I've been on a good run of Trek books lately, and this is another better-than-average addition to the franchise, which is all the more astonishing as it strongly features Data. I know he has a lot of fans, but I've never cared that much for him. The slavish desire to be human is not a motivation which has ever garnered any sympathy from me, so when a story like this comes along, in which his motivation is the identification and development of android rather than human culture, I am infinitely more interested. It seems to me that diversity in Trek is best served by characters being true to what they are instead of trying to fit the norms of something else, which might explain why Data's never really struck a chord with me. It helps that Mancour has cut way back on the tedious, irritating characterisation which writers seem to love, admittedly based on the show, that has Data never understanding idiom or slang. (Just fucking feed him Brewer's and be done with it, why don't you, the constant misunderstanding wasn't even funny the first time round.)

But anyway. The Enterprise comes across a group of androids, fleeing enslavement by their creators. Those androids had engaged in violent terrorist actions in order to get free, and the creators want to hold them accountable and ultimately execute them for it, so Picard is in a moral quandary when it comes to which side to take. Admittedly, not much of a quandary as the author's sympathy for the androids makes it plain who's going to come out on top, but it's the route taken that's the main point of interest here, and that's Data's immediate identification with the androids, and his deliberate manipulations to ensure their survival. It's just all very well done... with one very small exception.

The one note here I didn't care for had Data taking one of the aliens to the holodeck to interact with a hologram of Spartacus. There's a few throwaway lines where Spartacus rakes said alien over the coals for following a woman. Now granted, Alkirg is a terrible person and a worse leader, but her gender is not the reason why. And granted, Spartacus is a product of his time, blah de blah, but no character queries this, and neither Data nor the author point out that recognition of slavery and bigotry change over time, and that the prejudice that androids are somehow subhuman was a prejudice that was once applied to women as well. That connection isn't made, and so this throwaway sequence, which is in no way necessary to the plot, is just there to be nasty. A novel as otherwise thoughtful as this should not have lowered itself.