Cheap Power Hungry (Star Trek The Next Generation, No 6) (Book) (Howard Weinstein) Price

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Customer Reviews of Power Hungry (Star Trek The Next Generation, No 6)

The U.S.S. Enterprise and her crew are sent to the planet Thiopa with humanitarian aid for a starving and ravaged people. But of course, nothing is as it seems as Picard and Riker find out when they get to Thiopa. Thiopa is in a critical sector of space and the Federation needs allies within this sector. But, upon reaching Thiopa, Picard must choose between the planet's corrupt dictatorship or the peaceful Sojourners as to where the aid will do the most good.

This book has an element of an environmentalist theme throughout the book giving it some relevence to today. Picard has to convince the ruling council to mend its ways, before things go from bad to worse, not only for the government but the planet as a whole.

The story is well thought out and the dialog between the characters makes for very good development of the plot and tone of the story. I enjoyed the story as it was a very fast read and the theme played out very well. The story could have been embellished a little more to make the characters more robust and that is why I only gave this story a solid 3 stars.

STNG #6 - Power Hungry - An interesting early STNG tale!
Of the few Howard Weinstein Star Trek novels I've read so far, I've found them to be intriguing and well told stories, as is the case with this novel, Star Trek The Next Generation #6, Power Hungry. His writing style is fairly fluid and he sets the plot up fairly well. As other reviewers have noted, he wrote in an environmentalist point of view which is in good keeping with the overall "ethos" of Star Trek and, in my opinion, serves to help the plot along as opposed to detracting from it.

The premise:

Captain Picard and the Enterprise are sent to the planet Thiopa to deliver and provide emergency relief in the face of a planetary famine. Once there, they discover that there is more than meets the eye as the planetary government, thought to be a Federation ally, is a brutal dictatorship. Captain Picard finds that he's in the midst of a major dilemma, whether or not to deliver the famine relief which would only serve to help the dictatorship, knowing full well that they would not reach the people or attempting to change the attitude of the government, which would obviously be an uphill battle all the way.

What follows is an interesting and somewhat intriguing early Star Trek The Next Generation story that is well worth the time to read, giving the reader insight into the authors perceptions of the crew during this early period of STNG's run on television. {ssintrepid}

Trek novels shouldn't be soapboxes
Weinstein is a good writer, and a good Trek writer. Covenant of the Crown, his first, was a good book. But since then, he's just used Star Trek as a medium for environmentalism. I know the late 80s were filled with "Save the Earth" propaganda, but I don't like to read that in my Trek.

I won't go on, but I can't recommend this except to Trek book completists (like me).