War Drums

John Vornholt

Selva is a young planet, still in evolutionary development. It has recently been colonized by humans. But their settlement of New Reykjavik is being attacked by young, wild Klingons. Where had these people been when the planetary surveys were being done? Why were they attacking villagers? The Enterprise and its crew are called in to assist the new colony's residents.

Unfortunately, the humans who have settled the planet have become bigoted. How could Picard send Lieutenant Worf, Counselor Troi, Commander Data, and Ensign Ro down to help negotiate peace? Not a single one of them is human. Worf has the singular job of contacting the wild Klingons. Ro is sent to monitor the unstable tectonic plates. With their obvious differences from the colonists, will they be able to effectively carry out their duties?

This is a fairly average STNG novel (if you don't know the acronym, you probably don't care that it stands for Star Trek the Next Generation). The author does develop Ensign Ro a bit, but otherwise the characters never come off the page, and stay true to the persona painted for them in the television series. The homophobic leader of New Reykjavik does the thoroughly expected and way too neat humble turn around by the end of the book. While there are no surprises in this novel, STNG fans can have a pleasant few hours with this.