This novel is baffling, not in the sense of understanding the narrative, but in the sense of why the author thought his choices would at all be compelling to his readers. Much of the novel is not really focused on anything but the personal travails of crewmembers (including some kind of insectoid alien shedding their exoskeleton and thus undergoing some kind of puberty) on the U.S.S. Enterprise, captained by the lunk only seen in the seventh Star Trek film. Then it zeros in on a Star Fleet operation that is so patently stupid that one wonders if everyone in the Star Trek universe was a moron between The Original Series and The Next Generation.

Indiana University academic Murray Sperber appears to make a cameo appearance as a crew member; as best as I can tell the author had no connection to IU. ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.asp?ID=994 ( )