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The Stuff of Dreams
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The Stuff of Dreams
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Thanks for the review, Andrea. I just bought this as a result. Looking forward to it!
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Awesome! You'll have to post your thoughts here when you're done.
Andrea, you nailed it in your description. The story was an excellent threading of the needle -- multiple needles -- in being a stand-alone tale, remaining in the Typhon Pact continuity and adding depth to consideration of a movie that, let's be honest, doesn't hold up all that well. The novella length was perfect. The book was mercifully short of padding.
Possible spoilers below!
Overall I liked this book. It was well paced, and was gripping enough to keep me reading it straight through in one go during my six-hour flight to Philadelphia.
I really enjoyed the revisiting of Picard's experience in the Nexus. It was handled in such a way that more fully closes out his experiences in Generations, as if he's at peace once again with the universe and the direction that his life has taken him. I also appreciated the fact that Swallow took the time to flesh out Tolian Soran. In the movie I always felt nothing but dislike for him, but in this novella you begin to understand his motives, and actually feel for the man.
One thing I've found with a few of the recent Trek releases that have pulled away from the Typhon Pact timeline, is they often feel entirely disconnected from the current universe. They feel entirely like one-shots that were released because the publisher didn't have any other material at the time. This novella, while focusing on the mysterious Nexus, is still linked to the greater storyline that's taking place post-Destiny trilogy.
While I don't think this book has the flash-bang of many other Trek titles on the market in the past few years, this is one that definitely explores the "what-ifs".