Q-in-Law; Or a Conglomeration of Cringe Relationships

 The Premise

Q-in-Law is basically 250 pages of Q gaslighting everyone aboard the Enterprise. The whole story is a Romeo and Juliet sort of situation - with two warring houses of aliens who are being joined together in a marriage. This race is called the Tizarin, and are described as an honest Ferengi. The Enterprise is chosen as the wedding and ceremony site to promote Federation interactions with this race. But, problems arise when Q crashes the festivities claiming to have changed. He mets Lwaxana Troi, who is representing Betazed at the wedding. Things are said...Romance explored... 

Initial Feelings

All in all I was a little bit disappointed by this book. The writing was fine; Peter David always brings his A-game. But I felt the story had so much potential yet it fell a bit flat. I felt there was wayyyyy too much time spent between Deanna and her mother and Deanna and the other officers complaining about Q and Lwaxana's relationship. Like I think the reader is clear that them 'dating' is a bad idea, we don't need fifty pages dedicated to it. This boils down to the major problem of this book - David doesn't seem to understand Q, Lwaxana, and Deanna. I'm not saying that's its weird sexism (which really pervades this book) instead I'm saying that no one is capable of understanding Deanna and Q like I understand Deanna and Q (this is a joke). Honestly Deanna was done a little dirty in the entire TNG show so I can't really blame David for writing her so blandly, but intellectuals like myself understand her intelligence and awesomeness, unfortunately Peter is not one of these intellectuals.

I've noticed (that with female characters in general) that authors always want to write Deanna and Bev with the same shallow personality traits over and over. Similarly, Lwaxana also seems to be stuck in the character that we've already seen in previous episodes. The first page of this book specifics that it occurs before Menage á Troi, but Lwaxana is STILL in heat and is still lusting over men. I think at this point we could figure out some other reason for her to love Q. By thinking so blandly about these female characters really puts a damper on a book that could be way more fun.  Though, I do think having her accept Q's power in order to help protect Deanna made sense to her character, but it came so late in the book it was hard to reconcile <spoiler>. 

Let's talk about Q before I speak on some of the weird elements of this book that made me *ahem* uncomfy. To me Q was also stuck in the character he has always had, and this book really didn't change much. He felt in character until the very end when he started hurling insults at Lwaxana, surely Q has more taste then to call her a 'cow'? 

Anyways now on to the questionable bits....

"I Want Bear Your Children"- The Wesley Plotline

This part will contain some spoilers but honestly, before you read this book you should have some idea what you're getting into. 

Basically, Wesley gives some advice to the young Romeo/Juliet couple getting married when they're arguing and, as a reward for settling their dispute the bride-to-be "gifts" Wesley one of her servant girls, who promptly undresses and tries to have sex with Wesley in his quarters. Part of me thinks this is hilarious because of its complete and utter bizarreness. I mean I read these novels to find all the weird stuff that makes Star Trek so ironically hilarious, but this plot is so uncomfortable that before you set about this think about this plot line, because yes, it is utterly hilarious that someone in their right mind wrote this for Wesley's seventeen year old self, but it also hella weird. 

 I think my favorite moment from this plot line occurs on page 117, which I only directly quote from because it's too funny to paraphrase; "Every so often he'd imagine coming back to his quarters and finding Counselor Troi, or perhaps one of the more attractive teenage girls he saw around the ship, waiting for him". Literally WTF. It doesn't help that right after this sentence we meet Wesley's 'gift' for the first time. You're reading this taking hit after hit; I straight up had to put the book down and cope. I think David might have been projecting some feelings into Wesley's character for this one....

Overall Karla, the servant girl, is a really distasteful joke that is only funny in the 'WTF who wrote that' way. She is treated pretty awful by everyone, including her own race, who only gave her to Wesley to try to pawn her off to someone else because she's so annoying. By the end of the story she's broken his ribs (not doing what you think) and caused him many, many discomforts. The only silver-lining is that her and Wesley never do the dirty, although everyone else thinks they do (including his mother). 

P.S. on page 159 Karla does tell Wesley she wants to bear his children, hence the name of this section.

More Weird, Distasteful 90's Garbage

These Tizarins are of course, aliens, but they have strict gender norms that are just like the not too distant past of Earth. I can't really critique this because any dudebro will just say that they're aliens and thus it's fine for their sexism to exist. But it's fiction my guy, these aren't real aliens, there's no reason for them to be written like that, so for my personal taste, the aliens were lamely backwards and not interesting. There was also a lot of "man and woman" talk... lame asf. Good thing Q was there to spice it up with talk of how gender doesn't exist for him.

My last point in this section, this book was written by a dude and wow it shows, not that I don't stan my boy Peter, but jeez..."Now, now she was young, attractive, vibrant. She had her choice of men, if she so desired, or none if she desired [I know how I'm interpreting that]. But eventually her looks would fade". Yadda yadda just Deanna thinking about how no man will want her when she's old, they massacred my confident girl :(. Also interesting to note, we all know Riker is a ladies man, but David really ran with that and made him a straight up creep who tries to watch Deanna undress, the real Riker would NEVER.

The Only Way to Read This Novel

The only way to consume this novel, and TNG in general, is to recognize one universal fact, Q is in love with Picard. Personally, think Picard is too, but at the very least you have to know how Q feels. In fact, it all makes sense. If Q thinks, like many people, that Lwaxana and Picard like each other, so logically, to make Picard jelly, Q would seduce Lwaxana. In fact, Q has a whole monologue about how "I could turn myself into a woman and sleep with you Jean-Luc. Then, you'd wake up to me in bed, wouldn't that be wild?????". Picard also has to constantly reassure people that he is NOT angry or jealous that Lwaxana is dating Q, parallels people. 

Closing Thoughts - Should You Read?

This book had enough subtext and weird af moments that I don't regret reading it. My advice, if you have a Tumblr.. read this book, you'll get a kick out of it and will be able to pick out the good parts...if you're over forty and hate Discovery, please don't read this it will only feed your evil...

Also, Q mentions to Kerin that Worf has a son...and at that point I hadn't seen that episode yet. Trolled by Q, how fitting.