Review of Paths of Disharmony by Dayton Ward

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Paths of Disharmony by Dayton Ward

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I enjoyed reading this book, however have a few things I would have liked to change, if I could. While I understand that making me 'happy' with the book would require it to be changed into something it's not (a novel that's a lot longer and a whole lot more detailed than this book is), I'm still going to write some of those thoughts dow.

I felt it was a pity that we didn't learn more details about the Andorian reproductive crisis itself. Learning about an alien race that has four genders instead of two is fascinating however being me, I would have liked to read more about the way they reproduce - which gender does / contributes what and why / how. The sentence "And that, my friends, is where baby Andorians come from" would have been perfect at the end of a looooot of detailed information. Preferably with diagrams, even.I understand that the author did not create the alien race in question and probably knows as much (or as little) about the way they reproduce as I do and that I'm expecting a level of detail here that George R.R. Martin or Diana Gabaldon would write but still... It would have been awesome to read a book like that!

Visiting the Aenar city was also interesting, however again I would have liked more details. It seemed too much like visiting an archaeological site was less about the site and more about it being a place where people could get ambushed - a walk in the gardens of Lor'Vela would have sufficed. Was this the Aenar city viewers got to see in Enterprise, perhaps? If so, then I do understand going here - yay, reference to one of the tv shows - but would still have liked more detail of what was there, how old it was, etc. Again (as above) - I am aware this is a Star Trek book and the story can't get stuck in details many readers might not be interested in, however I love history and archaeology and would have loved to go 'exploring' with Picard.

This is probably me being a bit too nitpicky, however 'noprila' as mined on Andor sounds like someone watched Stargate and loved the word 'naquada' and wanted to use a similar word for a story. Maybe my brain is just finding connections where there are none, though - a much likelier explanation!

One thing that surprised me: The book is set some two centuries in the future yet solar power is still in its beginning stages. Really? Sure, the story's set on Andor, a planet possibly less crowded and 'used up' than ours, perhaps they've never had the population we have now, perhaps they didn't do so much drilling and mining that it caused earthquakes etc., perhaps they have heeeaaaps of natural resources left and perhaps they have 'clean' ways of getting the norpila out of the ground... But solar power being pretty much revolutionary... Yeah, that felt strange.

Apart from the nitpicking about mere details, I did enjoy the book and am looking forward to finding out what happens next with the characters, with Andor and with the Typhon pact storyline.



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