Star Trek

Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall

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Book 36 of 2026: Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall.

⭐️⭐️⭐️: An entertaining adventure as a Star Trek convention becomes ground zero for the zombie apocalypse. A few things here and there that bothered me a bit, but mostly nothing really major. The biggest thing for me was that the authors couldn’t resist giving nearly every person and place very obvious Trek nods for names (the hero is Jim Pike, the hotel is the Botany Bay, and many, many others), and yet, somehow, it seems that none of the die-hard Trek fans at the convention ever notice this or think it’s at all noteworthy. While identifying the names was a fun mini-game as I read, within the context of the story, it broke my suspension of disbelief (apparently, zombies are fine, but insufficiently observant and pedantic Trekkies is over the line).

Me holding Night of the Living Trekkies.

Star Trek: The Enterprise Logs

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Book 31 of 2026: Star Trek: The Enterprise Logs

⭐️⭐️⭐️: Look – by just about any realistic objective measure (script, plot, science, fidelity to nearly any aspect of Star Trek, printing quality, etc.), these are bad; two stars would be generous. But as artifacts of 1970s Trek comics medium, they’re certainly entertaining, if in a very cringey sort of way. Not really worth looking for unless you’re a Trek and/or comics collector, but if you run across them and are curious, you’ll likely get some chuckles.

Me holding The Enterprise Logs

A Fury Scorned by Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski

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Book 29 of 2026: A Fury Scorned by Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski.

⭐️⭐️⭐️: The Enterprise is called to assist a planet about to be destroyed, and is unable to rescue the entire population. A subplot of seeing if they can pull off a miracle (guess what…), but most interesting as the crew actually attempts to grapple with their inability to save everyone. More introspective than most Trek novels.

Me holding A Fury Scorned

Infiltrator by W.R. Thompson

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Book 27 of 2026: Infiltrator by W.R. Thompson.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Descendants of Khan and his compatriots face off against the Federation. I found this one to be above average, with much of it being something of an early take on the same issues explored by Strange New Worlds with Number One’s status as an Illyrian in hiding, expanded to explore how a society of genetically engineered humans might deal with how they’d be perceived by the Federation. As often happens with any eugenics storyline, it would be improved if the Federation was more honest and introspective about how initial fear and caution has developed into long-standing systemic bigotry, but as Star Trek has yet to really tackle that aspect of the universe, I wouldn’t really have expected it from a thirty-year-old novel.

Me holding Infiltrator.

To Defy Fate by Dayton Ward

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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

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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