This year seemed to be the year of the big series. If you didn't like a series or two then it would be a pretty lean year of Star Trek books to read. I happily read them all, but I wasn't overly impressed with any of them either ...instead much prefering the few one-offs that were released.
First of all, the pre-Destiny TNG books. What started off as okay in Resistance and Q&A (even if Q&A was trying to tie too many random strings together from the series), got muddied with the poorly-characterised, showboat-plotting and out of place quips in Before Dishonor. It's like Peter David was told he could go nuts, because everyone forgot that he could really go nuts with a book, and so Greater Than the Sum felt like damage control to lead into Destiny. The shame is that Greater Than The Sum was a good book in its own right with an interesting entity to explore, but instead we had to put a fair amount of focus onto yet another new crew and the remaining characters all having to deal with being out-of-character...with it all having to wrap up nicely in time for Destiny.
Destiny was a blast to read. Well, at least parts were. The overall theme of the borg and the all out war was too over the top. The previous books had already made me very bored of the borg and the devistation and impact of the series made me want a nice, simple book with a few good ideas, a bit of drama and interplay between a crew. What I did like were the steps away from this main plot. Like the Columbia and Caeliar, interplay between the crew members, the politics around it all, etc. I did enjoy it all ...it was just all a bit too long and too much, and I'd like a little while with a few similar books. But I am hearing that this crossovering is going to carry on so I don't know if I'll get my wish.
Another series was Terok Nor, which I personally enjoyed a lot (at least in the beginning), but I can see why some people struggled to like it. You'd have to be interest in the long term Epic changes of Bajor, which doesn't leave much room to really get to know characters or the immediate situations that they are in. If you just want to have another fun adventure or tradition Star Trek then this wasn't the series and you'd have to make a 3 book commitment to get the most out of it. My favourite of the series was Swallow's initial Day of the Vipers, but the following books we a bit of a letdown and it eventually felt like a grind to get to the end.
Not quite a series, but certainly a constant theme through this year, were the mirror and myriad universes. I loved the mirror universe stuff because it was a continuous story and I felt committed to seeing it through to the end. Myriad not so much. It was just pulp "what if" stuff and while fun it still didn't satisfy my desire for more Trek because it felt so removed. Just like Mirror. Just like Terok Nor. Just like the half-dozen Destiny books, if I was really honest.
The only real downer on the year was Vulcan's Soul 3. I haven't really liked any of them but I was committed to seeing it to the end. I don't think I'll read any more of this line if they come out. It has interesting stuff in like the whole Vulcan/Romulan/Reman stuff ...but the stories running through it are boring, tedious to read, and like the Shatnerverse novels it's more of a fan service to a small group than an extension to the overall universe being built up by all the other series.
This is why my highlights of the past year were all the one-offs or serial books that can be read as such. A Burning House, Forged in Fire, Sword of Damocles and Kobayashi Maru were all fantastic. More of this sort of thing please
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