After the disaster of the borg invasion the Federation and Klingons are rebuilding but a new alliance of ancient enemies is forming.

An interesting collection of short stories surrounding the rebuilding of the Federation. ( )

Ah, the good old days when you could pick up a Star Trek novel and just read it. Of course, you had to be familiar with whichever show it belonged to (The Next Generation, Original Series, Deep Space Nine, Voyager), but other than that, you were good to go. They were basically stand alone non-canon goodness. But then, they (Pocket, et. al.) started doing massive crossovers of all the serieses. But still, if you knew all the shows it was mostly okay, and you could go with the flow and they rehashed enough in the books that you could put it together. But now... Not only do you need to know all the shows, but to truly understand the books it helps to read them in order, not just in their respective series, (whether that be the TV ones, or the new novel only ones like New Frontier, Titan, Vanguard), from all different times. Some of these story lines have never been anywhere near a TV or movie screen. Confusing. (Also, causing my To Be Read pile/list to go all to hell).

Still, the book itself was awesome. It was an intricately constructed political novel about the fallout of the Destiny crisis. With information appearing in the beginning or middle of the book that applies to things that are in the end of the book. It's up there with Q-Squared in regards to how tightly its put together. Though, that one was more of an action story and this one is most definitely political in nature. Also DeCandido is quite the author, creating characters that almost always inspire some sort of feeling by the reader, whether it be positive or negative. ( )

I found the Destiny trilogy, which promised to massively shake up the Star Trek universe, a little underwhelming in the end. Sure, Deneva was destroyed, along with some other planets, but you tell me how much impact Deneva has had on Star Trek since 1967. I guess we could get a bunch of post-disaster reconstruction stories, but we already had the same opportunity with the Dominion War, and we weren't exactly swamped in fascinating tales then, either. But A Singular Destiny released more potential for interesting stories than the entire Destiny trilogy did, and I'm really looking forward to stories featuring the Typhon Pact. As for the book itself, it was pretty good. Keith has always been good at constructing sprawling adventures, and A Singular Destiny is no exception. The book takes in innumerable places and characters, but never feels like it's gone too far; it's especially nice to see some of the S.C.E. characters again. Keith's knack for characterization is as strong as always (especially with the Aventine crew), except maybe where it was needed most: Sonek Pran, the book's protagonist, just wasn't terribly interesting, mostly because he seemed too capable and imperturbable most of the time. Even the book's final tragedy (gently avoiding spoilers here) didn't give us too much insight into him or have much relevance. The book's central mystery is compelling, but though the reveal is good, it is somewhat underwhelming since it feels irrelevant in the end. As the characters themselves point out, news as big as this wouldn't have been hidden forever (indeed, an official announcement was coming in a month), and unfortunately, the Federation doesn't seem to actually get much out of Pran's early discovery. Still, these are mostly niggles: a strong, enjoyable book, making good use of the Destiny trilogy and its big events, giving me a renewed hope in the future of the Star Trek novel line.

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13771741