Maximum Warp: Book One of Two

Star Trek: The Next Generation #62

by Dave Galanter, Greg Brodeur

Interstellar civilization depends on the twin blessings of warp travel and subspace communications. But now an unknown force is disrupting subspace throughout the galaxy, creating "dead zones" in which advanced technology will not function. Ships are stranded in space, unable to communicate. Colonies are losing life support. Governments can no longer negotiate with their allies -- or their enemies. Worse yet, the dead zones are proliferating at a geometric rate. Unless a solution is found, the entire Alpha Quadrant may be doomed to a new dark age! in the wake of the Dominion War, a tenuous peace exists between the Federation and the Romulan Empire. The uneasy alliance is strained to the breaking point, however, by the enigma that is destroying subspace. Now Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Ambassador Spock must join forces with an infamous Romulan war criminal in a desperate attempt to find the source of the disruption -- even if it means sacrificing the very peace they hope to save!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Star Trek The Next Generation, Fiction, Ebooks, Adventure

236 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 2001

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than usual for this series! Can't wait to read the conclusion!

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will be a reread for me.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's certainly an incredibly fast & easy read, and the plot in engaging enough to keep me interested. However, there is a curious detachment to the threat posed by the dead zones, and much of the characterization feels a little stiff at times, with only a few characters getting a chance to shine. As for the protagonist, he needs far more background than he's given to build him up properly as a threat to so many in the Alpha Quadrant. A pleasant read, but far less intense & involving than it should be for a supposed two-part epic.

[Andrew Beet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good novel nothing special looking forward to reading book 2

[Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great beach read! Fast-paced, and all the expected and welcome elements of a Star Trek novel: space ships, intrigue, a galaxy-wide problem to solve, space battles, character interplay, Romulans, Klingons, and of course, technobabble!

Also, I loved the cameos from the post-season finale crew of Deep Space Nine’s USS Defiant, as well as the USS Voyager, still stuck in the Delta Quadrant.

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read this book since it first came out and I found it to be very enjoyable revisited.

Set after the Dominion War, "dead zones" are popping up all over the Alpha Quadrant, causing ships to lose power and--worse--colonies to lose all power. Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise are caught up in this galactic disaster, though they may have taken aboard the Romulan responsible for the chaos. Can this Romulan be trusted to tell the truth and allow the deaths to end?

All of the characters' voices and actions are true to their television and film counterparts. I actually found the new characters, especially the Romulan that I'll leave unnamed, to be the most interesting (though not so much for the individual encountered by Riker and Troi at the end of the book).

I look forward to reading the concluding novel soon.

[Stasia Bruhn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh is all I can say !! Ships are losing power all over the galaxy..The few bright spots in this book is Spock and a cameo of Janeway..Other than that this is a very lackluster book..You find no information of the why or how this happened. The ending is a a cliff hanger. Big surprise since this is book one.The Enterprise gets taken over and did I just read Riker's arm is cut off wth!! Just no!! Another thing to mention most of the characters don't sound at all like themselves nor do they behave like the show..This book was a extreme disappointment and one I will not make again in this series.

[Joe Pranaitis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Authors Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur bring us the first of two booksin the Maximum Warp series. As the book opens we learn that the Romulans have taken an world with unknown techology and that the lead Romulan T'Start who had been asked be apart of their secrit police has been asked to leave. Then it cuts to the Enterprise-E under the command of Captain Picard and he along with a Romulan warbird are trapped in what has been called a dead zone. The dead zone's are poping up all over the galaxy. The Defiant and DS9 are effected along with Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. The dead zone's also reach back to the Sol system and to a Mars depot. The effects of the dead zones has taken its tool on the major powers in the galaxy just three months after the end of the Dominion War. With the galaxy in perel its up to Captain Picard and Captain Spock and the crew of the Enterprise to find out how to stop it. This is a great book and I highly recommend it to all Star Trek and science fiction fans.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast paced story that doesn't seem to want to slow down but keep the action going. I enjoyed the action, the threat seems plausible at the moment and Spock being in the role of First Officer of the Enterprise-E is pretty awesome admittedly. I like the trib of Troi, Riker and Data off on their own mission together as Data and them haven't typically worked a lot together in the TNG films other than Insurrection. Anyway, hopefully the end of this book makes sense in the next one as Riker all of a sudden shows up on the Enterprise unless I missed how that happened...probably a holodeck. Ha ha!

[Michael T Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I had this massive project planned for the Trek relaunch books I read, and I don't think that's gonna happen now, so it's been so long since I've read this that I don't remember a damn thing, EXCEPT that I enjoyed it immensely, but thought one character was utterly unnecessary, buuuut (see book two) ...

[Rod Simmons · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skips all over the place and time, Riker appears in two places at once in the last two chapters. The last chapter just feels like there’s a chunk of time missing from it. It’s like you have to be drunk to make sense of it. I assume it will be cleared up in the second book.

[SuperPiggy5000 · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part, an entertaining read. The last chapter came out of nowhere though, without any buildup or context, so it was quite confusing. I think I'll read the next book to see what happens

[Elijah B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read to kill time

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full incredible plot twists from the very beginning, epic world building from the start, rib breaking humour and cunning tricks and evasions from the outset! :D

[Josh Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to force my way through the second half of this book.

[Joshua Palmatier · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main premise of this set of the two books (this review only refers to book one) is that something is causing bubbles of space to open up where the higher-level technology used by spacefaring races no longer works, basically sending those caught within back to the "dark ages" of battery power, etc. These bubbles appear to start in Romulan space, but are quickly spreading throughout the galaxy. Outposts caught in them have to be evacuated, starships stop dead in space, Deep Space Nine is caught in one and must resort to battery power, a Klingon planet is destroyed when the reactors on the planet lose power and containment is breached, even a nuclear reactor on Mars must be dragged into space before it melts down. The crew of the Enterprise is caught in one of the first bubbles, and is sent on a mission to find the source of the problem. He's put in contact with Spock, who has been contacted by a Romulan bio-warfare specialist named T'sart, who's wanted by nearly every race in the galaxy for mass murder. Unfortunately, T'sart is the only one who appears to know what's causing the bubbles. All communications are cut by the bubbles, so Picard and crew are on their own, getting ready to venture into Romulan territory, and even though an uneasy peace exists between most races in the Alpha Quadrant due to the recent Dominion War, the Romulans think the bubbles are the first phase in an attack on their territory.

This book mostly deals with the start of the bubbles and how they're affecting everyone and everything in the Alpha Quadrant. It essentually pulls the crew together--including Spock and T'sart--and sets them on their path. We see multiple consequences of the bubbles, including a few scenes involving Deep Space Nine and Voyager, still trapped in the Delta Quadrant. But the focus is on T'sart, Spock, Picard, and the Enterprise crew. The plot and problem are definitely interesting and I like how the authors have managed to make the book more interesting by weaving in problems for many of the crew members, and pulling in characters and plots from previous Star Trek books and episodes. The plot moves along at a rather swift pace, although there are nods of humor between the characters here and there. Overall, I enjoyed this first book.

However, the cliffhanger ending felt very contrived. It's obvious that something is up (the authors aren't trying to hide the "ruse" from the reader at all), but it still felt rigged to pull the reader into the second book. And it was way melodramatic, on the edge of cheesy. Aside from that, the setup was good. I'm hoping the second book follows the same general lead and doesn't pass into the too cheesy/melodramatic realm.

[Mikael Kuoppala · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the "Maximum Warp" duology is a minor dissapointment. The story is based around a not so original concept of spatial disruptions that suddenly appear out of nowhere, causing ships to wreck as energy can't get transformed from one form into another in the disruption field. Curiously (and unexplainedly) enough, the phenomenon doesn't appear to effect any non-mechanical transformation of energy. The phenomenon causes strain between the Romulans and the Federation, as they both suspect the disruptions is a new and powerfull weapon.

The book highly resembels Dave Galanter and Greg Brodeur's earlier Voyager novel Battle Lines in its concentration on action instead of plot and characterization, a fact wich ultimately renders the book implausible. This can be seen especially in the field of characterization. The characters feel familiar enough, and the duo writes them with talent, but there are times in the plot that would absolutely require heavy and deep exploration of one or more characters but don't contain any. And speaking of characters, Spock's inclusion in the story is as unjustified as it can get, as he has absolutely nothing to do and appears to be there only to fill the pages with his presence and comments that any other characters could have expressed. This I call a true waste of potential, wich appears to be the only real theme of the story.

The book succeeds in offering good science and sufficiently interesting original characters though, and works as entertainment at least. The whole still feels mediocore and cheap, and it leaves the reader with a feeling of being underestimated.

[Jimyanni · Rating 4 out of 5]

As anyone who has read more than a few of my reviews knows, I ALWAYS complain about a book that is missing either a beginning or an ending; I don't mind multi-part stories, so long as they have enough of a minor conclusion that they can, in fact, be read individually, even if a major plot-thread remains to be completed in the second book. (For example, most of the Harry Potter books had an internal plot that was completed within the book, even if the ongoing storyline remained unresolved; similarly, the Narnia books can all be read as individual stories, even though there is a continuing thread throughout.) But what I DO truly hate are books that follow the pattern of the old-fashioned movie serials: a cliffhanger ending, followed by "to be continued". This book does in fact suffer from this flaw, which is why I've only rated it at four stars; that is my only real complaint with it. If you like "tune in next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel" stories, then feel free to consider this a five-star review. And to be fair, it at least didn't feel that there was padding to make the story long enough to stretch to two books; I can't suggest anything that could have been cut, and the book is long enough (although just barely) that I suppose it would have been hard to fit between two covers.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are dead zones in space and everybody is affected by them. The Enterprise is charged with finding out why they are happening. Meanwhile, Spock comes across some information. This is a very quick, light read which feels kind of throw away. It does get better near the end of the book, so I am hopeful that the 2nd book will be better. An ok read.

['Nathan Burgoine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only "decent" fare, this duet has an interesting premise, but the tension is achieved rather artificially. There are a few too many cameos (a failing of many trek novels), but it is done fairly plausibly.

Basically "dead zones" of null power are popping up all over the galaxy, and it's up to the Enterprise to save everyone! Can they possibly do it? Well, duh.

[Judith Paterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got a bit confused at the end but enjoyable

[Onur Polat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Star Trek book I've read and it took me less than a hour which is a positive. Has the feel of the show TNG, so if you enjoy the show you'll enjoy this book.. on to book 2.