The most interesting part of this novelization was the bits of background that aren't actually canonical. In canon, Beverly and Captain Picard knew each other well before Bev's husband's death—and Data wasn't built by an alien race! It also plays up Riker's prejudice against Data in a way that the filmed episodes don't, particularly (a trend in the novels—I think they must have briefed their writers that that was a bigger plot point than it ended up being).

Made for a good fun reading at the time I read it. It's the novelization of the pilot episode. I read it pretty fast, but I had seen the TV episode. ( )

While D.C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry's "Encounter at Farpoint" storyline set up many of the ideas that drove The Next Generation, it feels tonally disjointed compared with much of the rest of the series. David Gerrold's novel continues this, serving more as a promotion for the then-new Star Trek series than as a novel in its own right. Encounter at Farpoint reads more like high-concept science fiction from Asimov or Bradbury than a Star Trek novel in the same series as the others that Pocket Books subsequently released in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Despite having a series bible, the showrunners would not flesh out many of the characters for some time, leaving some of that for Gerrold to do on his own in the novel. The result feels out of place compared with what came later. For example, Commander William Riker goes by "Bill" (pg. 79) and is uncertain about working with Data (pgs. 111, 124-125, and 130) while Lt. Commander Data uses contractions (pg. 9) and was found on Kiron III where he was created by aliens (pg. 130). Riker never goes by "Bill" in the series and the director trimmed his initial interaction with Data down to something less prejudiced. Data used contractions in a couple of the early episodes, but the writers quickly decided he could not do this. Additionally, the first season episode "Datalore" established that a human, Dr. Noonian Soong, created Data on the planet Omicron Theta. One of Gerrold's nice additions describes Admiral Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy's decision and journey to visit the Enterprise-D on her first cruise (pg. 97). Gerrold also portrays Captain Jean-Luc Picard reading the show's opening narration into the ship's log (pg. 10), a cheesy, if enjoyable, moment. Overall, Encounter at Farpoint, liked the television episode from which Gerrold adapted it, succeeds in building interest in this new Enterprise and her crew. ( )

Longest journey commences: Every Star Trek ever. ( )

Pilot episode for the TV show. I read it after I had been watching for awhile, and so probably mentally added to the characters more than was there, but I enjoyed reliving the episode. ( )