Another enjoyable step through cinematic Trek history!

As noted, I'm enjoying reading these books - reliving the movies with my own imagination and that of the author. The fact Dillard did the final movies - from V onward, including all the TNG movies, works so well - she maintains themes from one book to the next, while she fleshes out the story. I've also appreciated the afterwords that discuss the decision-making process behind the movie development. ( )

Until quite recently, I was very much a Star Trek: The Original Series kinda gal. I never investigated the other realms of the Trek universe and I had no real desire to...and then Netflix recommended I watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. After that it was kind of a given that I was going to fall head over heels in love with that particular cast of characters. (If you're wondering, I'm torn between Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Data as my favorite.) This of course meant that I had never really explored the literature of ST unless it revolved around my boys Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. My first foray into worlds unknown was the movie tie-in for First Contact by J.M. Dillard. I'm going to be up front and tell you that I still haven't seen this film but I'm going to be rectifying this at my earliest opportunity. This book features the ST:TNG cast as they come face-to-face with their old enemies the Borg Collective. dun dun DUN There's a time travel element to this book which I found a bit squidgy but honestly anytime Trek goes down the time travel route it's questionably done. They're not going back to just any era, however. They end up going back to the time of Zefram Cochrane and to Earth's first glimpse of another planet's inhabitants. The Borg aren't just going back to witness history in the making. (Wouldn't that be a funny concept for a movie? And here's the Borg kicking back in recliners with buckets of popcorn to watch the human race exploring the vast unknown for the first time.) So the crew of the Enterprise must pull out all of the stops to try and defeat this formidable foe. This is a Picard/Data heavy storyline so I was definitely on board with it. It wasn't the most fantastically written Trek novel that I've ever read but it was probably the quickest. I read it in between panels at Star Trek: Mission New York to give you an idea of its length (276 pages). If you're a fan of ST:TNG then you've most likely read this before but if you're a Trek noob then you'll most likely find this an interesting tie-in to the film version. If you're not a Trekkie then you're probably going to pass on this one although honestly why isn't everyone a Trekkie at this point? ;-) ( )

While a faithful adaptation of the movie of the same name, it provides more understanding of the thinking and motivations of the characters.

A decent novelization of a fairly good "The Next Generation" movie (their first on their own), in which Picard and company follow the Borg back to the 21st century to prevent them from killing Zephrem Cochrane and his "First Contact" with Vulcans who are attracted by his warp-drive experiments. Not ground-breaking, but well-written and entertaining. ( )

Movie Tie-In