Initial thoughts: Really enjoyed the intro with the Enterprise's younger senior staff. The novel-crew can be wooden sometimes in other books, but they definitely felt like real people here; a lot of fun banter. I'm hoping this continues through.
Of the TNG series, I've been feeling like so many words and pages have featured characters like Konya, Elfiki, and Smrhova but they've yet to really stand out as people to me the way Taurik and Chen's coverage have given them. They've tended to have really simple characterizations and motivations to me. Dygan has been a little more explored, but he also just kind of feels like 'New Age, Nice Cardassian Guy' that was pretty well covered with Dakal from Titan. And I am still patiently waiting for Faur to be more than Conn officer that also has a recurring name.
Titan, overall, has done a great job fleshing out its characters that really feels like a crew... like a family. Even the Aventine crew feels like they have fun together. And in my ST, I've always felt like it is at its best when the characters are a family, and that really started for me in TNG proper. So I've been a bit saddened that the age and experience gap between the senior officers of the current Enterprise is so huge that it really just feels like just a senior staff; a bunch of people at work. The young kids do their things, the old guard do theirs.. with very few intimate character interactions between the gap aside from Chen's relationship with Picard, which isn't even that big of a deal anymore either. And I don't mean like Worf pushing Smrhova to be a better officer and to believe in herself. I mean situations like Dr. Crusher teaching Data how to tap dance.