Star Trek: Enterprise (My Brother's Keeper Book 3) - Michael Jan Friedman

Title: Enterprise (My Brother's Keeper Book 3)
Author: Michael Jan Friedman
Published: 1999
Chronological Period 2265

Available at:
Amazon
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Review:
“Enterprise” is the final book in the “My Brother’s Keeper” trilogy by by Michael Jan Friedman which explores the friendship between James T. Kirk and Gary Mitchell. As with the previous two novels in the series, it utilises a framing story set after the events of the TV episode entitled "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in which Gary Mitchell dies.

The framing story is based around following Kirk’s journey back to Earth where he meets Gary’s parents and decides to tell them the truth about what happened to their son. However, whilst there he ends up thinking over one of his first adventures as captain of the Enterprise in which Gary continues to help shape his career. This flashback follows Kirk and his crew as they finally unravel a mystery that had been building through both the previous novels. What they find is a secret that both the Klingon’s and Federation have kept hidden and will result in Kirk having to work with a Klingon commander named Kang if he is to save the Enterprise.

I initially struggled to get into this book as once again Friedman decided to use a portion of the novel to describe Mitchell’s death. I can’t imagine anyone reading without having picked up the previous novels in the series so don’t understand why he felt the need to subject me to another re-telling of the same story. It doesn’t help that the best telling of Mitchell’s death was in the first novel anyway.

However, once we get past this the novel is actually quite an enjoyable read and I was happy to finally see the conclusion to the mystery that had been progressing in the other novels. There is plenty of action and fun throughout, but in addition there is some character development in regards to Kirk as he tries to learn about accepting everyone’s opinion, not just people he may have known closely in the past so that he can be a great captain.

Another nice little element to story is Friedman’s attempt at trying to explain the physical differences between Klingons in the Original Series and in the Next Generation. This book of course was written prior to the “Enterprise” TV series which gives a different reasoning, but I think that I actually prefer this version.

Overall, this was an enjoyable and entertaining conclusion to the trilogy and I probably found the core story to be the best out of all three novels. There is plenty of action, adventure and excitement packed into this novel in addition to its attempt at exploring Kirk’s growth into a good captain.