It isn't Renegade. Nor is the book physically bigger than a breadbox. And no one yet has even guessed the author.
Mhh, hint 1 eliminates quite a few authors, hint 2 eliminates KRAD, hint 3 eliminates everything by PAD or MJF. The only author with more than twenty Trek books and who was active 15 years ago, I can think of right now is Diane Carey. So my guess would be: Best Destiny?
O.K., I give up then. Even after checking Memory Beta I couldn't find another author/writing team with more than 20 trek books. According to the site the Reeves-Stevens have 18 and D.W.Smith has 18 (and the only novel fitting the 15 year criteria was a DS9 novel anyway),too. Must be overlooking someone.
What about Diane Duane? Unfortunately, I can't make any guesses since the only book of hers I've read is Dark Mirror and that was The Next Generation.
Dingdingdingdingding!! And the kewpie doll goes to the starship in the fetching sombrero! I'm curious how you guessed it. But the next quote is yours.
After your comment that I overlooked someone I went to my Star Trek shelves and looked for a name that turns up often, but I haven't thought about yet. That way I got Vornholt, somehow he never comes to my mind when thinking about people with lot of trek books, don't know why really. And Sanctuary (or rather "Zuflucht", the German translation) was just the first TOS book of him I saw on the shelve. New Quote: Since my return, the Captain has kept me busy with reports and cultural briefings, but it hasn't been enough to make me forget that I'm no longer certain I belong here. Let the record state that I tried everything I could think of to keep from making the Prime Directive violation any worse than it already was. I did my best to fulfill my responsibility as a Starfleet officer.