Star Trek Typhon Pact: Brinkmanship
{4.5/5} “In many ways… Venetan culture is a better fit with the Tzenkethi than the Federation. Both civilizations are very stable and achieve that stability through a certain degree of conformism on the part of their members rather than encouraging individualism… Your Federation explorers and we Ferengi entrepreneurs are perhaps somewhat baffling to the Venetans. An enduring civilization of long-lived people, content with the habitable worlds of their systems — no wonder our outward-focused cultures seem at odds with their values.”
Captain Picard and Doctor Crusher (on the Enterprise) are heading to Venette, a world that’s been friendly with the Tzenkethi lately. The leadership of the Federation would rather the Venetans join the Khitomer Accords than the Typhon Pact. Negatiators from the Federation, the Ferengi, and the Cardassians are coming along.
Captain Dax (on the Aventine) is hosting an old friend who’s a specialist in Tzenkethi affairs. Their orders change when the Venetans allow the Tzenkethi to use three of their starbases — which are each disturbingly close to the territory of a Khitomer power.
Neta Efheny is a Cardassian spy on the Tzenkethi homeworld. She likes it there but she’s just discovered that her superior is really a human — in other words, a spy for the Federation.
Brinkmanship by Una McCormack was published in 2012. It’s the final book in the Star Trek Typhon Pact miniseries, following Raise the Dawn. The next miniseries is ominously titled The Fall.
McCormack has the feel of the Star Trek characters and her story is gripping. It’s a fascinating exploration of how members of different cultures try to understand each other and avoid going to war.
She also does a great job of creating a new alien culture, the Venetans, and illuminating a little-known alien culture, the Tzenkethi.
What do you do when one of your allies does something you don’t agree with, something that hurts the chances of your task succeeding?
Our old friend Garak, now the Cardassian ambassador to the Federation, shows up at one point — he was always one of my favourite characters.
McCormack has written a few Star Trek novels and this is the first one I’ve read.