Review: TOWER OF BABEL (Star Trek Enterprise: Rise of the Federation #2) by Christopher L. Bennett

DISCLAIMER: I received this book as a freebie from the publisher at Cleveland ConCoction 2016, where Bennett was the author guest of honor.

My only major complaint about this series is also, oddly, one of the things that I like most about it.

On the one hand, I feel like a lot of the issues that the characters run into are based on events that were already featured during episodes of the Star Trek Enterprise television show. We are only revisiting old enemies and old issues rather than further exploring this broad new universe.

On the other hand, there is only so much ground you can cover during the approximately 44 minutes allotted for actual television in an hour-long episode that is also limited by things like special effects budgets. Expanding on plot lines through the written words eliminates many of those barriers, and it’s really awesome to learn that an otherwise small incident is actually part of a greater issue. Especially when it blossoms into a major conflict that encompasses every member of the former Enterprise crew!

The political threads that are tugged on in the first book continue to both ravel and unravel in this second novel in the series. Archer is especially hitting his stride and figuring out his new place in the grand scheme of this new Starfleet, while Reed and T’Pol have definitely proven themselves to be worthy captains in their own rights.

Finally, I had a bit of a love-hate thing going on with the Trip/T’Pol relationship during the course of the show, but the way Bennett portrays them in these follow-up tales has officially swung me over to the love side.

It’s probably possible to pick this book up without having read A Choice of Futures, as long as you understand that there’s some political maneuvering that you might not be 100% familiar with.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) stars. Cross-posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

Currently reading: Frost Burn by K. T. Munson and Nichelle Rae (41%) and Star Trek: Articles of the Federation by Keith R. A. DeCandido (10%)