Catalyst of Sorrows

Star Trek: The Lost Era #6

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

A lethal Romulan-trained agent turns against her paymasters in order to prevent them from unleashing a terrifying biological holocaust. Admiral Uhura of Starfleet Intelligence sends the young Romulan to investigate with a team of special operatives: Dr Beverley Crusher (Star Trek: The Next Generation), a young Lieutenant Benjamin Sisko (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) and the Vulcan Lieutenant Tuvok (Star Trek: Voyager).

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy

363 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 2, 2003

About the author

Margaret Wander Bonanno was an American science fiction writer, ghost writer and small press publisher. She was born in New York City. She wrote seven Star Trek novels, several science fiction novels set in her own worlds, including The Others, a collaborative novel with Nichelle Nichols, a biography, and other works.

Reviews

[Jonathan Koan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished the book. A good entry into the series. And I really liked the banter between McCoy and Uhura, as well as the character of Zetha.

Sisko felt kind of out of place though.

Overall, 7 out of 10.

[Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful cast of characters lives inside this book: a 100+ year old Uhura and McCoy, pre-TNG Dr. Crusher and Dr. Selar, pre-DS9 Sisko, pre-Voyager Tuvok, and Curzon Dax. A handful of scheming Romulans and a few nods to the last Trek book I read (another The Lost Era novel) made it a nice sequel, of sorts. But probably my favorite bits were Sisko struggling with his first command, and Bonanno’s common sense writing (including her in-story jab at space operas that always featured ships arriving separately to a planet all oriented in the same plane—take that, silly Stat Trek. A worthy addition to my head canon Trek lore.

[Frank Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uhura, Crusher, McCoy, Tuvok, Sisko and later Sloan. Among others. An interesting story with good commentary around the topic of the Vulcan/Romulan separation and Earth-Klingon relations post Khitomer.

[John Carter McKnight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once in a while a tie-in novel transcends its genre to be just an excellent novel. Catalyst of Sorrows does this: dedicated to John Le Carre, it's a blend of Le Carre, Nikita, and the best of the epidemic-adventure genre.

A street kid recruited and trained by a secret project within a secret agency is recruited for a courier mission to the Other Side: once there, who is she, who will she choose to be, and who will she be allowed to be?

Meanwhile, the agency may be testing a biowarfare agent on its own colonials, but it's spreading faster than expected. Should the investigators disclose that the virus is engineered, and spark a war, or work in the shadows towards a solution?

I literally didn't put this down from start to finish.

Beyond the terrific story, it is a Star Trek novel, with the added benefit of familiar characters, including a centenarian Admiral Uhura as the badass longtime head of Starfleet Intelligence, Lieutenant Sisko on his first (classified) command, with Curzon Dax drifting through, cocktail in hand.

Just an all around win.

[Janet Ramski · Rating 5 out of 5]

How ironic that, during this Coronavirus Quarantine, as I worked my way through my 'to-be-read' shelf and picked up this Star Trek novel, to find out it's about an intergalactic pandemic! Fortunately, our present pandemic does not have a 100% mortality rate as theirs does. This is a really good 'Whodunit and Why' story. For anyone who loves the Stat Trek universe, I highly recommend it!

[Plish · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun little medical mystery that also serves as a killer crossover. So far my favorite of The Lost Era series.

And I should add: you get a great in-depth history of Vulcans and Romulans. Loved that chapter so much.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see where MWB and this whole "lost era" series are trying to go. Give some love to underused characters, link the generations and shows without being just another Captain Crossover. Unfortunately this translated into a lot of awkward setup to get so many folks from around the verse in one place, with no real payoff. (Aging Uhuru and McCoy are a stretch. Tuvok and Dr. Selar are just convenient Vulcans who get a lot of screentime but no character development. Cameos from Wesley Crusher AND Jake Sisko??? And More!)

I suffered through some really disjointed narration, lame Romulans, and even lamer biomedical technobabble. Fortunately, the last 100 pages really picked up steam as the team sees action and the mystery unravels.

Mostly, this book just left me with a deeper appreciation for The Never Ending Sacrifice, in the way the author handles a young person caught between worlds and unlikely character meetings.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better than the other book I read in the Lost Era series. This one centers on an Ebola-like virus, and the Romulans. While the look into the Romulan culture is but a glimpse, and not nearly as fully developed as the Romulan political reality of the Titan/The Fall series, the glimpse is definitely well-written and fits in nicely with established works.

Additionally, there are several regular characters: Ben Sisko, Uhura, McCoy, Crusher and Selar and Tuvok. They embark on a secret mission, and while there aren't many shocking twists (and how could there be, since this takes place between established events), the plot is decent and enthralling and even a little simple in parts. The characters are well-written, the plot is good and the outcome is kind of fun, too.

Definitely redeems the series after the boring-ness of Deny thy Father.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s too bad that Margaret Wander Bonanno hasn’t written a few more Star Trek novels. Her Star Trek characters are familiar and her secondary characters are well drawn. This tale takes place near the end of Admiral Uhura’s Starfleet career and also features characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The inclusion of a young Ben Sisko is very well done.

The Lost Era series illuminates events that take place prior to and between Star Trek television series. Published in paperback by Pocket Books.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The medical tech at the heart of this book (even simplified for laymen) was starting to do my head in. But that aside, this is a superb mix of espionage thriller & continuity love-in. Between the strong development of characters in their early days, and others in their twilight, this is by far one of the strongest of the Lost Era novels, outside of the works of David R. George. To me, this novel ideally manages to fill in recent historical blank spots, while spinning a gripping, exciting story in the process. Excellent work from start to finish.

[Jocelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved getting insight on Uhura, but it jumped around a lot without warning. It's tricky to follow when with a change of a paragraph it's a flashback on another planet and then jumps characters in the next paragraph.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A space age fight to battle disease. Sort of interesting with Uhura but not enough to make me want to keep it.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mrs. Bonanno is a cut above most of the Star Trek universe authors.

[Oz Trekkie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic entry into the Lost Eras saga. A different method of storytelling but an enjoyable one.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a fun read. It's too bad that the original show and films never gave Uhura a spotlight.

[Heather Woosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Read

I enjoyed this book very much even though I would have liked to see more of the original crew included. Good plot and ending.

[Casey Pettitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A low-key sequel to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and told in a series of flashback starring Admiral Uhura, Lieutenant Benjamin Sisko, Lieutenant Tuvok, and Dr. Selar.

You had me at "a low-key sequel to Star Trek VI."

This was the last book in the original run under the "The Lost Era" banner in 2003. It takes place during a time where not a lot else was going on. And the author took the assignment and ran with it.

We start the book with Admiral Nyota Uhura, head of Starfleet Intelligence. I felt the use of her in this role was really well done and a great extension of her character's experience in communications. By the second half of the book she's more of an ancillary character, but when she was on the page she shined. I really enjoyed her parts of the book.

During the course of the first part of the book, she's putting together an investigative team to look into this medical mystery that's cropped up. She's got Sisko, Tuvok, Selar (DS9, Voyager, and TNG, respectively) as well as appearances from Doctors McCoy and Crusher! Hell, we even get future Senator Cretak (DS9) and Admiral Tal (formerly a subcommander in the TOS episode "The Enterprise Incident"). And no book set before the time of Jadzia Dax would be complete without some involvement of Curzon Dax. That old rascal...

The overall medical mystery that they're working on in this story is pretty well done. Better than others. Maybe not as good as the best. But it's good. And really, what I enjoyed was less about the medical mystery and more about the interactions between these characters, which the author did very much to my liking.

The story is told somewhat non-linearly. But it's really through flashbacks, giving the reader context to the main story throughout. This was a big effort by the author to show and not tell. It got a little confusing from time to time as there were some flashbacks within flashbacks. So it was a bit of a mind warp sometimes. But overall it felt pretty effective for this story so as not to give away too much of the mystery too early.

Overall, this was a great Star Trek story and I gave it 5 out of 5 stars (although on a scale of 10 it would probably be a 9). It was just a good old-fashioned Star Trek story that happened to fit into the Lost Era timeframe.

[Peter Rydén · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intressant start på boken där situationen förklaras mycket spännande och medryckande. Efter detta börjar historien att hoppa i tid från den ena händelsen till den andra och det blir allt svårare att hänga med i vad som egentligen händer och när vi befinner oss. Slutet kom sedan alldeles för snabbt på, med en smidig lösning som kändes som universums största slumpartade händelse. Boken lyckas inte engagera mig tillräckligt och hela tiden har jag en känsla av att jag missar någonting viktigt, det går inte riktigt att sätta fingret på vad som var problemet. Boken förlorar därför betydligt i poäng.

[Todd R · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bonanno is a Star Trek author I don't care for. While Star Trek novels can certainly be philosophical and treat humanity's questions about the universe with respect and diligence, this author is just wordy to be wordy.
Very little action takes place here - characters are trapped in their heads and if you were to only read this book by skipping to the dialogue and action furthering the story you would have about a thirty minute read.
Last time I will try a book by this author.

[Russell Thiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The final novel in this series, and just as good as the rest and surorisingly relevant to today's Pandemic.. I enjoyed every one of the books in this series!!! If you get a chane to read them "Please do!!'

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book! It takes the supporting characters from TOS, Next Generation, DS9, and Voyager at different stages of their careers. It’s a good story that would make a great movie. Probably in the Kelvin time line as many of the actors are too old to play their much younger selves.

[Dom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was pretty good! A solid three stars for the main plot. Pandemic stories apparently freak me out more since covid. The main plot was fine and I enjoyed the dynamic of Sisko, Tuvok, Selar, and Zetha a lot.

What earns it that extra fourth start is all the wonderful Uhura character development. This is the first lit-verse novel I've read with her as a major character and it was great. Making her head of Starfleet Intelligence was a good call.

[Robert Lewter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining. It's more of the history of the future.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of feels like they were linking together too many familiar characters.

[Burns Book Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story strangely executed
Catalyst of Sorrows is one of the most random crossovers I’ve ever read. The main characters are Uhura, Doctor McCoy, Benjamin Sisko, Beverly Crusher, Doctor Selar, and Tuvok. I think throwing all these characters together is a really fun idea, but the style of this book was really not my favorite. Bonano has mentioned that she has a hard time writing books in a linear fashion; this is ok, but I think there needs to be clear indicators of when a setting changes from present day to 20 years ago. There were obviously hints given the characters that were present in each scene, but this book was just not very fun to read. If I was reading this series when it came out back in 2003/2004, I would’ve been very disappointed that this was the conclusion of the Lost Era. This might’ve the hardest Star Trek book to get through this year, which is weird since it was one of the shortest ones.
Honestly, I don’t think I can recommend this book. The story was all over the place and the plot was unremarkable.

[Bron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very enjoyable read for Star Trek fans, especially if, like me, you love to see details hinted at in the tv episodes expanded upon! In this book you get to see a glimpse of Sisko's life with Jennifer (Jake is just about to start kindergarten)and his friendship with Curzon Dax. It's his first command and he's not too pleased to be taken away from his family and his engineering projects. Beverley Crusher and Selar are young doctors, McCoy comes out of retirement to help and is just as testy as ever. Uhura shows she can do a lot more than just open hailing frequencies and Tuvok is - well Tuvok just as you know him from Voyager. I also really enjoyed learning more about the Romulan social order and culture.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like more about Admiral Uhura.

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

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