Surprise McCoy novel! I was surprised to find this book focuses a lot on McCoy’s POV and I was happy because McCoy is probably my favourite, if not one of my favourite Star Trek characters overall. It also focuses on Kirk and mentions the rule that Captains limit how many away missions they go on and there’s a funny line mentioning how stupid it is and that Kirk hopes it doesn’t sound around. Given the context of TNG, it was funny. This book was ok to decent overall though. Crandall has a really good grasp of the characters, particularly McCoy as I was reading his words and actions felt very much like him.

The creature they encountered was like a less terrifying version of the thing from Nope. But there’s been far more interesting creatures or comzans seen in TOS, and Star Trek as a whole. The finale was largely enjoyable with Kirk trying to outsmart a Romulan commander with little to no power on the ship. This was basically TOS’s take on the Mary Celeste. Overall, the book was enjoyable but the creature behind everything wasn’t interesting enough and we don’t even learn what it is. There’s the usual plot twist of it being pregnant, which is a weirdly recurring trope in Star Trek. Anyway, I would rate this 7/10