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Sunday 24 April 2016

My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane

My Enemy, My Ally (Star Trek: The Original Series, #18)My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love the writing of Diane Duane when she tackles original series characters of Star Trek and while her work falls outside of accepted tv/movie canon I take extreme delight in placing her creations above most of what has been served up on the small and big screen.
The Romulans were introduced to use as true warriors with integrity and intelligence in Balance Of Terror and this is the style of Romulan sorry Rihannsu Diane has continued to serve up, granted just as with Humanity the Rihannsu are not all cut from the same cloth but once again we get the best out of Kirk when he is dealing with an equal in all things but just in a different uniform. In this novel the Enterprise and a few of her sister ships are sent to the neutral zone, what they find is totally unexpected and beyond any immediate threat they were geared up for. It's left for Kirk to decide if it's worth taking advantage of intelligence brought to him by Ael t'Rllaillieu the commander of ChR Bloodwing as to the threat posed by research being done at the Romulan Levaeri V space station. The novel weaves a complex and intricate plot through out filled with well written characters and insights into the mind sets of both the Federation and Rihannsu crews. It was a delight once again to see the Enterprise as we've never seen on screen filled with wildly varying types of sentient crew and to see it through the eyes of the Rihannsu. Of course we get the added bonus of our main characters adjusting their mindset when viewing their "opponents" from across the neutral zone just as the Starfleet crew are accepted by the Rihannsu who serve with them during the events within the novel.
My Enemy, My Ally is truly one of the best pieces of Star Trek literature I've read and there is more to come as Diane continued writing for these characters.

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