I enjoyed the Maquis, Hood and Cal Hudson stuff in the first novel and Voyager played such a small part it's kind of weird having Janeyway on the front and really of all four stories with the various shows that one probably had the least but Picard, Sisko and Janeway probably played the smallest roles of all the events with Kirk probably had the largest impact from Book 1.

This whole series has revolved around these minor characters with the main characters playing bit parts which I think is the best part about this series. It's really too bad that most of them end up dead in their respective shows which is not a spoiler to the readers as that's what happens on each series.

[Peter Rydén · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gemensamt betyg och bedömning av böckerna The Brave and the Bold, Book One och The Brave and the Bold, Book Two:

Om man bortser från den alltför ofta återkomna idén med en antik och gigantisk interstellär företeelse som hotar allt liv som vi känner till, så måste jag säga att denna bok binder samman de olika kaptenernas och TV-seriernas öden på ett mycket bra sätt. DeCandido visar att han är mästare på att berätta historier och böckerna tål att läsas om. Bra personporträtt och bra berättelse.

[Sean Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's clear that DeCandido's invested a lot of time with the Klingons. it works brilliantly well here, and although I originally questioned the compressed nature of the artifact discovery (everything seemed to be happening quickly toward the end), things came out very well and I totally enjoyed myself. Spock and Worf are hardly a team you'd expect to see, so that was fun. In all, a very enjoyable revisit to some familiar characters.

[Todd R · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for a Trek book. The Spock and Worf duo is worth the price of admission. Lots of good in this duology for Trek fans - buckets of backstory and character refinements that set the stage for the series' that they find themselves in.
The two books in the Brave and Bold series are composed of four novellas,, and it's a great way to tell alot of story quickly.
'

[Steven Shinder · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn’t really that into this one. Not really sure why.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sequel does a very nice job of completing the series, without losing it's pacing or running out of content. I did enjoy the 2nd book a bit more than the first; it was nice to see all the protagonists come together half way through the book, instead of a mash-up right at the end. I was also grateful that the 4th story arc took a different turn than the other 3; the same basic outline would not have worked 4 times in a row for me.

The antagonist did seem a bit too two dimensional, and I would have appreciated a fully fleshed out, complicated character, but considering his presence in the novel was minimal, I don't consider it much of a mark against the overall story.

The real gem of the book is the crew of the Gorkon. It was nice to see aspects of a Klingon crew that we have not really seen at all, namely, their doctors and science officers.

I look forward to reading other books by this author.

[Jimyanni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I have rated each book of this series at 4 stars, I have to say that this one was noticeably the better of the two; while book one was closer to three stars than five, this is just the reverse. If you're going to read just one of these two books, it should definitely be this one rather than book one; entirely aside from the fact that one can much more easily do without reading book one, and treat the events there as "offscreen" background to this book than one can deal with missing the ending provided here, this is just generally a better-written book with better plots. I dock it a star (barely) for the fact that the success of the heroes seems a bit improbable given what they were facing; the power of the opposition should, by all rights, have been insuperable. The explanations as to why this was possible seemed a stretch. Still, the story was a good one.

[Mirrani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two more eras of Star Trek complete the set of books based on a culture who had created four deadly artifacts. I found the Voyager section (which was first, not second, as I had assumed it would be) made me miss the show a little. For the final section (TNG) I wasn't so certain about the all powerful artifact everyone was so afraid of. A mind control device should have been very threatening... but it really wasn't. I felt more worry over some of the other devices in some of the other timelines. But the section concludes the books well and wraps everything up near the end. It also has some very good character exchanges and I was happy to have a good portion of the book take place from a Klingon perspective.

This was a good, easy read that will take you back into memories of shows you hadn't realized you'd missed.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another short review, but I followed Book 1 up with the sequel. DeCandido does a fantastic job of following up his story, and keeping it engaging and entertaining, even though by this point we know what's coming at the end of each section.

I do have to say, however, that the ending battle against Malkus was a bit of a let down. After engaging with various crews over four artifacts, including their deaths, I was expecting much more of a final showdown. Admittedly this has probably be ingrained in me by American story-telling/movies, but going back I still think Malkus would have put up more of a fight.

I continue to enjoy the viewpoints from the non-main cast of the various shows, and this book holds your interest until the end.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keith DeCandido's The Brave and the Bold duology started off intriguing, then grew a bit fallow in the middle sections, but then came back with one of the best slam-bang fan-wank-y finishes I've yet read in a Star Trek book. Klag and the crew of the IKS Gorkon are definitely the best thing to happen to Trek literature since Captain Calhoun's journeys started, and I look forward to adventures focusing solely on them in the future.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Keith R. A. DeCandido concludes his crossover tale weaving together the adventures of Archer, Kirk, Sisko, Picard, and Janeway. The Maquis discover a third weapon, while Picard and Klag of the IKS Gorkon must deal with the fourth and most terrible weapon. This duology is a fun read.

Published in mass market paperback by Pocket Books.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two more stories based around the remaining 2 artifacts. The Tuvok one was decent, telling the story of how he joined the Marquis. The 2nd story feels a bit like fanfic, Spock and Worf team up, the Gorkon crew is highlighted. Anyone expecting much of the captains pictured on the cover will be disappointed. A good read.

[Hubdiggity · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book probably would have made more sense to me had a read book 1, or had I planned to read book 3. But when free books are thrown at me, I can't help but read them.

[Matthew Markham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part two of a great five-story saga.

[Mike (HistoryBuff) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well thought out story and very entertaining. Mr. DeCandido does a fantastic job of incorporating all the different characters from our beloved Trek universe. Highly recommend !