How can I say not that great. The characters were cookie cutter versions of themselves. I guess that is to be excepted when reading a teen novel about a favored franchisee. The story was a little interesting, but the story itself is a big let down. The best parts are seeing Kirk grow in his dumb down version to be the captain he is in the movies and tv shows. The villain in the book bad. Not bad like he's an evil person, but bad as in they used a really lame villain. I won't ruin who the villain is but I feel they over exposed this villain in the different TV series and doesn't make sense to have in this book. The villain really ruined the whole story. If the villain was who were are to believe they are then it changes everything we know about this villain. They did not act like one bit like how they act normally. They were more like a little kitten playing with a ball string than the big bad alien race we know them as. I say this book lacked a lot. The only good thing in the whole book was seeing Kirk take field test and try and pass them. Nothing to do with the main plot of the book.

One more thing, to understand who the villain was you have had to watch the TV series or at least one movie that was not part of the original Star Trek crew. I hate when they do that.