Dayton Ward

📚 Mere Anarchy by Mike W. Barr et al.

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32/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Originally published as six eBook novellas, this series tracks a single plot line — a natural disaster on a non-Federation planet and the resulting aftermath and recovery — through decades, from just before TOS’s “Where No Man Has Gone Before” to just after the intro of Star Trek: Generations. It makes for a neat look both at the Federation’s long-term approach to working with non-aligned planets (after all, how often have we seen an adventure and then never heard of the planet or culture again?), and how the core TOS crew evolve over the years. This is helped by each novella being written by an author specifically chosen for their expertise in a particular era of Trek history. Definitely one of the stronger Trek omnibus stories I’ve read.

Me holding Mere Anarchy

📚 Somewhere to Belong by Dayton Ward

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30/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Taking place not long after the end of season three of Discovery (after solving the riddle of the Burn), this uses an adventure tying back to earlier Discovery moments as a framing device, but also nicely exploring an area that the show rather skips over: how the crew of the ship adjust to their new circumstances. There’s some entertaining lampshading of several DIS events, an interesting answer to why one of the alien races encountered in DIS were never seen in later Trek shows, and some very amusing movie night choices bookending the action.

Me holding Somewhere to Belong

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📚 twenty-five of 2020: Star Trek S.C.E.: Foundations by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dillmore ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Trek “expanded universe” novel; three short stories and a framing story, all of Scotty’s interactions with the early S.C.E. and tying into TOS episodes.