(spoilers under the cut)
After the last few novels have kept the story fresh and something that was frankly better than the show Acts of Contrition is a bit of a letdown and lets itself get bogged down in cliches.
The Good: The Confederacy. A Sprawling Multi-Species collective that spans deep in the Delta Quadrant and a definite mirror to our own society. Sort of. Maybe more of a Trekkian version of an Consumer-based Empire seen in Space Operas. We’ve got Marketing Consortiums, Planets producing the finests materials for the rich, money. We also get oblique hints at how the Federation works internally to take care of its citizens.
Janeway, Chakotay come away as good diplomatic leaders, the Presider is a well thought character and General Matting has some forethought.
The politics game, the slow unravelling and disappointment that the Confederacy has so far to go.
The main thrust of the story regarding the Confederacy works well in general.
The Okay: The Doctor’s crisis, it hasn’t been resolved yet but he may be losing his mind.
The Custody Battle: Tom and his Mom went to a Starfleet Judge on who should have custody of Miral (B'Elanna did not go so she could stay with the fleet and Miral). That itself has been resolved (in Paris’ favour) but he still has no relationship with his mom, or sisters.
Dr. Shardak and Lt. Wildman’s investigation: nothing exciting but interesting, if a bit disconnected from reality (How no other branches of Starfleets have flags raised because of all of this is beyond me, this is beyond complicit this is stupid)
The Alliance: So the Devore (Counterpoint), the Turei, the Vaadwaur (both from Dragon’s Teeth) and the Voth (from Distant Origin) have all banded together (among with others) to chase Voyager and breach Confederacy space (protected by streams of …subspace corridors, whatever anyway they can’t get it). The revelation that they want something beyond Confederacy space is intriguing.
The Bad.
The Alliance & Meegan: Less so is the reveal that the Indign and Meegan are responsible for this multispecies alliance, each doing a bodysnatch of the leaders of each vessel. Kashyk is reduced to cartoonish villainy (as a result of the bodysnatch and noted by Janeway)
Headed for a Trial: Yeah Janeway surrendered herself so she can be held accountable for Voyager’s action during the series. Trials are tired cliches. It’s not that I mind revisiting old plotlines, in fact I LOVE IT but a trial? *sigh* (book 3 could surprise me).
Seven/Axum/The Commander: The Commander smacks of terrible writing of early post-series Voyager, just, no, no. Too much of the same thing. The Seven/Axum love chamber was clearly designed to be a reveal that they were in each other’s mind the whole time but that just felt flat. Nothing, Nothing There.
In short, disappointed maybe book 3 will be better (and it will be a library book too when I get around to it)
