A good but slightly disappointing story.

Well, after much anticipation and a very good start I ended up a little disappointed with this story in the end. I didn't want to not like this as much as I didn't, but I did.

On the plus side this story does give Raffi some good background and we catch up with a character we haven't seen for a while. It also sets up Raffi, Rios and Elnor for the next stories too. On the minus side the guest character gets a poor story and Picard's character gets a beating.

"Have you considered that as you make your decision about what to do next, you would do better thinking less about setting your past straight and more about the shape you would like your future to take."

Picard still has a few great lines and there is also a redeeming statement by Raffi near the end where she says something like "Even for all your blind spots, you're still full of wisdom."

This story kind of continues the theme of Picard lazy-helping, or perhaps having the best intentions but applying non-ideal or even inappropriate actions. The best example I'm thinking of from this story is Picard trying to encourage both Raffi and Elnor to attend the academy where Picard will be vice chancellor. Of course, this will enable him to be there for them, to support them, but does not consider whether the academy is the best or even most desirable place for Raffi and/or Elnor.

Another thing clearly continued in this story is Raffi's suspicious difficulty with trust. When she spends time with Picard at the beginning of the story she accused him three times of having alterior motives.

Also, I'm not sure if it was a slip up or an intended irony, but when Raffi arrived at Chateau Picard, Picard says to her something like: "Oh, nice of you to think to come and visit me" which is a bit rich considering that Raffi had felt completely abandoned by him after he dropped out of Starfleet. Anywayyy.

Also, I thought it was a bit rough to offer wine to a recovering alcoholic. Anywayyy.

Well, I liked the ladies ganging up on Picard in essence, but I thought it came off as a bit harsher in tone than necessary.

I'm one of the fans who was totally cool with Raffi's nickname for Picard, but it may have been overused in this story. Fair enough when Raffi is talking to him or thinking about him, then "JL" is appropriate, but the narrative voice and other characters should have more naturally been referring to him by his name, I'd say.

This review is a bad place to bring it up. But I often wonder how Picard's family own a vineyard (and the Siskos have their family restaurant) in a moneyless society. Not because I want to pick it apart, just because I'd be interested in how that works, if it has been established.

I recently started a new gig and my reading has been way off, my note taking has copped the biggest blow, so I was a little apprehensive getting into this book right now because I didn't want to be distracted and miss the point, BUT, I guess it's a case of loving what we love or just coming "home" to a familiar book series. I instantly was drawn into this story and by about half hour into the listen I'd already penned five paragraphs of notes. This is why I'll always come back to Star Trek.

So anyway, the intro stuff is fine. No thrill. A bit heavy on the Picard-scalding. And it leads to Raffi looking for a cover-reason to head to Cardassia Prime (now that I'm reading back through this, I think it was another Cardassian colony planet, Ordeve, but maybe she had to get to Prime first). She visits a bunch of "friends" who apparently despise Picard, at least they clearly despise Raffi's relationship with him, and then asks them for anything they can think of for a reason for her to go there. And this scene was dumb to me. They just get angry at her for being Picard's bitch and storm out.

The "red alert" going off in Raffi's mind when she offers to head to Ordeve made me think she was about to make the same mistake that Picard made with the Romulans over on Elnor's refuge-world.

Apart from feeling like the Picard-isn't-perfect message came across a bit heavy-handed, I also didn't like the boomerang trajectory that the narrative took, going backwards in time before returning to the starting point.

At one point Raffi (who, don't forget, is supposed to be a sort of systems hacking wizard,) has to ask what a geophysical survey is, perhaps the jump back in time went so far that we meet a poorly educated young Raffi, but this is only one example of what I thought was some lazy writing.

I like that Raffi and to some extent Rios are put into situations where they must defend the value of Starfleet and the Federation even though they have some level of personal conflict with the idea.

The narration is good, although I have enjoyed some of January LaVoy's other readings more than this one. Actually it started a little rough but either it improved or I became comfortable with it over time. It just didn't seem to have the same energy as some of her other work.

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