The really morbid parts of my curiosity wants to read the books to, but that'd mean either an embarassing pruchase at the book store or some really terrible Amazon suggestions.
Anyway, yeah, the books do read like bad fan-fiction from everything I've read about them. Here's a good sum-up of them:
LINK
Spoilers, obviously, lurk in that link.
The books are actually ALL online. That's how I read them. Google is your friend, Trekker.
Copyright infringement isn't, however, my friend.