I have to admit that, through no fault of his own, Peter David had an uphill battle with me on this one. I didn't much care for "The Squire of Gothos" episode that this novel's based on, and in general I have very little interest in stories about spoiled brats getting apocalyptic powers and going all libertarian on the rest of us. It didn't help that he decided to underline this by adding in yet another snotty little brat, the twelve year old son of alternate-universe-Troi-and-Riker, who was so consistently obnoxious that I just hoped he'd get spaced. Alas. I don't know what it is about TNG kids that's so goddamn unappealing... Jake Sisko and Nog and Naomi Wildman all managed to be likeable, realistic characters.

Anyway. Despite the brats and the love triangle I couldn't care less about, the advantage here was the pacing. I've read several Star Trek novels by David over the years, and his pacing consistently works for me. It zips along, and even relatively long novels like this one seem to fly by. There's so much flipping between timelines here that it might have been easy to get bogged down trying to distinguish between them, but it's all managed very well. (I hate to imagine the drafts! There must have been arrows and notes and reconfiguration galore...) 

So, yeah. Generally fun, but I hope to god Tommy Riker and Trelane never turn up again. They're unbearable. I did like Nurse La Forge, though... that'd be an alternate universe thread I'd love to read more of.