Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Pity the poor writer who gets commissioned to write a prequel novel to one of the most anticipated television series in the history of science fiction. Also pity the poor viewers in that both a prequel novel and a comic were deemed necessary by the powers that be in order to cushion the future-shock induced by the first episode of Star Trek: Picard. (Except that both were only released when the show was already well underway, as I understand it; I read the book only after I had watched episode 4, ‘Absolute Candour’.)
Indeed, when I watched episode 1, ‘Remembrance’, it felt as if I had somehow skipped an entire iteration of Star Trek. It was really disconcerting and head-scratching. Well, having Picard on a chateau with a dog called Number One was pretty cute, but WTF had happened to the Romulan Empire in the meantime, and why had the Federation undergone its own version of the Butlerian Jihad from Dune?
In the grand tradition of television SF tie-in novels, The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack does not really provide any new information, or attempt to even answer any of the looming background questions that seem to prevent Picard from becoming a fully-realised Star Trek show. What it does do very well is flesh out some of the detail of Picard’s last desperate mission, and the fallout that ended up with him ruminating on the grape harvest on his idyllic wine farm.
While the Star Trek: Discovery tie-in novels have been rather hit-and-miss, The Last Best Hope on the other hand is distinguished by being really well-written. McCormack has a deft hand at characterisation, and there are some beautiful grace notes here that bring the story alive (and a couple of surprise cameos, one of which is so brief it feels like a shoe-in more than a homage). Both Picard and Rafi are lovingly brought to life on the page, and their relationship is really wonderful to see unfold.
I also loved the way that McCormack teases out the implications of the cosmic disaster that befalls the Romulans, and the cracks that the Starfleet rescue mission inadvertently causes in the very fabric of the Federation. When the periphery worlds begin to chafe at the top-down heavy-handedness of the Big Four, and the word ‘secession’ enters the fray, one cannot help but think of this being a Star Trek version of Brexit.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the novel (which is cleverly divided into three sections, ‘The Hope’, ‘The Best’ and ‘The Last’) is the Qowat Milat, the Romulan warrior nuns and their protection of a mysterious boy called Elnor. Again, I was reminded of the Bene Gesserit from Dune. Unfortunately, the weakest part for me was the relationship between Maddox and his doctoral student, which reads like something out of a Philip Roth novel, only involving ‘fractal neuronic cloning’. We really do not find out what happens on Mars at all, in the end, which is a tad frustrating.
I’m not sure if this is intentional in the book, but there is an implied suggestion that the Romulan sun going nova is not a natural event. The reader is unsure whether or not either, or both, the Federation and Romulan Empire know more about this than they may be letting on. Given it is no secret that the Borg are back in Picard, could this be part of some larger end game?
All in all, a great Star Trek novel, and a really good SF one as well. It is a hard balance to strike sometimes, but McCormack really nails this one. Her writing is natural and nuanced, and while the plot is admittedly skimpy, she uses this as an opportunity to give all her characters their time in the sun.
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