User Profile

Have you ever read a very promising book only to get halfway through and feel like you've been reading about what the book has to offer you, rather than having read the offerings themselves? This book is a reminder that relying on PhD in the author's name isn't a long term strategy.

This book left me with the (probably wrong) sense that it was written for people who don't need help with serious issues.

Example: "Finally, as her pain started to subside, she began to trust others, and that her past no longer had anything to do with her present. The last time I heard from her, Emily was engaged to a wonderful man who deeply loved and appreciated her, and whose love and appreciation she could finally allow herself to receive."

Now this is probably a fairly common story about the power of therapy, and someone who grew through many sessions of interactive therapy with a qualified doctor providing therapy. But it's not presented as that. What did Emily do? She just told herself, "I love and accept myself exactly as I am" according to Dr. Neff.

There is good in this book, but it feels like panning for gold, slinging mountains of slop over your shoulder until you find a nugget. I believe there is a lot of useful stuff in this book, and I appreciate the perspective, but it's blatantly untrustworthy.

I am an avid Star Trek reader and have read everything to come out in the last 4 years.

This novel reads like a light-scifi storyline adapted to Star Trek, but one that does not fit with the universe building that has been going on since the 80s. You are going to be reading a lot about contemporary issues that plague our society today, which to me takes a lot of the joy out of Roddenberry's vision of the future.

This book is clearly written by a Star Trek outsider. From unwanted pregnancies, to stem cells, abortion, suicide and more... you are going to be spending a lot of time on issues that have been abated long before the 24th century, as you can read over and over again in many other "canon" Star Trek novels.

Then there are the technical failures... Characters and officers are petty and hollow, and do extremely stupid things. There are a few spots in the book where it gets "very Star Trekky" and you can absolutely tell that Kirsten Beyer had help with these, because her lack of knowledge about the Star Trek, and the technology that is commonplace in that universe, is glaring.

The score this book got is curious, I do not believe it is in line with the myriad of other scores Star Trek books tend to get from fans. It's not great and I almost didn't finish it.