961. Invincible Part IIPUBLICATION: Starfleet Corps of Engineers #8, Pocket eBooks, September 2001 (collected into print with S.C.E. ebooks #5-8 as Miracle Workers in February 2002)
CREATORS: Keith R.A. DeCandido and David Mack
STARDATE: 53283.1 (follows the last novel)
PLOT: As the death toll on Sarindar mounts, Sonya Gomez struggles to capture the "monster shii" preying on the camp, even as the Nalori senate shows no mercy and demands results. An autopsy on the first shii killed reveals these are actually synthetic creatures used by their former owners to hunt for food (animal cranial matter, explaining all the beheadings). While Gomez unsuccessfully attempts to communicate with the killer machine, most of the workers steal into the only ship and abandon her. Only the cowardly Razka remains behind, and together, they lure the creature to the dish and destroy it using its energy transmission capabilities. When Duffy finally comes to rescue her, she falls into his arms.
CONTINUITY: Same as the previous novel.
DIVERGENCES: None.
SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK - The Gallamite doctor
REVIEW: The second part of Invincible is so action-packed as to be explicitly violent, with all but one of the guest characters killed with extreme prejudice. If the story had been told in one volume, their well-drawn profiles from Part I would have lent more weight to those deaths in Part II, though I can't really complain, having read them a week apart. If I'd waited two months for Part II though... The narration is again supplied by Gomez' logs and various letters, a great deal of it from Razka's pen. While Gomez completes a personal arc here, one that finally makes her accept Duffy's offer, Razka's is more extreme and complete - the coward who faces his fears and yet does not betray himself. It's the journey from coward to pacifist.Next for the SBG Book Club: Planet of Judgment (TOS), Power Hungry (TNG), Warchild (DS9), The Riddled Post (SCE).
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