Lieutenant Tasha Yar was never a favorite of mine from the first season and I have to admit that I was kind of glad that her character left. Later they would actually find a niche in Star Trek history for this character and help better explain her. We met her sister, saw her at the end of her life while trying to restore history, and then we meet her half-Romulan daughter that happened to look exactly like her. This book goes a little more indepth and a lot of people will probably be able to get Yar a lot better if they read this book. She isn't just the blonde girl that stands behind the captain and pushes a button when he says "Fire". This book gives her depth and you actually feel for her. It did get some of the facts wrong, but Jean Lorrah was elaborating on a character that she couldn't possibly know they would explore later on in the series. For the first time, I was ready to take this journey with Tasha Yar. Lorrah starts you out on New Paris when a teenager is scrapping together parts of her life for mere survival of her and her new cat that claims isn't her pet, but just a companion to help her survive. She's been adopted in the past by an older woman that used her for pickpocketing, but that woman has died and this girl is doing everything she can to avoid being desirable to the rape gangs. In this 'survival of the fittest'struggle, the girl's cat is killed right in front of her and she is attacked by a rape gang. But before they can hurt her a group of strange people come to her rescue and take her back to their ship in the sky. This is Tasha Yar's first encounter with Starfleet and Darryl "Dare" Adin, her rescuer. He is responsible for adjusting her to life in the Federation and later they become engaged while serving together on a security team. Their ship is attacked and Dare is the only one of the senior officers left alive. He picks up the pieces and gets the crew back to base, but it's not a happy ending. Dare is accused of working with the Orions and conspiracy against the Federation. His career in Starfleet is over and he blames Yar for not helping him with her testimony. He threatens her that one day they would meet again and it wouldn't be a pleasant encounter. Years later, Tasha is the Chief of Security on the U.S.S. Enterprise under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. A beautiful leader of a world has asked for help from the Federation to stop a civil-uprising. Instead of sending the usual team to investigate what is going on down on this world that was almost accepted into the Federation, he sends Tasha Yar and Data. This is the first time they have really been alone since their "encounter" together and things are a little ackward at first, but the friends settle into a groove. They find out that this woman leader isn't all she seems and seems to be more of a dictator when Tasha is kidnapped by the civil-uprising leadership who just happens to be Dare. The meeting has come again. Now with the two crew members seperated from each other and the Enterprise they have to stop a civil war and the tyrant hold its' leader has on her people without interfering with the Prime Directive. Data has a point where he flirts with the woman leader and that kind of ticked me off, because Data isn't anything like that. His program has always been ackward in the subject of love and Lorrah writes him like he's Commander Riker extrodinaire. But I did thoroughly enjoy the struggle between Dare and Tasha as they thrown together after all the hurt and betrayal they had went through all those years ago. You can really feel the hate and the hurt coming through all the words and stained across the page. And this woman leader really gives you something to hate as she hits on Data. I was about ready to come into the book and boot her away from Data. Overall, this was a good book for a series that hadn't been on the air for long. I will definitely pick this one up again. It's a classic twist of a love story, Star Trek, and civil war all in one.
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8/15/04
Title: Survivors
Author: Jean Lorrah
Review by: CL6 Amanda Sielu Paris
2-17-05
