Fun as Peter David was given free reign to create a brand new crew for a brand new Trek series and he came up with a great mix of humans, aliens and personalities.
He then a mission that has a nice little twist on the usual exploration of the galaxy stuff.

The only problem is, like nearly everything PAD writes, he tends to get too caught up in being funny and clever and after awhile it gets annoying. There are some bits of humor that work ( any line from the chief of security) but after awhile you get tired of the 'best and the brightest' talking like the cast of 'Friends'.

I will cut him slack because the man knows his Trek history and always makes good use of it and I liked these characters.
Shame these guys didn't get a TV or movie series. Would have been more entertaining than 'Enterprise'