A Time to Die

Star Trek: A Time to... #2

by John Vornholt

Beginning a sensational year-long series of two-part stand-alone stories set in between the events of Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis. Suspected without proof of destroying a fellow Starfleet vessel, the Enterprise is stripped of its flagship status and sent on a seemingly pointless mission to a backwater of space. Caught up in events outside their control, mistrusted even by their Starfleet companions, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew must struggle to win back their place of honour at the forefront of the Federation fleet. And if that were not enough to contend with, some of the crew have problems of their own. Chief among them is android Commander Data, who is forced to give up the chip which allowed him to access human emotions, the goal for which he has worked so hard and so long...

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Star Trek The Next Generation, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Thriller, Space

310 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2004

About the author

John Vornholt also writes as Caroline Goode.

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

John Vornholt concludes the first "A Time To..." duology on an embarrassingly low note, turning in a volume which verged between painful and laughable.

After being unceremoniously committed to a mental health institute, Picard is allowed to return to the Enterprise under the supervision of the insufferable Counselor Colleen Cabot. Traveler-come-superhero Wesley has used his powers of persuasion on Cabot and several others to arrange for the Enterprise to head out to expose the mimic ship of the Rasharan boneyard.

What follows is a rather turgid recapitulation of the cat-and-mouse games we saw in Vornholt's first book, as Picard sets off on unlikely mission with Cabot, Wesley and Vale to track down the mimic ship and put an end to its reign of terror. Perhaps realizing that the showdown with the mimic ship is going to be less stellar than he originally intended, the author inserts several chapters of filler which see Picard's motley scavenger crew get embroiled in increasingly unlikely scenarios with Androssi, Orions and Pakleds. Of course Wesley is always there to save the day and he gleefully appears and disappears over half the sector to show up the rather inept Picard. Think of those worst "Wesley saves the ship" episodes and then imagine Wesley's a superhero and Picard's an idiot - you've pretty much got the central third of this book. Oh, and just in case Picard didn't look bad *enough*, Vornholt has the Ontailians take over the Enterprise. Twice. The scenes are laughably bad, and make the whole crew look like chumps.

Ah yes, the insufferable Counselor Cabot... Never mind being the counselor, she's so badly written that she comes across as lacking all credibility. One minute she's marveling at the wonderful Enterprise and everything it has to offer, the next she's slamming Riker and reminding him that she OWNS Picard's ass. Seriously? No character consistency whatsoever. And eminently unlikable. I was hoping for an early death so I'd be rid of her incessant cloying dialogue.

Both plot and resolution are disappointingly simplistic. What's more, there are whole sections early on which are just baffling. What is going on with Nakamura? He's made out to be some double-agent who has co-opted Cabot and forced her to keep Picard locked up while he makes plans to seize the mimic creature... I thought he didn't believe it existed?? These questions are never answered, and there's no real resolution to the inquest that occupied so much of the last book.

A few final points:
* Wesley and Colleen's love affair. Why? Just... why? It came from nowhere and led to cringeworthy scenes which don't even deserve to be included in bad fan-fiction.
* Picard's "let's kill it" lust for revenge. Totally out of character, especially after the whole Moby Dick scene in First Contact.
* Vortex. Gravity Core. Shimmers of debris. Over and over and over again...
* Since when was Picard happy being called "Jean"?

I think it's clear I hated it. Plot, characterization and dialogue are all very disappointing.

[Cy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first book was exciting, if a bit of a let down at the end (yes, let's rehash the novel's plot before the novel is even over! Genius!) This one was abjectly terrible. I could barely finish it.

They return to the Rashanar graveyard and the political/judicial chicanery is over, but they return with the character of Counselor Cabot who has gone from a shrewd therapist to a giggling annoyance between the books. She and Wesley inexplicably fall in endless, boundless love after spending a romantic five minutes together. Then the main characters of the series are pushed to the side and left helpless to be saved by Cabot's giggling and sudden flirtatious sex appeal and Wesley, as a Traveler, popping around the entire universe at a whim.

The final third of the book is filled with TWIST! after TWIST! after TWIST! in an attempt to pad out the novel. Then it descends into nonsense with ninja sloths and more of Cabot giggling.

No joke.

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Good: Continuing the story arc between the last two Next Generation films, this book features all the beloved characters in quite a predicament. The writing was good, and the story was decent.

The Bad: The whole experience felt a bit lackluster. Also, some profanities and a small dose of sexual content found its way into this book.

Conclusion: The first book was great; this one, not so much. Hopefully, the next one will be back up to the standard.

[reherrma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dies ist die direkte Fortsetzung zu "Star Trek - Zeit des Wandels 1", in dem Captain Picard angeklagt wurde und sich nun in Gewahrsam des psychologischen Dienstes der Sternenflotte befindet.
Die Besatzung der ENTERPRISE ist mit dieser Maßnahme der Admirale der Sternenflotte nicht einverstanden und überlegt, sie aus Protest zu verlassen. Doch Wesley Crusher, der omnipotente "Reisende" gelingt es, undercover die "richtigen" Leute zusamamenzubringen und eine Lösung anzubieten; Picard kann sein "Gefängnis" unter Begleitung seins Counselors, Coleen Cabot, zu verlassen und an den Ort des Raumschiffsfriedhofs Rashanar zurückzukehren um dessen Geheimnisse zu klären...
Was ihm schließlich auch gelingt... Der eine Clou des Romans ist jedoch das Agieren von Wesley Crusher als Reisender und vor allem dessen Liebesgeschichte mit Colleen Cabot und deren tragischer Tod.
Ansonsten kann ich sagen, das Buch hat mir gefallen, wenn es auch nicht annähernd an die Spitzenromane des Buch-Kanons herankommt, aber immerhin hat er mich gut unterhalten...

[Jonathan Koan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review will be up soon on Roqoo Depot. I'll say that I liked this entry much more than I did the last one. The pacing is much better and the action is too. That said, I still have many problems with the structure of this series. Still, 3.5 out of 5. Good job Vornholt.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sequel to the book A Time To Be Born.

Picard has lost the Enterprise. In order to clear his name, The Enterprise, under the command of Riker, goes back to the space battlefield of the First book. Because he is under medical care his 'counselor. the young beautiful Collen Cabot accompanies him. We know she is beautiful because we are continually told over and over how beautiful and pretty she is. It reminded me of the first Twilight book (yes I read the first one) where Bella goes on and on about how beautiful Edward was. A good writer only has to say it once.

I had liked Cabot in the first book because she seemed like a capable member of Starfleet but something happened to her in this book. She fell in love with Wesley which is not an offense in and of itself but for some reason, in this book, she turned into a giggly teenager. I hate to use the term but yes, she became a Mary Sue. She could charm the Orion pirates and do card tricks in their hideout. (An annoying moment....when Captain Picard told the women to arm themselves when their shuttle was being overtaken by looters. It was assumed the looters were men. No women looters in the future?) I breathed a sigh of relief when she was taken out of the story. I know it was supposed to be character building for Wesley but...nothing about that romance worked. I am thankful that we don't see women (or romance) portrayed in such a way by any of the Star Trek current authors. Wesley's story also concluded a bit too quickly for my tastes.

The resolution of the actual mystery wasn't bad, the actions scenes were exciting which is what saved it for me. It would have worked better had the whole romance either been reworked or taken out of the story completely.

[Maurice Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read! This was the second part of the story began in A Time To Be Born, and it did not disappoint. Captain Picard, having been stripped of his command, has the opportunity to reunite with his ship and crew- as a visitor under the command of Counselor Colleen Cabot of Starfleet Medical. With surreptitious help from Wesley Crusher (now a Traveler), the Enterprise crew is determined to find out what exactly is haunting the Rashanar battlefield. There was mystery, suspense, action, intrigue and even an untimely death (which I could have done without- it was a good character)- what else could a reader want?

The story was fast-paced, compelling and full of the rich character development Star Trek fans have come to expect from the books, tv shows and movies over the years. I'm eager to read the rest of the A Time To series to learn the rest of what happened between the end of Insurrection and the beginning of Nemesis.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Considerably lesser than the first part of this duology. Vornholt's writing is messy and often unclear, and most of the characters just sound so wrong here. I honestly couldn't tell you the details of what was happening in this, it's all so confusing and unexplained.

It's strange that Data is on the book's cover when he barely features in the story. Colleen Cabot is a bizarre creation who seems to change personality, knowledge and abilities from scene to scene, as well as being sex-mad male wish fulfilment.

On the positive side, I enjoyed seeing the return of Wesley. Hopefully the different authors ahead will do better for this series.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very meh. Nice to see Wesley back but the plot is all over the place. The romantic relationship comes out of nowhere and Cabot got no real personality or backstory so it was very difficult to care about it. The author's descriptions of people and places are so repetitive (Cabot is beautiful, we get it, and Rashanar is described in the same way over and over and over again). Also not sure why Data is on the cover as he's not a central character.

[Graff Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Star Trek: TNG: A Time to... 02 A Time to Die by John Vornholt

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense

Medium-paced

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

3.75 Stars

I like this series, so far...but it is also ALL over the place. You have a semblance of Starfleet, but things are topsy-tervy (if you know what I mean).

This was definitely Traveler Wesley's story. Obviously, there were other Star Trek characters that were focused on, but mostly, it was what Traveler Wesley was going to do, when this or that happened in his life. Would he help/protect his friends, family and lover...or would he stay impartial as a traveler? AND, if he did the former, would he a traveler anymore?

Not all the above was resolved in this novel, but most of it...was.

I really was annoyed with Colleen Cabot at the beginning, but grew to enjoy her spunk and spark...that she was (as a Starfleet counselor, and also as a lover, but most importantly, as someone who had resolved to do what was right, despite the consequences. Which, in turn effected others around her.

Captain Picard, Riker, Troi, LaForge and Data were great, but they were mostly on the periphery. Useful for certain situations, but mostly just there...doing what you'd think they'd be doing.

On the other hand, Dr. Beverly Crusher was in "mom-mode" and seemed to have more life/spark in her life...with Traveler Wesley around (like any parent would be).

This is a series, so I have to allow for the mostly unsatisfying ending, in the knowledge that the next novel in the series will take us on another adventure...that will further the goals of this series, and expand and hopefully come to a resolved conclusion by the end of the series.

The next book in A Time to... 03 A Time to Sow by Dayton Ward.

[David Danko · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is the conclusion to the first book in the "A Time to..." series, which has been recommended by many as a good series of books. Unfortunately this book fails to deliver on that in pretty much every regard. I will continue reading the series with the hopes that other authors can redeem where Vornholt has clearly failed here.

I did review the first book as well, which was better than this one, though still had problems. This book takes those problems and magnifies them. I'm not surprised that the Admiralty is written with ulterior motives, in fact it makes sense based on prior Star Trek history (to the point where it could almost be expected) with Admirals, but how the crew deals with the situation is amiss.

The Data situation from the first book is probably the easiest to explore of the problems in the book. An Admiral plans to not only remove Data's emotion chip but to reprogram him, claiming it's not original equipment and malfunctioning as reasons, with an ulterior motive behind the reprogramming. Now, there is no way that Data would just accept either of those things (also, since when could Starfleet reprogram Data?) without a fight, let alone the rest of the crew.

The part that is not easy to explore is the entire character of Cabot. Had she turned out to be a secret Starfleet Intelligence agent maybe her arc would have been better, as it stands, her arc in the books is convoluted and I feel the book would have been much better without her presence at all. She goes back and forth between wanting to help the Enterprise crew and believing Picard to wanting to help the Admiral's plan, and then there is the romantic plot between her and Wesley Crusher, which makes not an iota of sense.

[Daniel Rumbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with the prior book by John Vornholt there is a some question of whether or not he really knows the characters. In this book he does side step this to a certain extent by focusing on Wesley Crusher, who has been away for years and so character differences can be excused as developments while he was gone.

Approaching from a plot perspective the book works fine except for a very, very thin romance story between two characters. It's not really clear how they are suddenly so in love and behaving the way that they do and at the end of the book there is a sudden change that raises the question of why it was included at all. The action is fine when it arrives and the sentence to sentence reading is very easy and enjoyable. This book also closes the plot begun in the previous installment so the story does not pass on to other writers in this series.

Frayed near the end, but certainly entertaining if you don't hold onto the image of who the characters have been in all the other Star Trek products. This and its predecessor is worth a read and very good for clearing the mind if you have just read something else very heavy or depressing(looking at you Heart of Darkness!).
Three out of five stars.

[Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun and fast-paced Trek tale! It's no secret (assuming knowledge of the first book in this series) that Wesley Crusher the Traveler is back. And he of course steps up to try to save the day. Does he? Well you'll
have to read it to find out. This book is basically part 2 of a larger story begun in A Time to Be Born. In many ways it felt just like the Conclusion to a cliffhanger episode from the tv Trek years--which is I suppose intentional. More than anything thought, story aside, I'm enjoying seeing these beloved characters live and breathe again. Even Wesley, I admit!

The mystery of the dangerous battlezone/graveyard from the Dominion War is further explored and of course the fun is seeing how the Enterprise crew handles it. I thought in some ways there was way too much Wesley saving the day, but then again, as a Traveler he could have done much more so perhaps instead I should be grateful he wasn't obnoxious--yes, good ol' Wesley has finally grown up.

I rank this high for entertainment and Trek nostalgia but not the best Trek I've read. After all there was no Worf in it. 🤓

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This concludes the events begun in the previous novel, Star Trek: The Next Generation--A Time to Be Born. I enjoyed this book more than the previous, since the questions in the first book are answered in this volume. I would have preferred that both books had been combined into one.

Picard is sprung, with permission from Starfleet, to be aboard the Enterprise to investigate Rashanar Battle Site to find out just what the heck is going on there. He and the crew do, but not without some loses along the way.

Highlights of the book include Wesley, who's wondering if he can still become or Traveler or will he be kicked out a become human again. My hat is off to author Vornholt for having Wesley do something he's not done in other books, comics, or television episodes. Picard was perfect and a standout since he wasn't the technical leader of the Enterprise. Also done well were Data and LaForge, with their reunion being tear inducing.

The only element that keeps this from being a perfect book was that it wrapped up too quickly for me. I could have spent much more time with this crew for this adventure.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate giving the book only two stars because of how much I love Star Trek but if three is average than this is a step below that. It picks up where "A time to be Born" sort of just ended. Both books could have easily been written in one but like so many series these days it was split up for monetary reasons. Nature of the beast.

It mostly focused on Wesley and his hunt for the demon ship of Rashanar. There is some action in the story but that is tempered by the blandness of the characters. Perhaps the author was unfamiliar with the tv series. I've always found Wesley to be the least interesting character of TNG so maybe that skewed my opinion of the story but it was a very disappointing read. On to the next one though!

[David Palazzolo · Rating 2 out of 5]

It fails to live up to the first chapter to the point it feels written by another author entirely. It completely upends the premise of the Rashanar setting and there are plenty of unnecessary and exasperating ‘plot twists’ that one assumes were placed to pad out the book and don’t talk to me about the very unromantic young love plot that ends in tragedy. On top of that everything ends too neatly with no one really facing consequences except for the characters unfortunate enough to die during the story.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich bin ja allem was Star Trek drauf stehen hat, erstmal positiv zugetan. Trotzdem finde ich nicht alles gut und toll und weiß, dass da auch viel Mist rauskommt. Diese Buchreihe ist generell ok, ich fand es schön wieder über die TNG Crew zu lesen und mit ihnen mitzufiebern. Trotzdem finde ich gerade dieses Buch eher schwach, unter anderem, weil ich zwei der Hauptprotagonisten extrem nervig fand. Daher nur 2 Sterne und ein "naja ok" von mir. Werde die Serie trotzdem zu Ende lesen und freue mich auf die weiteren Geschichten.

[Todd R · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit tedious as it winds down to the climax. With three chapters to go I skipped to the last, and as I expected I didn't miss a thing. Vornholt's Trek books don't usually contain filler, but this one seemed an abnormal one from the get go. The last chapter confirmed that there were essentially no character ramifications for any of the actions in this book or it's predecessors...always a turn off. This is a long series and hopefully it gets better.

[Peter Rydén · Rating 4 out of 5]

O ja, den här blev mycket bättre än den första boken. Värdig avslutning på den här duon i en serie om betydligt fler böcker. Personporträtten blev djupare och det var kul att få träffa Wesley igen! Här visar sig Vornholt från sin bättre sida, jämfört med föregående bok. Rekommenderas varmt, och som duo ser jag även första boken som en värdefull del i denna duo. Som duo får den 8/10, helt beroende på denna bok!

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave it 5 stars because I could not put it down. Reading this with "A time to be born" was a similar reading experience to Parts I and III of Vornholt's Dominion War books. So if you liked those, you will also appreciate these.

[Robert Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good story with a big but. A councilor who had never left earth is immediately such a great tactician that she tells seasoned officers on the Enterprise what to do. And falling in deep love in minutes was just too much for me.

[Ash · Rating 1 out of 5]

hated it. skimmed the second half of it and even that was a struggle. characterisations were bad, the story was bad, the author’s oc was bad bad bad. glad it’s over.
this review pretty much sums up my thoughts on this book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can only give this three stars. The characters often didn't sound like themselves and the relationship between Wes and Cabot seemed rushed and disingenuous. Hoping the next books in this series are better than the first two.

[Kenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

It undoes a lot of the lovely political intrigue of the last book. And though I have no beef with Wesley, his ability to fix so many things here robs the characters of dealing with the fallout of their mess.

It’s still better than Nemesis.

[Vic Page]

dnf @40%

“Since he wasn’t a comely young woman, he would be the first to die if the Orions got trigger-happy.”
hm pretty sure that sums it up. Picard is saying he's the unlucky one cos he won't get SA'd???? whoever this is, it's not picard

[Kurt Bannister · Rating 3 out of 5]

My second Star Trek book was an enjoyable reunion with familiar faces of the 90's. I don't think any new characters were introduced that will make it to another book. Might read another.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again it's one of those books where one minute you're loving it and the next it's a chore. I'm going to give Star Trek books a rest for a while

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review coming in Star Trek Review in February

[Doreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one long winded story...

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid page-turner.