Grounded

"If we can contain it, we shall contain it. If we can communicate with it, then we shall communicate with it. And if it indeed threatens us further, if the lives of other members of this crew are endangered, then it must be destroyed."

So says Picard, noble captain of the enterprise. And I suppose he has a point, given that his ship is being threatened by dirt. or clay, rather. bit of a humdrum storyline, truth be told. Seemingly harmless organic matter rising up and being dangerous? can you say "Home Soil"? A hither too hidden possible romance? Try "The Measure of a man".

To soothe the cries of outrage, please be assured that I had to go look up those episode titles - all I could remember were the terms "bags of mostly water" from home soil (episode 1.18 for those who count such things), and I couldn't remember Picard's female foil in The Measure of a man (2.09), but did recall the office "Judge Advocate General". her name was Phillipa Louvois, by the by.

Seeing her first lines of dialog written here reminds me of another point I meant to raise - one of grammar. I know that many of us struggle with the terms "to", "too" and "two". English is positively machiavellian in that way sometimes. But when an author, an editor, a publisher, and whoever else vets a work before it goes on mass production allows no less than 2 blatantly incorrect uses of the word "to" to go unchecked, a few eyebrows cannot but help be raised. I'm no demigod of the english language (I daren't count my mistakes) - but then if I were publishing this review and expecting to make money out of it (offers welcome) then I'd be sure to attempt to conform to the linguistic guidelines of my chosen medium. To cap this rant off, louvois' line was "Don't gloat, Picard. It's almost more irritating then when you're being self-righteous". I'd point out precisely where the error sits - but you're not blind. even if you are, you can see it.




I'm not going to tell you not to read this book. Deadly danger to the Enterprise, interesting new characters, a little light profanity (not even from Riker) and following the early TV format wherein the last fifth of the thing finishes the threat, with little previously accumulated data to help. I quite liked the proposed theories on autism, though... What else? data was quite central, and that worked well. Worf might as well have been on vacation, for all the useful input he had. Killed a few hours at least - a title i'm going to now forget about.