Rating: 
Summary: An untold tale, told well.
Review: Pocket Book's batting average for the year 2002 in terms of Star Trek novels just keeps getting better and better. After leading off the year with the home run efforts of In the Name of Honor and Immortal Coil, the Star Trek line hits a stand-up double here with the Battle of Betazed. The Battle of Betazed is set between the events of Star Trek: First Contact and Insurrection and somewhere in the fifth or sixth season of DS9. Betazed has fallen to the Dominion who are hoping to use it as a rallying point to make their conquest of the Alpha Quadrant complete. The crew of the Enterprise E--along with a few guest stars such as O'Brien and Worf from DS9 and Commander Elias Vaughn from the superlative DS9 relaunch--set out to liberate Betazed. But their plan is a risky one. For in order to liberate Betazed, Troi must turn to one of the most dangerous criminals to ever come out of Betazed--a man who can literally kill people with the power of his mind. The real strength of the book is the ethical dilemma that Troi and the people of Betazed face--desparate times call for desparate measures. The authors do a great job with showing how in the depths of despair, people will cling to any shred of hope to be free and realize the ends may justify the means. Another strength of the novel is that there are three plotlines carried on at once and the authors keep a good balance of shuttling back and forth between them. That said, the ending is what takes the book down a bit. The moral and ethical dilemma is too quickly and easily resolved. I won't give it away, but it was fairly obvious of where the storyline was going about 100 pages before the end. And while there are some nice references to the past of Trek, they aren't as seamlessly integrated into the storyline as they were in Jeffrey Lang's Immortal Coil. That said, the Battle of Betazed is still worth reading. It does what Trek books should do--take a missing era of Trek history and shine the light on it. Pocket Books could do far worse than to have other Dominion War novels on the shelf in the near future.
Rating:
Summary: Good stuff
Review: The Battle for Betazed can pretty much be summed up in it's title, it is about how the Feds reclaimed Betazed during the Dominion war, in a covert operation that involved the TNG crew.
The plot flows along rather nicely, the authors know their stuff pretty well, except for a few continuity points which I will outline later.
The central character is, of course, Deanna Troi, and the book is highly descriptive of her feelings over the conquering of her homeworld, played out mainly in conversations with Riker and Picard.
The other major story is that of the actual people on Betazed, the members of the resistance and the occupying forces are both portrayed very well. Typically, Lwaxana is in the middle of everything, and the writers do her good as well.
The crux of the book deals with the age old question, of death or shame? Do a species defy their principles in order to survive? In this book, the Betazoids want to enlist the services of a Betazoid criminal who can kill with his mind, however only he knows of it, so Starfleet needs to bring him in. This is where Troi and the covert team come in, with a bit of help from the Enterprise and the Defiant(including Worf and O'Brien).
The plot resolution is fairly neat, it invents a solution from the circumstances, but I won't reveal it here.
Now I don't like to be a nitpicker, but there were some serious problems in this book. The first of which was the setting, the authors said it was set in mid 2375, after Dax's death but before Insurrection. However, as we know from DS9, at this point the Federation was winning the war, and had gone on the offensive(by taking Chin'toka). I find it hard to believe Starfleet would try to invade Dominion territory while one of the core Federation worlds was still under occupation. I was under the impression the Romulans took back Betazed when they first entered the war, but that's just my impression.
There was a slight technical fault, the writers used something called a 'scramble field', this doesn't exist. But, if these inconsistencies are overlooked, BFB is a solid book and well worth the read for TNG and DS9 fans.
Rating: 
Summary: STNG: The Battle of Betazed
Review: The Battle of Betazed by Susan Kearny and Charlotte Douglas is set approximately two months after the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "Tears of the Prophets," and a few months prior to the events of Star Trek: Insurrection. This book is about the how Betazed fights the Dominion complete with Vorta and the Jem'Hadar. Deanna Troi has to choose between the survival of her homeworld and her ethics. A struggle that is ongoing and she trys to sort out the consequences of what is asked of her. This is a good book revealing more of Deanna Troi as a breathing person and what she goes through, as she comes to grip with the reality that the people on Betazed want her to do something she is repulsed by, (releasing a tellepathic killer). The Dominion War has fallen to one of it most ominous points. The Federation is battling the Dominion on several fronts. The Cardassians allied with the Dominion make things extremely difficult on Betazed... can you imagine Lwaxana not having a bath in months and she has another child. This book keeps your interest, it builds and builds upto a climax that is fascinating. We see the kindling of the gone cold relationship between Riker and Deanna. As the stresses build the relationship begins to heat up. I hope this will continue. The evil Dr. Crell Moset, one of Cardassia's foremost exobiologists is here making things worse for the Betazeds by running horrifing experiments...but in the end his research is used with a justified twist. The pace of the book is excellent and the clever intrigue made the book readable...obviously this is a book for all those who are Deanna Troi fans as it works deeply into her soul. A very fast read...captivating...fascinating. I recommend reading this book and the book has a good picture of Deanna in her SOB suit on the cover.
Rating:
Summary: The Battle of Betazed
Review: The Dominion War comes tragically home for Counselor Deanna Troi when she is forced to seek help from a telepathic killer on her enemy-occupied homeworld. Meanwhile, the Enterprise-E is spearheading a massive attack on a Cardassian space station to thwart its genetic experiments.
Rating: 
Summary: Why does everyone rate this book so highly?
Review: The recent Star Trek novels aimed at bridging gaps, such as what the Enterprise was doing during the Dominion War and so forth, are failing miserably. The only good ones are the Deep Space Nine series. I give this book two stars because the authors really tried. I mean, they put a lot of effort into making this believable, into making Deanna a mad li'l Betazoid. But it doesn't work. None of it works except the against-all-odds battle between the Enterprise and the enemy -- the book was so forgettable that I even forgot who they were fighting. This book is a waste of time unless you're an absolutely inconsolable Star Trek fan. Read Mission Gamma instead. And please... whomever's editing at Pocket, and coming up with these books... it's not working. Hire some fanfic authors, like Gina Dartt. They at least can craft a story.
Rating:
Summary: Why does everyone rate this book so highly?
Review: The recent Star Trek novels aimed at bridging gaps, such as what the Enterprise was doing during the Dominion War and so forth, are failing miserably. The only good ones are the Deep Space Nine series. I give this book two stars because the authors really tried. I mean, they put a lot of effort into making this believable, into making Deanna a mad li'l Betazoid. But it doesn't work. None of it works except the against-all-odds battle between the Enterprise and the enemy -- the book was so forgettable that I even forgot who they were fighting. This book is a waste of time unless you're an absolutely inconsolable Star Trek fan. Read Mission Gamma instead. And please... whomever's editing at Pocket, and coming up with these books... it's not working. Hire some fanfic authors, like Gina Dartt. They at least can craft a story.
Rating:
Summary: betazed must be freed no matter the cost
Review: the war against the dominion and the cardassians is not going well for starfleet. betazeid has been captured and the dominion
force is builing a new space station with betazeids as slave labor. when starfleet sends ships to liberate betazeid they are
utterly destroyed before they even get close to the system. with
this defeat starfleet gets a message from the betazeid resistance
movement on betazeid that is headed by none other than laxanda
troi herself. the plan they want implemented can mean freedom
for their homeworld but may leave the betazoids scared emotionlly
permanently. what is freedom worth? will they risk their very
way of life for their freedom? deanna troi is caught in the middle of this very ethical decision and what she and the crew
of the enterprise do is well worth reading. this is one of the
best star trek the next generation books that i have read and i
highly reccomend it to all fans especially if you are a deanna
fan.
Rating:
Summary: Umm.. Huh?
Review: This book has me rather baffled. On the one hand, the space-borne battle scenes are rather good. On the other hand, the planet-side battle scenes are rather not. I can't really say I recommend this one as a purchase, but pick it up at the library for a half-way interesting read. Oh, and note to the authors: the climax of the book traditionally falls somewhere near the END of the book. Not the middle.
Rating:
Summary: TOO BAD THIS WASN'T AN EPISODE OR MOVIE....
Review: THIS BOOK IS GREAT! GREAT WRITING, PLOT MOVES ALONG WITHOUT ANY LULL, GREAT CHARACTER INSIGHTS, ETC. A GREAT READ!
Rating:
Summary: TOO BAD THIS WASN'T AN EPISODE OR MOVIE....
Review: THIS BOOK IS GREAT! GREAT WRITING, PLOT MOVES ALONG WITHOUT ANY LULL, GREAT CHARACTER INSIGHTS, ETC. A GREAT READ!
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