Interesting turn of phrase. I would submit that Titan was primarily shaped by Marco Palmieri's "liking;" the series premise he developed just happened to be a very close fit to what would've been my own approach to writing an original starship-exploration series. In general, Marco and I just seemed to have very similar approaches.
More generally, I think that a lot of Trek novelists over the decades have been given the freedom to interpret Star Trek in a way that reflected their own individual styles -- Diane Duane, Vonda McIntyre, Diane Carey, Peter David, David Mack, Ilsa J. Bick, etc. And while individuals would naturally prefer some writers' characteristic styles over others, I think giving authors the freedom to make ST their own, to bring their own distinctive voices and visions to the premise, has enabled the greater body of Trek literature to be richer and more memorable than if we were all obligated to conform to some generic house style. Indeed, I shouldn't say "if," because that was pretty much the case for much of the '90s, and few people would count that as a high point for Trek Lit. This past decade, largely thanks to Marco, Trek Lit was able to aspire to something higher, with authors encouraged to follow their own muses rather than subsume their individuality. I'm simply one beneficiary of that greater freedom.
