As much as I love Star Trek, I am really struggling with this series... and with my goal of reading all the Trek novels I can get my hands on.

The problem, I think, is that I just don't care about any of the characters. There's a small number I'm indifferent to, and the others I actively dislike. I was so close to giving this book two stars, on the grounds that it hardly had any Calhoun in it and was therefore automatically two hundred percent less insufferable. But I can't get past the soap opera ending, or Commander Shelby actually pulling aside an officer to question them about whether the crew thinks she has a crush on the captain. How old are these people?! I compare it to TNG, for example, which was crewed by adults, and the difference is fucking baffling.