text: I enjoyed the parts regarding the S.S. Valiant, but the later part of the book simply didn't work for me. Except for Picard, who we of course know quite well from the series, the other characters were flat and uninteresting. We never find out what is motivating the alien attackers and they are the cardboard cutout enemy-of-the-week, boring. The whole "adversarial" situation with the 1st Officer also just struck me as odd and wrong, and was just not developed correctly or fleshed out beyond being another cardboard enemy for Picard
  