A Time to Harvest (Star Trek The Next Generation)

Rating:
Summary: Not as suspenseful as it should be
Review: As with the first book, the authors spend the first quarter of the book filling us in on recent Trek history, both the events of the previous books, the Dominion War, and activities at Starfleet. It could probably have been done in half the pages and combined with more interesting content. After that the book becomes much better. The characterisations are good and the action scenes are well done. The pacing of the story is generally effective. There is still a fair amount of historical material, but most of it is relevant and a lot of it is presented character to character, instead of essentially author to reader. There is even one occasion when a character starts giving historical examples and gets told to stop because they don't have the time. However, the book develops one major fault. A critical element of the plot is that undercover operatives are in action, some on the Enterprise. The authors keep jumping to them, telling us who they are impersonating, what they are doing and what their plans are. It would have been far more suspenseful simply not to tell us, and much more dramatic for us to find out who is a spy at the same time as the Enterprise crew. The book is still quite good, it just could have been much better and how is pretty obvious.

Rating:
Summary: Good story. Excellent writing.
Review: I thought the A Time to Sow and A Time To Harvest books were much better than the first two in the series A Time to Be Born and A Time to Die. Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore did an excellent job of pulling together the story line that John Vornholt put out there in the first two books. I felt that the first two books didn't stay true to character and seemed a little childish and a little sappy. The story line was all over the map. As I said Ward and Dilmore did a good job of pulling that together. However, what I DID like about the first two books is that they really brought in a lot of the story lines that this series is claiming to fill in the blanks for. For instance Riker and Deanna's romance, Crusher's indesision for remaining on the Enterprise, and Wesley's leaving the Travelers. I wished that A Time to Sow and A Time to Harvest would have brought more of that story line into it. Instead it turned out to be just a good little stand alone story. The only ties to the rest of the series is the references to the plot introduced by John Vornholt. It could have easily come as a simple stand alone story.
Very good book, good story line, excellent writing. Thanks for the read.

Rating:
Summary: A must read!
Review: I've read other Star Trek TNG books and by a host of other authors. However, in this book and "A Time to Sow" you'll read some of the best TNG trek out there.

I won't say anything here that will spoil your read, other than in this book, the plot tightens up. The action gets more intense. Here, almost every key TNG character is heavily involved with some facet of the plot. In the end, it all comes together like a nicely tailored suit.

It's clear that the authors clearly know the TNG characters as they are written extremely well. Unlike other authors (ahem..Vornholt?) who know very little about the TNG characters.

The "old adversary" will keep you guessing and will probably hit you (as it did me) like a ton of bricks once you put the peices together.

These two books (this and "A Time to Sow") are the best books of the "A Time to....." series. It's a must read.

Rating:
Summary: ST: TNG A Time to Harvest
Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation "A Time to Harvest" written by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore is a wonderfully written conclusion to "A Time to Sow" also written by this dynamic pair of writers. This book is written to tell us what happens between the events that took place after Star Trek: "Insurrection" and before Star Trek: "Nemesis."

I liked this book for the way the authors tell the story in a straight forward manner with enough retrospective introspection to recap the reader from " A Time to Sow" so you are upto speed on the events coming to you from this book. "A Time to Sow" left the reader up in the air as to some of the unresolved events but "A Time to Harvest" answers all of the reader questions in spades.

"A Time to Harvest" has mystery, intrigue, and subterfuge. Along with plenty of action-adventure that will pique the readers immagination. There is ample detail that makes the story flow well and keeps the reader reading into the story to see what happens next. I don't get to say this very often, but I must say this that this duo of authors knows how to tell a good well-thought-out story.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard is the main character in this book as he wrestles with his thoughts about what has transpired in the earlier books, "A Time to Be Born" and "A Time to Die." Also, there is retrospective from "A Time to Sow" as all of this gets filtered through Picard's thought process and makes for a well told and interesting story, which I really enjoyed reading.

There is crew interaction and of course the bad guys are clever interlopers trying to steal a planet terraforming operation from the mild mannered Dokaal. The characterizations of the main group of characters in this book are spot-on ie. Picard, Will Riker, Deanna Troi, Dr. Crusher, Christine Vale, Geordi LaForge and Data. I enjoyed reading the thought processes that each of these characters goes through to reach a conclusion to a problem.

If you are a fan of The Next Generation books this book series is your cup of tea(Earl Grey, Hot). As the U.S.S. Enterprise goes to the aid of the Dokaalan people the crew is met with a series of mishap and misfortunes, but through it all the crew solves these problems with some very clever innovating solutions.

I can give too much of the story away as it will ruin your read, but trust me this is a good action-adventure that keeps the Enterprise and her crew on her toes... you'll enjoy the read.

I gave this book a solid 5 stars for the reasons stated above. This story will move quickly and you'll be engrossed in a highly entertaining adventure.

Rating:
Summary: nice sequel
Review: the book starts out slow but gathers lots of steam. the enterprise is still trying to help the dokaan people terraform a nearby planet when they discover lies and deceit from an old enemy who has grand plans of their own. the book is well written and the reader will not be disappointed in the end. i wish they would put wesley back in the story though because he made for interesting reading in the first 2 books of the series.