Star Trek:The Next Generation- Greater than the Sum by Christopher L. Bennet

Ty'ressa Chen is a half-Vulcan Lt. J.g. aboard the Starfleet vessel Rhea, on-route to some newly discovered Carbon planets that are also a source of immense subspace distortions that lead straight back to the Alpha Quadrant and Starfleet itself. But even though Trys, as she is known, is a half-Vulcan, she was raised wholly by her human mother, and to buck the expectations of those who know of her Vulcan parentage, she acts as non-Vulcan as it is possible to be.

Which includes pestering the commanding officer of the Rhea to be allowed to join the away team as they beam down to the Carbon planets. Eventually, her commanding officer gives in, and allows Rhea to join the away team. Once beamed down to the planet, Rhea has an encounter with the native life forms and finds them very strange.

Then, in the skies above, a Borg ship appears and attacks the Rhea. Down on the planet, the Borg also appear and begin taking out the members of the Away Team, Trys doesn't want to be assimilated, or to die, either. But just when she has given up hope, she suddenly finds herself on a planet 2000 light years away from where she was. This lets Starfleet know that the aliens from the Carbon Planets have mastered a technology called the Quantum Slipstream that can move people any distance without the need of ships, transporters or vacuum suits.

Because the Borg may be in search of the same technology to add to their already immensely powerful vessels, Starfleet knows that if that happens, the Borg will not only become unstoppable, but it will herald the death of all non-Borg in the galaxy, so they must travel to the Carbon planets in an attempt to stop the Borg. To that end, they send Trys to the Enterprise, which is still under the command of Jean-Luc Picard, who has finally married the former Beverly Crusher and changed his mind about allowing families on the ship.

But he's reluctant to start one of his own. Despite the fact that he loves Beverly very much and does want children, he's also worried that his capture by the Borg and his recent adventure with the remnants of the Borg have changed something fundamental inside him and damaged him in a way that would impact any children he and his new wife might have. Beverly, on the other hand, is sure that he would make a wonderful father, but is troubled by his doubts and unwillingness to confess them to her or even talk about what is troubling him.

His doubts take on new meaning when he is paired with Hugh, the former Borg who is now part of an entire group of unassimilated Borg who have decided to make their lives their own. Some are former Borg victims from the Alpha Quadrant, while others have always been Borg. Calling themselves "The Liberated", they have a stake in this fight as well. And here, Picard finds an analogue for his own situation. Hugh and another Liberated, Rebekah Grabowski, have fallen in love and are as strong a couple as the Liberated can be. Not only have they joined their lives, but they are going to start a family together.

Picard wonders how they can stand to bring new life into the galaxy with such a menace as the Borg and is basically told, "If not now, then when?" And he realizes that there will always be another threat to the Galaxy to be fought, and he cannot put off his life until there are no more threats. But can Picard, Hugh and the Liberated find and destroy the Borg ship before the Borg can wrest the secrets of the Quantum Slipstream from the inhabitants and make the lives of everyone living in the Galaxy a living Hell? And will Picard find the courage to have children with Beverly while the Galaxy remains in such uproar?

This was a rather interesting book. I usually think of the Star Trek TNG novels as happening during the series, with all of the starring characters on board. But this book takes place after the movies, and the situation is quite changed: Picard is married to the former Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi and William Riker are married and have moved onto a ship of their own. This has left the crew with new roles to fill and new crewmates to find from a new Chief of Security (since Worf is now First Officer) and a new counselor. New crewmates join, but are not a good fit... yet.

But more to the point that a lot of new characters are introduced, along with older ones, and I didn't realize until halfway in that this story wasn't referencing a movie, but an earlier book I hadn't read. Some of the "new" crew characters were introduced in this earlier book, and conflicts from that book carry over into this one. So you may end up not understanding references to Counselor so and so, because she left in the last book after apparently trying to strip Picard of his command, believing him to be going crazy.

Truth be told, I wasn't all that crazy about this story. It's all about a technobabble gadget that the Borg and Federation are fighting over, trying to keep said technobabble gadget from falling into the hands of the Borg and leading to the end of life as we know it (TM). In the end, neither side gets it, but people get killed taking out the Borg, and some survivors are saved. I didn't really enjoy the story, because I was trying to sieve out what happened in the last book that was the backstory to this one, as well as trying to keep up with what was going on here.

If I'd read the earlier book, I may have enjoyed the whole thing more. As it is, I found myself distracted and just not being engaged with the story. Some of the characterizations are just fine, but on the whole, the book was fairly disappointing. I wouldn't recommend others waste their time reading it.