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Captain Chakotay and his sister Sekaya are held captive beneath
the surface of Loran II by a Changeling, an outcast Founder
masquerading as Voyager's first officer, Andrew Ellis.
The shape-shifter is working with the infamous Cardassian
exobiologist Crell Moset, who plans to use Chakotay's Sky
Spirit-enhanced DNA to create a new super-species...
As
with the previous book, Old
Wounds, the back cover blurb gives away rather
too much about Christie Golden's plot, but I have omitted
anything that I considered too revelatory from my own synopsis
above.
The cover is also a bit misleading, as it suggests that Tom
Paris plays a leading role in the proceedings. Though Paris
comes into his own towards the end of the narrative, if this
novel belongs to any single character, it belongs to the Trill
doctor, Jarem Kaz, who continues to wrestle for dominance
with the personality of his symbiont's previous host, Gradak,
a deceased member of the Maquis.
In addition to the presence of the regular Trill character,
there is further crossover appeal for fans of Voyager's
sister series, Deep Space Nine, with the intervention
of two other alien species associated with DS9, a Cardassian
and a Founder. The Cardassian in question is Crell Moset,
the Dr Mengele-type scientist who previously appeared in the
television episode Nothing Human (as a hologram) and
the TNG novel The
Battle of Betazed.
While the Kaz arc develops very nicely indeed, other plot
strands from Old Wounds fall by the wayside to various
extents. Sekaya, who was a major character in the previous
book, gets very little to do in this one. B'Elanna Torres,
who has been left behind on the Klingon world of Boreth with
her daughter Miral, plays an even more minor role. And the
conflict that existed between the old and new members of the
Voyager crew, which I praised highly in my previous
review, is completely absent this time around.
Enemy of My Enemy is higher in incident than Old
Wounds, but there are some lapses of logic in the telling
of the story. For example, why does Kaz sneak into Harry Kim's
quarters to wake him, rather than ring the door buzzer? Also,
several aspects of the conclusion are rounded off a little
too neatly to be entirely convincing (but if I were to give
them away I might spoil the plot for you).
That
said, the resolution isn't so tidy that Golden leaves no plot
strands dangling for future instalments. She clearly has plans
for B'Elanna and Miral...
This
is a satisfactory conclusion to the two-book tale, though
it's not entirely what I was expecting.
Richard
McGinlay
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