Shattered, Part 3

If you want to understand this review better, I suggest you read the first and second parts first. If you have done so then let’s get going. Excalibur: Restoration is actually quite a bit longer than the first two books. It’s not just because it’s around 100 pages longer. It also seems that the publisher switched from a 12 point font to a 9 point font. It made my eyes do funny things when I jumped from one to the other. Anyway, that probably kept them from having to change to thinner paper.

Finally you get to hear what happened that caused the ship to blow up, all of the crew to survive. After teasing you for two it’s somewhat of a letdown until you get farther into the book and see how it’s connected to other events. You follow Shelby as she accepts her first command and gathers her crew. She goes on her first mission and realizes that she is no longer the strict by the book commander she used to be. That’s too bad because she picked the rest of her crew to be just that, and there is some tension. You also get to see what happened to Calhoun just before and since the ship blew up. He’s stuck somewhere and has to try to figure out how to get back. It ties up a few loose ends, loosens a few more, and gets you ready for the next book.

This book had a quote on the front from SFX magazine that sums up Peter David’s work on this series. It says, “An established Star Trek novelist whose name is a … guarantee of quality.” I agree.