Carey tends to be one of my preferred Star Trek authors, because her focus on characterisation is something that appeals to me. In this book, that characterisation is pretty much entirely on the main character... who is not on the cover. I suspect marketing took over there, as while Spock and McCoy are in this book, neither of them are the protagonist. A random human isn't as likely to get casual fans to pick up the novel. Stiles, the Starfleet officer who is the central character here, is I think original. I don't love a focus on original characters in Trek - honestly I prefer canon protagonists - but it's nice to have a change occasionally and this is done reasonably well. I do think there's some repetition here, and I'm sure this book is quite a bit longer than the first two in the series. That gives it scope for a bit of extra depth, however, and the fact that the book takes place over a number of years allows for character development over time, which we don't always get in the tie-in novels.

It's not Carey's best work, but if I'm going to be stuck with original characters in Trek, I'd rather read another novel about Stiles than anything with, for example, MacKenzie Calhoun, who I find absolutely unbearable.