Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Book 20 of 2026: Rogue Saucer by John Vornholt.
⭐️⭐️: An interesting setup (a test of a saucer section prototype’s emergency landing capabilities is interrupted by it being hijacked) marred by characters making bad decisions because that’s what the plot demands and occasional inconsistencies.
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.
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.
Book 15 of 2026: Best Defense by David Mack.
⭐️⭐️⭐️: I enjoyed this middle book more than the opener, as the Romulans try to disrupt peace talks between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
Book 14 of 2026: Captain to Captain by Greg Cox.
⭐️⭐️⭐️: The first of a trilogy, this is primarily centered on Number One (now more well known from Discovery and Stranger New Worlds) when she was earlier in her career, serving on the Enterprise under Captain April. It’s kind of amusing, as this was written just shortly before her appearances in the modern shows, so it’s definitely Majel Barrett’s version rather than Rebeca Romijn’s. The adventure is fairly standard, with the common-for-modern-novels callbacks and references; nothing groundbreaking so far, but not bad.
Book 12 of 2026: Identity Theft by Greg Cox.
⭐️⭐️⭐️: Not a bad adventure, and does a decent job of trying to rehabilitate the technology from one of TOS’s more ignominious episodes. However, having one of the primary alien races be essentially humanoid evolved deer, complete with being referred to as bucks and does, and described with their antlers and rubbery noses, meant that my mental image of the entire adventure was basically a Star Trek LARP at a furry convention. Kinda worked against really being able to immerse myself in the story.
Book 2 of 2026: Challenger by Diane Carey: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The tone of this one was really odd. Much of it is centered on the main crew of another ship, which is fine in and of itself, but there was something about their interactions that was so flippant and irreverent that for me, it blew right past “different ship with a different, quirkier feel than the Enterprise” all the way to “how are these people functioning with each other, within Starfleet, or in the universe in general?” As a capstone to the series, it wrapped up all the major plot points well enough, but the odd tone was really off-putting for me.
Book 1 of 2026: Thin Air by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.
Another decent book in the series, with another crisis for the Enterprise to solve and the colonists to endure. I’m starting to wonder if they’ll actually be able to wrap up all the dangling threads in just one more book.
Book 67 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Almost a four-star, due to a particularly imaginative doomsday weapon that really had me lost as to how they were going to technobabble their way out of it. Settled on three, though, as it is a “middle book” that doesn’t stand alone on its own. Still, a more engaging entry than many middle books end up being.
Book 66 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Colonization adventures continue on Belle Terre, as Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov deal with troublesome splinter groups and environmental aftereffects of the events of the prior book in the series. A solid mid-series entry, with a good focus on this secondary trio while the Enterprise is busy elsewhere.
