📚 23/2021: Wonderlands by Una McCormack ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek 🖖 Fills in the year between Burnham’s appearance in the future and when she finds the Discovery. Lots of expansion of the new setting for season three and beyond, with some entertaining ties to much earlier Trek bits.

📚 2/2021: The Dark Veil by James Swallow ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek

A year after the attack on Mars and Picard’s retirement, Riker and the Titan (including Troi and Thad, their first child) face off with Romulans while assisting a mysterious alien ship. More good backstory building.

Got out of the habit of my weekly Star Trek: Picard mini-reviews, thanks to the coronavirus stress, but just watched the final episode of the season, and I’m satisfied. Quibbles here and there, sure, but overall, a very good first season, and I’m looking forward to more. 🖖

📚 fourteen of 2020: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A direct prequel to the Picard series, detailing the struggles, triumphs, and travesties of the Romulan relief effort. Also the most politically & socially currently relevant Trek novel I’ve ever read. 🖖

The Naming of Romulans

A bit of silliness. Very minor spoiler for ST:PIC S01E06.

The Naming of Romulans is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a Romulan must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Pardek, Colius, Donatra or Vrax,
Such as Vreenak or Tomalak, Thei or Rekar—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Parem, Tal’aura, Karina, Livara—
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a Romulan needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his ears perpendicular,
Or spread out his schemes, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Alidar Jarok, Zhaban, or Telek R’Mor,
Such as Narissa Rizzo, or else Caithlin Dar-
Names that never belong to more than one Romulan.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE ROMULAN HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a Romulan in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

(No, they don’t rhyme. But I limited myself to those named Romulans listed at Memory Alpha, so that’s what you get.)

Picard Theory (Probably Wrong) 🖖

Adding to my list of probably wrong predictions about where a current Star Trek show is going (most recently, for Discovery, those would include that the Kelpiens and the Ba’ul are different stages of the same species and that Control was the genesis of the Borg)….

Spoilers for episodes two and three of Picard follow, but probably not for anything beyond that, because I’m usually wrong about these things. :)

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Got my copy of the new #StarTrekPicard novel today…but can’t (well, won’t) read it until I’m finished with this year’s #PKDickAward nominees. So many books, and only so much time to read! 📚🖖