Dayton Ward

To Defy Fate by Dayton Ward

by

Book 18 of 2026: To Defy Fate by Dayton Ward.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Wesley Crusher, now an experienced Traveller, needs to work with several of his old friends to keep the timeline from fragmenting disastrously from a mysterious meddler’s machinations. Though released as part of the Picard continuity, the timeline jumping brings in characters and events from so much of the Trek universe that it feels (in a good way) like this was something of a stealth “60th anniversary celebration” novel. Some very fun deep cuts sprinkled in among the more obvious references, too.

Me holding To Defy Fate

Purgatory’s Key by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore

by

Book 16 of 2026: Purgatory’s Key by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore.

⭐️⭐️⭐️: Good wrap up to this 50th anniversary trilogy. A bit of a bummer that one of the villains was so similar to one in the prior book (a woman so obsessed with a particular goal that she makes increasingly irrational and ill-considered decisions), but otherwise does a good job tying things up with the rest of the books. Overall, the trilogy does well in touching on a lot of TOS and incorporating hints of things to come.

Me holding Purgatory's Key

Elusive Salvation by Dayton Ward

by

40/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A fun standalone-but-sequel-of-sorts to Ward’s earlier From History’s Shadow, with time travel, Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln, and lots of fun nods to Trek timeline shenanigans, both canon and literary, including Greg Cox’s Rise and Fall of Khan Noonian Singh books. Kirk just can’t keep away from the 20th century….

Me holding Elusive Salvation

📚 Mere Anarchy by Mike W. Barr et al.

by

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

by

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

by

📚 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.