Customer Reviews
Just like a first season episode...
The Children of Hamlin is just as the title describes. It's about the decedents of a massacre where the children were thought to be taken away or slaughtered by ruthless aliens that outmatched the Federation.
Fifty years after the dreaded event, it turns out many of the children thought to be long dead are alive among a people called the "Choraii." Picard negotiates with these ruthless aliens to get Hamlin survivors and decedents back home ... only some of them developed a life there and don't want to go back.
It could have been a proposed script for the TV show and it has of all cast members Tasha Yar as head of security. This is classic season one material. The characters have a lot of unknowns that were later filled in by later episodes. In this novel the characters seem so a little fresher and more impulsive. In one scene Picard loses his temper with the a negotiator. He starts banging his fist his desk and demanding a straight answer from him.
STNG #3 The Children of Hamlin - Thought provoking!
"The Children of Hamlin" is but the first of only three great Star Trek The Next Generation novels that this fine author brought to fruition. While not being her best STNG novel, which in my opinion is "The Devil's Heart, it is a well written and thought provoking early Star Trek The Next Generation story. What is amazing is that it took the author two years to write her previous Star Trek The Original Series novel, "Dreams of the Raven," but after being given only three months for this novel, she wrote it so well!
The premise:
Everybody in Starfleet and the Federation knows the tale of the small Federation colony of Hamlin where aliens called the Choraii came and destroyed the colony, killed all of the adults and abducted the children and disappeared into the blackness of space. It is now fifty years later and the Choraii have returned, but this time they will have to deal with the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, her stalwart commanding officer, Captain Jean Luc Picard and her crew.
I would definitely recommend this early Star Trek The Next Generation novel for it's author is among one of the best of the early trek authors and it is a well written, thought provoking tale, raising the question of children who were kidnapped and later, as adults, are given the opportunity to return to their own kind but wish to stay where they are. {ssintrepid}
Average Trek Fare
Carter's first Trek novel, Dreams of the Raven, was an outstanding effort. The Children of Hamlin, however, doesn't rise above the level of an average Trek book - a pleasant diversion, but nothing more. Like so many Next Gen episodes, Children of Hamlin is saddled with both an inane subplot (involving the ever-popular technology-impaired wandering farmers; fortunately, these don't talk with Irish accents!)and too much Wesley. Its main story, though, about efforts to reclaim children abducted by aliens fifty years before, raises interesting philosophical, moral, and ethical issues that are only given lip service by Picard and the crew. But, then, if you're looking for insights into philosphical, moral, and ethical issues you're not likely to be reading a Star Trek book, are you?
![The Children of Hamlin (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Book 3) [DOWNLOAD: MICROSOFT READER] - Digital](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000523SW.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
