Before he commanded the Starship Enterprise, Jean-Luc Picard was the captain of the deep space exploration vessel, the U.S.S. Stargazer, on an incredible twenty-two year voyage.
Now Picard is reunited with his old crew for the first time in over a decade, on a mission to see his former first officer installed as ruler of the Daa’Vit Empire.
We’re counting down to the January 2020 return of Jean-Luc Picard by revisiting some of the pivotal stories about the beloved Starfleet captain from across the last three decades of Star Trek: The Next Generation published fiction.
Welcome to the next entry in our retro review series Prelude to Picard!
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1991 marked the first release of a hardcover Next Generation novel: author Michael Jan Friedman’s introduction to the crew of Captain Picard’s first command, the USS Stargazer, a group of characters that would later return in several subsequent stories under both the Next Generation and Stargazer print titles.
Star Trek: The Next Generation — Reunion is set somewhere around the third or fourth season of the television series, and catches up with the Enterprise-D during its assignment to transport one of Picard’s old Stargazer colleagues — Morgen of planet Daa’V — back to his home planet. Morgen, now a Starfleet captain, is set to be crowned leader of Daa’V, a small but strategically power near the Federation and Klingon borders.
Along for the ride, to participate in Morgen’s coronation, are a number of Picard’s fellow Stargazer veterans, including ship’s doctor Carter Greyhorse, Australian communications officer Tricia Cadwallader, first officer Gilaad Ben Zoma, security chief “Pug” Joseph, and navigator Idun Asmund.
In my review of The Valiant, which was published after Reunion — but in the chronology of the series, was set long before — I was a bit critical of some of the characterizations of the Stargazer crew. That objection still holds having read Reunion, where the characters work much better as their older selves than as their younger incarnations.
Carter Greyhorse is a more interesting character as a broken man who projects his blame for his partner’s poor life choices onto others. Watching him become that man — his complete obsession with the Klingon-raised human helmsman Gerda Asmund — is just not as enjoyable. Likewise for Gerda’s identical twin Idun Asmund: as a lone character dealing with the death of her sister and the shame she feels for her sister’s crimes, she’s fascinating. As a younger woman, with that twin, less so.
Reunion is a classic murder mystery whodunnit, with a spatial anomaly twist. The book feels a little overstuffed — part of the drama involves the Enterprise being caught in a subspace slipstream that catapults the ship to high warp, and they must determine how to get themselves out of… in addition to several attempted murders of the Stargazer crew.
But ultimately, some of the convenient plot points aside, this is a very fun novel that feels like a mid-series episode of The Next Generation. Now that we’re into reviewing books that feature Picard but fall during the run of The Next Generation, the other characters get room to feature as well.
Reunion has nice subplots for La Forge and Guinan, a long with both Beverly and Wesley Crusher in the first in-depth exploration of the story behind Jack Crusher’s death. Its most fun subplot, though, involves Riker romancing one of the Stargazer crewmembers. The characterization of Riker is pitch perfect and could have been drawn directly from the screen.
For Picard, the reunion with his Stargazer comrades is bittersweet. A lot happened to this crew — they spent 22 years together aboard the ship, lost some major members of their family along the way, and ultimately lost the ship too. Each of these characters has changed and grown in the intervening years, but their bonds of fellowship remain strong.
A major character who is pivotal to the book but ultimately not present is Jack Crusher. The character is imbued throughout the novel; Picard sees him in his dreams, Beverly initially avoids the Stargazer crew in order to keep from being reminded of her dead husband, and Wesley seeks them out for precisely that reason.
In addition, one of the more touching subplots of the novel involves the Stargazer security chief Pug Joseph, who carries a secret shame about the death of Jack Crusher that has given him addition issues.
Over the course of the three novels we have so far reviewed, we can begin to see manifest itself the reason so many Star Trek fans have become devotees of the books. Reunion was published in 1991, Valiant in 2003, and The Buried Age in 2007, yet they fit together seamlessly.
Reunion references the final departure of the Picard and Greyhorse from the ruined Stargazer; a scene that Christopher L. Bennett shows us in real time in The Buried Age. Many of the plots paid off in Reunion are retroactively set up in Valiant, and the continuity over all three novels is tight.
Even though there are only two authors at work here, that’s easier said than done over several editorial changes and 16 years of time between Reunion and The Buried Age.
It has been a particular joy of fans of the Star Trek novel line to find these connections between each of the stories, which ultimately deepen our appreciation for the on-screen source material. And a huge credit to the authors to even make the effort to keep their own works consistent, let alone with the works of other authors in the line.
Reunion is a fun little adventure, which kicked off a lot of storytelling around Picard’s tenure aboard the Stargazer. So far, except for a few minor references in The Next Generation episode “The Battle,” Michael Jan Friedman’s work has largely informed our understanding of that two decade period of Picard’s life.
There’s lots to explore, including six books specifically part of the Stargazer series, which if you like the characters in this book and Valiant I recommend exploring further.