Rosetta (Star Trek: Enterprise) [Unabridged] [Mass Market Paperback]

This book fills in a big space which is missed out in series 4 of Enterprise. It revolves around hoshi having to translate signals. Which is no easy task. We found out about history in space long before star-fleet was there. Its well worth reading if you are a fan of enterprise.

I think this book is probably the longest Enterprise novel I have read which has enabled Dave Stern to create quite an involved story with a fair few things going on. However, the rather wordy narrative does result in the book being quite slow paced and I found myself getting bogged down at a few points although it never got bad enough that I felt the need to put the book down.

The story itself is based around the actions of a mysterious race of beings known as the Antianna that have been attacking anyone that makes an attempt to enter a specific region of space they seem to be defining as their territory. When the Enterprise itself is attacked it falls upon Ensign Hoshi Sato to try and translate the complex language that these aliens appear to be utilising in order to understand why the Antianna are attacking. However, the aliens have also been attacking the Thelasian Trading Confederacy and their leader, Governor Maxim Sen is ready to go to all out war. The Enterprise is drawn into the politics of this situation and the crew offer their own assistance in the hope of averting the war by finding a way to enable some sort of understandable communications to occur.

The most interesting aspect of the story is that it was focused on Ensign Hoshi Sato, who was under-utilised during the TV series. I think that Stern has actually done a good job in his portrayal and he doesn't fall into the trap of trying to make her into something she shouldn't be. Therefore she doesn't become a great warrior or undertake complex espionage but her intellect and linguistic skills are utilised to ensure that she is quite integral to the plot. I was also quite interested in the way in which the novel tried to bring out some of her involvement in the creation of a Universal Translator which was a nice little bonus although I do think this did become a little bit lost in the overall story.

However, there were a few issues that really spoilt the overall impact of the story and my enjoyment of the ending. The first was the way the great technologically superior enemy basically just decided to vanish once they had a heart to heart chat with a member of the Enterprise crew. This entire thing just came across to me as being weak storytelling and a cheap way of ending one of the novel's major plotlines. The second issue was in relation to the way that Stern creates some interesting opportunities when he has Archer imprisoned on a ship where he discovers one of his captor's secrets. However, instead of using this, Stern just opts for Archer basically pulling out a plug which left me feeling rather let down. I just don't understand why Stern even bothered setting up something that looked like it might be quite intriguing only to just ignore it all.

Overall, it was nice to see a little bit more of Ensign Sato and I think Stern once again did a good job of capturing the various characters well. However, whilst the story itself was complex, interesting and enjoyable in parts, the slow pace and the rather weak conclusions to various events just left me feeling a bit unsatisfied by the time I reached the ending. To be honest, I think there are better Enterprise novels out there but if you are interested in gaining some more insight into Hoshi then you may as well pick this novel up.

Rosetta is, as the front cover suggests, a Hoshi story, revolving heavily around her passion and profession of translating alien languages, and also delves a little deeper into the character regarding her experiences after being abducted by the Xindi.

Reading the Enterprise novels chronologically, I'd have to say this is the best book of the series at this point. Set towards the end of season 4, it has a fair amount of history and running plotlines to use to give the die-hard fans some fanboy moments, however in my opinion, didn't really capitalise on this. There are some references to major points in some of the characters' history (Travis's upbringing on Horizon, the aforementioned kidnapping of Hoshi), but doesn't do much scratching beneath the surface. There are a number of references to a Lieutenant Hess in engineering and faffing about while she's ill or causing problems for Trip, where at this point in the series some unresolved tension between replacement chief engineer Kelby and Trip may have been more interesting. Also, there a few factual errors and inconsistencies as well as a number of typos and grammatical errors which do detract from the book a little. This book is another instance of Hoshi losing her surname at various points, simply being referred to as Ensign Hoshi, and Crewman Cutler (not seen since in the series since the untimely death of the actress) suddenly reappears as a nurse in this outing.

It's for this reason I only gave the book three stars, as it feels like Dave Stern may not have actually watched the show with any great passion or attention to detail. Characterisation in particular seems off sometimes with T'Pol not really being the more emotional, flawed character we come to know after season 3 (and certainly not after her marriage and mother's death, which also lead to Trip's transfer to Columbia - also barely mentioned). With season 4 being as rich in storytelling as it was, with all its nods to the earlier series, the lack of references to the happenings of that season (or indeed that the MACOs only get a one line reference in the entire book) feel like the story was shoehorned into this particular point in the timeline for no reason and stands apart from the season because of it.

These niggles are outweighed by the fact the book is easy to read - the secondary characters are memorable enough to not start getting them confused with one another, there isn't a heavy emphasis on technobabble (which is always good!), and we do get to delve into the lesser used characters of the series a little more. Travis has a fairly decent subplot, while not doing much to develop his character, it's always a pleasure for me to see the character get some time in the limelight. Reed shows a bit of a cheeky side I think with regards to the way he handles his investigation and wasn't so stiff upper lip about everything, without misrepresenting the character of the show. And of course, we get insight into Hoshi who is still deeply scarred from her experiences with the Xindi, which gave the character some deserved depth.

The story itself contains a number of threads running concurrently which all come together rather well, and the main plot itself involving the Antianna keeps enough mystery and intrigue to keep your interest to the end. The conclusion feels a little rushed, but isn't necessarily a bad thing as it happily leads into the "Demons/Terra Prime" two-parter.

Worth the read for any Enterprise fan who wants a bit more than just the four seasons we got.