So, wowsers. Lots of fan service in this book. This is the first book I've read of the Post-Nemesis books that deals with what happened after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Enterprise went off the air. A great many characters and races mentioned in other episodes are used. I finally know the history behind the art of my May 2007 Star Trek Ships of the Line calendar with the Columbia NX-02 crashed on a desert planet.

Some elements of the story, especially towards the end were a tad predictable, but only if you were paying attention I suppose. In fact I purposely had to cover the last few paragraphs so I didn't accidentally glance at them as I read the second-to-last page because I thought I knew what was happening but didn't want to spoil it for myself.

The characters are for the most part treated correctly. They may not be exactly as they were on the show, but a few years have taken place and people change. A lot has happened in those years.

I greatly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the next one very soon. ( )

Götterdämmerung, Trek Style

The Destiny trilogy answers the question, "how much stuff/aliens/references can I pack into one piece of fan fiction?" The answers is "a lot."

You get all the captains*: Picard, Riker, (Ezri) Dax, passing references to Janeway and Archer. You get all the aliens*: humans, Klingons, Romulans, Andorians, even aliens whose race was never mentioned in a canon show or film but is part of canon like Efrosians (the President of the Federation in 2293 with droopy moustache and wild hair). You get all the bad guys*: Borg, Nausicaans. And you get bonus additional material, like a super-powered alien race you've never seen before, the Caeliar!

[*Surprisingly, though, you get no TOS crew and no Q.]

And are important things at stake? You bet! How about a war that might spell the end of galactic civilization as we know it (or know it through watching Star Trek on the TV)? How about minor romantic tiffs between characters we already know? How about a very detailed description of how to walk in a pair of self-fabricated snow shoes?

Seriously, though, I read these books because I am truly a fan of the Star Trek world and wanted to see what the written fiction was like while I took a completist romp through the entire body of existing TV episodes (both live action and cartoon) and movies (both regular time-line and Kelvin Timeline). The author is a professional writer who has written several Star Trek episode scripts and has done quite a few Star Trek books that garner a great deal of praise on the Internet. When I refer to these works as "fan fiction" I don't meant to suggest anything negative about the author, but rather to suggest a genre that assumes its readers know the basic background of the setting and characters and attempts to offer them something that they cannot get from the canonical works. Certainly, that describes these books.

Ultimately, though, I think I would have more enjoyed reading a fresh work by the author, as I had the feeling that he was a bit cramped by the overwhelming press of Trekness: someone has to drink a raktajino every hundred pages or so; Worf has to walk around with a Bat'leth on a regular basis. I found the sub-arc regarding humans who had found themselves chained to a "beautiful prison" with all their needs taken care of and no way out particular effective, and I imagine that the author is capable of even more when unleashed from the requirements of the canon.

So, I guess I learned a lesson about fan fiction. ( )

A solid read, actually better than I expected from any novel in the Star Trek Universe. It keeps the mushy stuff to a bare minimum and gets on with the story line that is actually quite good. ( )

A little confusing with all the characters, since it references a lot of characters from previous star trek books, but the book did a good job at filling me in on any previous plot points I should be aware of. The story is interesting and I look forward to reading the next two in the series. ( )

Complicated, interesting and mysterious!

Mack weaves a complicated story,weaving back and forth in time to introduce the Caeliar, what K think are going to be the anti-borg. ( )