Category Archives: Series

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation – Dark Mirror, by Diane Duane

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My Thoughts

Thanks to the Amazon class action suit about ebook price fixing, and a lovely $60 payout, I’m catching up on many, many Star Trek novels that I missed during the years when I wasn’t reading them for whatever reason.

One such acquisition was the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Dark Mirror, by Diane Duane. It’s TNG’s chance to experience the “mirror universe” we got to see on-screen in both TOS and DS9, and, as I expected it to be, it was well written, with a few moments that really delighted me.

One was the introduction of the dolphin, Hwiii, a hyperstring researcher who ‘swims’ through the ship in a sort of water skin. Another was when Data, meeting Hwiii, tilts his head for a moment and then ‘speaks dolphin,’ because, of course he does.

I liked that Geordi and Deanna were the initial away team to the mirror Enterprise, and that they both got to use the knowledge they gleaned both from study and experience. Some of my favorite episodes were when Troi actually got to be a psychologist, and in this novel, she uses that training as much as she uses her innate empathetic abilities.

Similarly, Geordi’s incredible depth of knowledge is highlighted in this book, as he works, sometimes with colleagues, and sometimes alone, to figure out a way to save, not just the ship, but the universe itself.

I’m not sure when this was originally written but it felt like early TNG-fic. Data is very ‘sciency’ but doesn’t have as much depth as he does in later novels – even in later pre-emotion-chip ones. It’s obviously before the contemporary push for continuity within the novels, but it’s still an entertaining read.

Trek fiction is my crack. This was a delightful fix.

Goes well with Sashimi and tempura and Kirin beer.

Review: At the River’s Edge by Mariah Stewart

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About the book, At the River’s Edge

At the River's Edge

After taking stock of her life, Sophie Enright has decided it’s time for a break. Between a law career that’s become criminally dull and a two-timing boyfriend she’s done with once and for all, Sophie desperately needs some time to think and some space to breathe. The perfect place to do both is easygoing St. Dennis, Maryland, where Sophie can visit with her brother while she figures out her options. Once in St. Dennis, she discovers a shuttered restaurant and makes a bold move that is also a leap of faith. Sophie buys the fixer-upper in order to finally pursue her dream career.

But Sophie’s labor of love becomes a bone of contention for her new neighbor Jason Bowers. The local landscaper has big plans for growing his business—until Sophie scoops up the property he’s got his eye on. And no amount of buyout offers or badgering from him will get her to budge. It’s hardly the start of a beautiful friendship. But when they’re paired up to work on a community project, they agree to put their differences aside, and sparks begin to fly. Then Sophie’s cheating ex suddenly shows up, looking for a second chance—and threatening to make Jason a third wheel just when his hotheaded feelings about Sophie were turning decidedly warmhearted. All Sophie wants is a new life and a true love. But what are the odds of having both?

Buy a copy:

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About the author, Mariah Stewart

Mariah Stewart

Mariah Stewart is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives with her husband and their dogs amid the rolling hills and Amish farms of southern Chester County, Pennsylvania, where she gardens, reads, and enjoys country life.

My Thoughts

I was first introduced to Mariah Stewart’s series of novels The Chesapeake Diaries, when I received a box containing the first six books in the series late last year. It was cold and wet, and they were great books for that kind of weather, because they fall into a favorite category of mine: small town, beach novels.

At the River’s Edge is the most recent addition to the series, and like it’s predecessors, it takes place in the same continuity, the same version of life on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, in a small town with cute shops and colorful characters. Having lived in not one, but two, such towns (though not on the Chesapeake), I can assure you that Stewart’s depiction of those two elements, and of small town life in general, is dead-on.

This particular novel was a bit weird for me, only because the man who dumps protagonist Sophie in the beginning (well, actually she dumps him after catching him cheating on her) shares my husband’s first name. Once I got beyond that, and into the meat of the story, I was happily entranced by Sophie’s desire to restore a diner. In fact, in many ways this book could have been about me, because I grew up visiting a family diner owned by my cousins, and when it closed, I would happily have bought it, if I’d had the cash.

I was equally enamored with landscaper and love-interest Jason, and I liked the way their relationship began as one of antagonism before passion turned on both characters and things got warm and cozy between them. Was this a bit predictable? Yes. Does that mean the story isn’t enjoyable? No.

Some people might consider Stewart’s books, and others like them, to be fluff. I disagree. I think that at a time when our science fiction and fantasy are dominated by zombies and post-apocalyptic futures, it’s nice to have books that aren’t afraid of sweetness or sentimentality. Stewart writes fantastic characters in ‘normal’ lives, and she does it in a well that makes her books not merely compelling, but downright addictive. Not to mention, the vast majority of the women in her novels are smart, savvy, and own their own businesses. How empowering!

Goes well with hot pastrami on rye with a side of cole slaw and a vanilla cream soda.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a virtual book tour. For more information, click here.

Review: The Displaced Detective Series by Stephanie Osborn

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About Book 1: The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival, by Stephanie Osborn

The-Case-of-the-Displaced-Detective-Arrival

The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival is a SF mystery in which hyperspatial physicist, Dr. Skye Chadwick, discovers there are alternate realities, often populated by those considered only literary characters. In one reality, a certain Victorian detective (who, in fact, exists in several continua) was to have died along with his arch-nemesis at the Reichenbach Falls. Knee-jerking, Skye intervenes, rescuing her hero, who flies through the wormhole connecting universes. Unable to go back, Holmes must stay in our world and learn to adapt to the 21st century.

Meanwhile, Schriever AFB Security discovers a spy ring digging out the details of – and possibly sabotaging – Project: Tesseract.

Can Chadwick help Holmes come up to speed in modern investigative techniques in time to stop the spies? Will Holmes be able to thrive in our modern world? Is Chadwick now Holmes’ new “Watson” – or more? And what happens next?

Buy your copy from Amazon:
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The next three books in the series are also available at Amazon:

The Case of the Displaced Detective: At Speed
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The Case of the Cosmological Killer: The Rendlesham Incident
The-Case-of-the-Cosmological-Rendlesham

The Case of the Cosmological Killer: Endings and Beginnings
Ending-and-Beginnings

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My Thoughts

I’ve been a Sherlock Holmes fan practically since I could read, and grew up on the PBS/Granada TV Sherlock Holmes television shows that ran during the 1980s and ’90s. In fact, Jeremy Brett, who played Holmes in that series, remains the only actor to whom I’ve ever sent fan mail (his autographed photo made my 14-year-old self giddy with delight, and hangs on my office wall today), and as much as I love Benedict Cumberbatch’s modern take on the character, it’s Brett who will ALWAYS be Holmes to me.

In addition, I’ve been an avid reader of Holmes-ian pastiches for almost as long as I’ve loved the original works. Laurie R. King’s work is a favorite, but I’ve read everything from The Seven-Per-Cent Solution to a fanzine I bought at a Star Trek convention in 1989 that had Mr. Spock traveling back in time to meet his ‘ancestor,’ the Great Detective himself.

I’m not a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, though I have friends who are, but I have serious Sherlockian cred, so when I tell you that I absolutely LOVED Stephanie Osborn’s Displaced Detective series, you should know that it comes from a place of vast reading experience.

I was offered the first two books in the series, The Case of the Displaced Detective: the Arrival and The Case of the Displaced Detective: At Speed by the folks at Pump Up Your Book, but I was only half-way through the first book when I tweeted Ms. Osborn that I was smitten with her version of Holmes, who springs off the page as a fully-realized character in his own right, though I hear echoes of both Brett and Nimoy in his dialogue.

An hour later, I’d purchased the other two available books, and as of last night, I was half-way through with book four, The Case of the Cosmological Killer: Endings and Beginnings

While Stephanie Osborn’s version of Holmes is swoon-worthy, her main character, Dr. Skye Chadwick, is pretty impressive herself. Smart, funny, talented – she’s the kind of woman many of us who were geek girls before being a geek was cool wanted to become.

The array of supporting characters, both American and British are equally rich and well developed (I really love Braeden Ryker), but characters aren’t the only element of any story, there has to be a compelling plot as well, and these mysteries have that in spades.

The description above gives you an idea of the basic story, at least of the first book, and I’m not one to analyze story points because in a mystery you don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that Osborn’s writing makes a tesseract that connects real and fictional continua seem completely plausible, and as someone who spent part of her childhood in Colorado (albeit in a different part), I loved the way she described it.

There are also a good number of geek culture/pop culture in-jokes and references. None of them detract from the story, but when you catch them, it’s as if you’re sharing a grin with the author.

In many ways, I feel like these books were written expressly for me (except if they were, they’d have way more frou-frou coffee in them), and even though I’d never read any of Stephanie Osborn’s work before, I feel like I can’t be objective, because these books are like literary crack. I fell in love with her characters and her world so completely that I’ve been telling all my friends “YOU MUST READ THESE!” And yes, I’ve been doing so in all caps.

Bottom line: if you love a mystery and are also into science-fiction (and I mean classic science fiction, the really good stuff), the Displaced Detective series will make you deliriously happy, especially if you enjoy a good Holmesian pastiche.

Goes well with Shepherd’s pie and a really good beer.

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Pump Up Your Book

Spotlight on: The Displaced Detective series by Stephanie Osborn

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About Book 1: The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival, by Stephanie Osborn

The-Case-of-the-Displaced-Detective-Arrival

The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival is a SF mystery in which hyperspatial physicist, Dr. Skye Chadwick, discovers there are alternate realities, often populated by those considered only literary characters. In one reality, a certain Victorian detective (who, in fact, exists in several continua) was to have died along with his arch-nemesis at the Reichenbach Falls. Knee-jerking, Skye intervenes, rescuing her hero, who flies through the wormhole connecting universes. Unable to go back, Holmes must stay in our world and learn to adapt to the 21st century.

Meanwhile, Schriever AFB Security discovers a spy ring digging out the details of – and possibly sabotaging – Project: Tesseract.

Can Chadwick help Holmes come up to speed in modern investigative techniques in time to stop the spies? Will Holmes be able to thrive in our modern world? Is Chadwick now Holmes’ new “Watson” – or more? And what happens next?

Buy your copy from Amazon:
amazon2>

The next three books in the series are also available at Amazon:

The Case of the Displaced Detective: At Speed
The-Case-of-the-Displaced-Detective-at-speed

The Case of the Cosmological Killer: The Rendlesham Incident
The-Case-of-the-Cosmological-Rendlesham

The Case of the Cosmological Killer: Endings and Beginnings
Ending-and-Beginnings

pump-divider-generalAbout the Author: Stephanie Osborn

Few can claim the varied background of Stephanie Osborn, the Interstellar Woman of Mystery.

Stephanie-Osborn-300x240

Veteran of more than 20 years in the civilian space program, as well as various military space defense programs, she worked on numerous space shuttle flights and the International Space Station, and counts the training of astronauts on her resumé. Her space experience also includes Spacelab and ISS operations, variable star astrophysics, Martian aeolian geophysics, radiation physics, and nuclear, biological, and
chemical weapons effects.

Stephanie holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in four sciences:
astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics, and she is “fluent” in several
more, including geology and anatomy.

In addition she possesses a license of ministry, has been a duly sworn, certified police officer, and is a National Weather Service certified storm spotter.

Her travels have taken her to the top of Pikes Peak, across the world’s highest suspension bridge, down gold mines, in the footsteps of dinosaurs, through groves of giant Sequoias, and even to the volcanoes of the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest, where she was present for several phreatic eruptions of Mount St. Helens.

Now retired from space work, Stephanie has trained her sights on writing. She has authored, co-authored, or contributed to more than 20 books, including the celebrated science-fiction mystery, Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281. She is the co-author of the “Cresperian Saga,” book series, and currently writes the critically acclaimed “Displaced Detective” series, described as “Sherlock Holmes meets The X-Files.” She recently released the paranormal/horror novella El Vengador, based on a true story, as an ebook.

In addition to her writing work, the Interstellar Woman of Mystery now happily “pays it forward,” teaching math and science through numerous media including radio, podcasting and public speaking, as well as working with SIGMA, the science-fiction think tank.

The Mystery continues.

Connect with Stephanie Osborn:
Website: http://www.sff.net/people/steph-osborn/
Twitter: @WriterStepth

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Watch the trailer for the Displaced Detective series:

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Review: STTNG: Cold Equations #3 – The Body Electric

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Star Trek the Next Generation: Cold Equations – The Body Electric
by David Mack

Product Description (from Amazon.com):
AT THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY . . .

A planet-sized Machine of terrifying power and unfathomable purpose hurls entire star systems into a supermassive black hole. Wesley Crusher, now a full-fledged Traveler, knows the Machine must be stopped . . . but he has no idea how.

Wesley must enlist the aid of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise crew, who also fail to halt the unstoppable alien juggernaut’s destructive labors. But they soon divine the Machine’s true purpose—-a purpose that threatens to exterminate all life in the Milky Way Galaxy. With time running out, Picard realizes he knows of only one person who might be able to stop the Machine in time to avert a galactic catastrophe—-if only he had any idea how to find him. . . .

My Thoughts:
The conclusion of David Mack’s Cold Equations trilogy was sort of TNG meets Doomsday Machine with Androids on the Side and a serious callback to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Humanesque!Data, still searching for a way to resurrect Lal, tracks down a splinter group of the group of Artificial Intelligence coalition and has to choose between the guy we originally knew as Flint and the android girlfriend who is “the only woman he ever loved” while saving the universe from a planet-eating monster-machine.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the return of Data, even if Mr. Mack did choose a book I disliked as his jumping-off point, but his whole relationship seemed so contrived, and Data as he is presented in this book seems so over-the-top with the melodrama that I had a hard time willfully suspending enough disbelief to truly enjoy this last entry in the trilogy.

On the one hand, Mack’s story was a good story, but on the other hand, I just couldn’t get invested in the new characters, which was my problem with the trilogy as a whole.

In fact, I find myself more interested in the story of rainbow-haired Ensign Scagliotti (so obviously an homage to the actress from Warehouse 13 than in Data, Flint, or the AIs.

And yet, if I hadn’t read this trilogy, I’d have missed the return of a beloved character, and I do agree with the choice to have Data NOT return to active duty.

So, overall? Glad I read these books, but kind of wanted something more satisfying.

Goes well with…lemon meringue pie…doesn’t everything?

Review: Changes, by Jim Butcher

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Changes
by Jim Butcher

Product Description (from Amazon.com):
Long ago, Susan Rodriguez was Harry Dresden’s lover-until she was attacked by his enemies, leaving her torn between her own humanity and the bloodlust of the vampiric Red Court. Susan then disappeared to South America, where she could fight both her savage gift and those who cursed her with it.

Now Arianna Ortega, Duchess of the Red Court, has discovered a secret Susan has long kept, and she plans to use it-against Harry. To prevail this time, he may have no choice but to embrace the raging fury of his own untapped dark power. Because Harry’s not fighting to save the world…

He’s fighting to save his child.

My Thoughts:
It’s been a long time since I spent any time with Harry Dresden. I bought this book in April of 2010, when it was new, and it’s been sitting on my nightstand since then – nearly THREE YEARS – not because I wasn’t interested, but because my to-be-read stack was so high.

During the first week or two of January, however, I took a break from my to-be-reviewed queue (which I’m mostly caught up with) and read a lot of escapist fiction – stuff I actually bought, stuff that was exactly what I needed after having NINE PEOPLE in my house for ten days over Christmas.

Changes did not disappoint. I found myself slipping back into Harry Dresden’s always stormy, often violent life very easily. There were a few characters I didn’t remember as well as I should have, but for the most part I was familiar with Molly (Harry’s apprentice), Karrin Murphy (bad ass cop), and Bob the Spirit in the Skull.

As to the story…it’s a mindblowing whirlwind of, well, changes. Harry finds out he’s a father, finds out his daughter is being held by the queen of the Red Court (a group of vampires that holds far too much underworld – and real world – power), finds out the Red Court is about to go all out in political and physical assault against the White Council of wizards, etc. etc.

The end, of course, involves the biggest change of all, but there’s no way to even hint at it without spoiling the story.

Suffice to say that Changes represents Jim Butcher at his best and Harry Dresden at his most base, raw self.

It is sheer awesomeness, cloaked in the form of a book.

Goes well with hot chocolate and peppermint taffy.

Review: Star Trek the Next Generation: Cold Equations #2: Silent Weapons, by David Mack

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Star Trek the Next Generation: Cold Equations #2: Silent Weapons
David Mack

Product Description (from Amazon.com):
The second book in a new trilogy by the national bestselling author of Star Trek: Destiny!

Three years after the disastrous final Borg Invasion, a bitter cold war against the Typhon Pact has pushed Starfleet’s resources to the breaking point. Now the rise of a dangerous new technology threatens to destroy the Federation from within. Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise crew answer a distress call, only to become targets in a deadly game of deception. To protect a vital diplomatic mission, they must find a way to identify the spies hiding in their midst, before it’s too late. But Worf soon realizes the crew’s every move has been predicted: Someone is using them as pawns. And the closer they get to exposing their enemy, the deeper they spiral into its trap….

My Thoughts:
I don’t know how often the second book in a trilogy is stronger than the first. Certainly it’s more likely that second books (like second movies) suffer from “middle of the story” syndrome. In the case of David Mack’s STTNG series Cold Equations, however, did not have that problem in any form. Instead, it’s a rollicking adventure that mixes politics and action in a really satisfying blend of plot and character.

I love that the Orions, whom we are used to seeing mainly as slavers and generally disreputable types are also the galaxy’s strongest defenders of personal privacy (reading this in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook, CT, school shootings was rather eerie), and have the only security system strong enough to host a meeting that involves not just the Federation President, but the leaders of at least one of the factions involved in the Typhon Pact.

As well, I like that this novel acknowledged the Typhon Pact series, which spans all of the modern era Trek series and also combines political intrigue with really lovely action, whether it’s on land or sea, or in space.

Is Data’s presence a bit contrived? Maybe a bit, but after all, the trilogy is about his return, so it would be weird for him to NOT be in the novel. Still, his new appearance and abilities are used well, and this new FullyEmotional!Data is one I wish we could get to know a bit better in a slower, gentler story…just so that we (well, I) are a bit more invested in THIS incarnation of the character.

Goes well with: espresso con panna and cinnamon rolls.

Review: Star Trek the Next Generation: Cold Equations #1 – The Persistence of Memory, by David Mack

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Star Trek the Next Generation: Cold Equations #1 – The Persistence of Memory
David Mack

Product Description (from Amazon.com):
A BRAZEN HEIST Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise crew race to find out who has stolen Data’s android brother B-4—and for what sinister purpose.

A BROKEN PROMISE One desperate father risks all for the son he abandoned forty years ago—but is he ready to pay the price for redemption?

A DARING MISSION Against overwhelming odds, and with time running out, Commander Worf has only one chance to avert a disaster. But how high a price will he pay for victory?

My Thoughts:
By now, more than ten years after his on-screen death in Star Trek: Nemesis, fans have accepted that we’re unlikely to see Brent Spiner portray Data ever again. Nevertheless, the character has a couple of different resurrection stories, one that bridges the alternate timeline established by the 2009 film Star Trek (which film, I might add, made me love Captain Kirk again), using the Star Trek Online RPG (and tie-in novel) and the Countdown comics to bring the character back, looking essentially like the Data we know and love.

With this, part one of David Mack’s new STTNG trilogy, the android is back in a different way, though both involve the copy of the Data-matrix that was uploaded into B-4 in that last NextGen movie. While this novel explains how that happens – and why – a healthy chunk of it is really the story of Data’s “father,” Noonien Soong, told in first person, and spanning the time from before the android’s creation, to what happened after Soong’s supposed death in the episode “Brothers.”

In truth, I had to force myself to read those chunks, not because Mack is a bad writer (he’s actually pretty amazing) but because I’m just not all that interested in Soong. As well, I gathered fairly early on that these books were an indirect sequel to Jeffrey Lang’s offering from 2002, Immortal Coil, which, some of you may remember, didn’t impress me much. (I actually stopped reading this book to re-read that book, and found that I liked it a little more upon a third reading.)

Still, the Soong story informs the rest of the novel, and sets up a lot of information that the reader needs to have.

And ultimately, it paid off. I mean, yes, I would rather have had more time with Picard, et al, but Mack’s writing is so good that he made characters I’d never really cared much about sing on the page, while managing to stay essentially true to both TNG and TOS canon, and Mack’s version of Data (yes, this is a spoiler, of sorts, but did anyone look at the cover art and NOT expect him to be somehow resurrected?) feels credible. I would buy his dialogue coming from Brent Spiner’s lips.

Bottom line: If you haven’t read Jeffrey Lang’s Immortal Coil, do so before this, and now that the two remaining parts of the trilogy are also available, buy all three and read them in order, back-to-back-to-back. You’ll be glad you did.

Goes well with: Iced tea. And trail mix. Lots of trail mix. The kind with m&ms in it.

Review: A Brew to a Kill by Cleo Coyle

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A Brew to a Kill
Cleo Coyle

Product Description (from Amazon.com):

Coffee. It can get a girl killed.

A shocking hit-and-run in front of her Village Blend coffeehouse spurs Clare Cosi into action. A divorced, single mom in her forties, Clare is also a dedicated sleuth, and she’s determined to track down this ruthless driver who ran down an innocent friend and customer. In the meantime, her ex-husband Matt, the shop’s globetrotting coffee buyer, sources some amazing new beans from Brazil. But he soon discovers that he’s importing more than coffee, and Clare may have been the real target of that deadly driver. Can ex-husband and wife work together to solve this mystery? Or will their newest brew lead to murder? Includes recipes.

My Thoughts

Cleo Coyle’s new Coffeehouse Mysteries have been coming out in early August for the last couple of years, which means I always use birthday money to buy them for myself. A Brew to a Kill was one of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever received. :)

This new installment of the caffeinated adventures of Clare Cosi and company incorporates two nifty modern trends, social media and cupcakes, and adds a mystery that introduces us to an old colleague of Mike Quinn’s who might be almost as cool (but only almost) as well as new friends, but rest assured the entire gang from the Village Blend is well represented, in all their slam-poetry and art-creating glory, and ex-husband Matt and his mother Madame are both deeply involved in the mystery that involves Brazilian coffee, Asian cooking, drug trafficking, class snobbery, and a mobile version of the Village Blend (if only there was such a coffee van in my neighborhood – Starbucks should deliver, at least in suburban Texas).

Of course there’s a secondary storyline about the ongoing romance between Clare and Mike, but their relationship gets a new twist thrown into it in this book. To borrow a phrase from a favorite character in a totally different genre and medium, “Spoilers, Sweetie.” Translation: I don’t do plot reveals – you’ll have to read the actual book.

What I love about Coyle’s characters is that in both the Coffeehouse Mysteries and in the Haunted Bookshop series (which next installment cannot come soon enough) the protagonists are adults. Clare is in her forties, and Penelope is a single mother. They both have multi-dimensional lives with jobs, homes, and friends, and come across as completely real people. The men, too, are very vivid. Both Mike and Matteo are guys who could easily step off the page. (I confess, however, that in my mind’s eye Mike Quinn is played by Chris Noth and Matteo is played by Michael Sheen, who is Welsh, yes, but has that dark, curly hair that is generic European).

And then there are the recipes. I’ve tried several of the recipes in the Coffeehouse books (the Donut Shop Muffins are a favorite) and not only are they well written, but they never fail to please. For someone who is notorious for having a book with her at every meal, the fact that the author gives us the ability to reproduce key foods makes the books live longer.

A Brew to a Kill was an excellent read, and I’m excited to know that another Coffeehouse Mystery is due out before Christmas. Long live Cleo Coyle! Long live the Village Blend.

Goes well with: a double cappuccino and anything chocolate (I read my copy while enjoying chocolate raspberry birthday cake).

Retro-reading: STTNG: A Time To…

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It’s no secret that I revel in escapist reading from time to time. Between January of this year, and the beginning of July, I’ve been re-reading the Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Time To… series, a collection of nine novels, the first eight of which are in pairs, that span the time between the last two Next Gen movies (Insurrection and Nemesis).

The specific novels are:
STTNG: A Time to be Born, by John Vorholt
STTNG: A Time to Die, by John Vorholt
STTNG: A Time to Sow, by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
STTNG: A Time to Harvest, by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
STTNG: A Time to Love, by Robert Greenberger
STTNG: A Time to Hate, by Robert Greenberger
STTNG: A Time to Kill, by David Mack
STTNG: A Time to Heal, by David Mack
STTNG: A Time for War, A Time for Peace, by Keith R.A. DeCandido

You can read them individually, I suppose but they’re better savored as a whole collection, and while each of them have great moments, together they give a really plausible picture of how Starfleet reacted to the events of First Contact and Insurrection, explain why Data says in Nemesis that he has no feelings after two and a half films worth of emotion chip issues, and set-up the wedding of Will Riker and Deanna Troi, and their move to the U.S.S. Titan.

It’s no secret that I’m a great fan of Keith DeCandido’s work, so it should come as no surprise that his book, the last in the series, is my favorite. His take on the canon characters is always spot-on, but he also adds a political background – think “The West Wing in Space” – that I maintain would be an awesome series in and of itself (he revists the political aspect of the United Federation of Planets in a subsequent novel, Articles of the Federation).

Star Trek novels are my comfort-books, and I often read them when my day job has me so exhausted that I don’t have the brain power for reading deeper fiction, or writing my own stuff. There’s a ten-year span of TrekFic that I think of as the “DeCandido Years” where continuity was followed and all of the writers used some of the same original characters. These are, in my opinion, the best of the genre, and the A Time To… books are the best of the era.