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This is a delightful collection of stories. They have as much heart, humour, and excitement as the tv show and I want more. Much much more! I enjoyed all three books. They are quick to read, each of them 150 pages long with larger than usual print. I think this is a great format for Prodigy stories outside of the show. But I doubt there will ever be more since P+ has kicked the show out.

Two of the books were written by Cassandra Rose Clarke, who also wrote the TNG novel "Shadows Have Offended". I want more of her writing in Star Trek.

All three books introduce us to a new world and new species, which were all fun and interesting to explore. I am particularly fond of the garbage pile and its inhabitants in Clarke's "Escape Route" though. I thought that was a great idea to have a world like that in the Trek universe.

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I have only ever read one "choose your own adventure" book, but that was prose and worked with rolling dice. So I guess that's more a solo RPG than a "choose your own adventure". Anyway, with "Warp Your Own Way" you do not roll dice, but choose where to go yourselves; usually out of two, sometimes three options. The story gets pretty dark, like Star Trek does sometimes, but it is also hilarious like the tv show. It is a clever, well thought out adventure that I hope we'll see more of. And I'm sure this style of book would work for all Trek series. If it weren't a spoiler, I'd show you my journal where I have built a flow chart of all the paths there are and where they lead. After a while I needed it to remember where I had already gone and which options I hadn't chosen yet. And even then I got confused a few times. 😅

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I guess these early novels that spend a lot of time exploring Vulcan bonding and mating and mind melding are just not my thing. I respect them a lot however. These early writes, many of them women, were pioneers and absolutely essential for shaping our fandom.

The actual epidemic this book is about reminded me of our own Covid-19 epidemic and it was interesting to see how it has the potential to sow dispute and distrust, though I would have liked that part to be a bigger focus. Unfortunately that was not the case. A lot of the story was about people falling in love in the midst of it all. There was also a natural disaster and some berserk Vulcans (holdovers from the earlier book "The Vulcan Academy Murders"), that have no problem whatsoever to circumvent the Enterprise's security. Nothing was really explored in the detail I wished it were, and a lot did not quite click for me.

However, there is a scene between Spock and Sarek about Spock's mixed heritage that I found really good. The Klingon forhead ridge thing is also mentioned, pretty much in passing, and I wonder if the Enterprise writers had read this book before they wrote their story.

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Set shortly before "The Emissary", DS9's pilot episode, this novel is a great opportunity to meet a lot of the station's crew for the very first time - kind of 😉. Being written now, 30 years after DS9 started and with a lot more onscreen Trek story to work with, I love that there are connections to the new stuff. It's always been there, even though it was never shown. Another part I loved a lot was everything with the O'Briens. Geordi acknowledges Miles' dutiful transporter room work, and we get great scenes between Keiko and Miles where they talk about their future and possible change of scenery. This book is really good at filling in some character backgrounds. Speaking of Keiko: She gets something meaningful to do with Beverly on Bajor, which I loved seeing. There are so many little things that I loved: a meta-comment on the same actors playing two different characters; a fun scene between Garak, Geordi, Data, and Dukat; Sonya Gomez; a fun scene with Beverly and a Warp Core Breach; probably most notably a scene between Garak and Odo; and more.

One part of the story is set in a Cardassian labour camp. There are some descriptions of violence against Bajoran prisoners. They are not easy to listen to/ read, but I am also glad the author did not shy away from being specific. This is what's been happening in such camps all throughout history and it needs to stay in our consciousness.

There is a good deal of focus on the fact that the Federation never came to help Bajor during its occupation by the Cardassians. This is especially topical now where we are talking about how much we should and shouldn't help countries like the Ukraine. It also adds to the long going discussion about the Prime Directive. I like how several characters acknowledge this and don't try to explain and excuse their way out of this decision, but rather accept the criticism and offer their help now.

After the main story ended there was a lot of transitioning towards even closer before "The Emissary". I found that part a bit slow and I caught myself drifting off a couple of times. But that is strictly personal taste, and did not hamper my enjoyment of the book overall.

As always I'm going to repeat my praise for the narrator, Robert Petkoff. He hits the characters' voices even more perfectly this time around. I think this might be his best work yet (of those I listened to at least).

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