Star Trek Book

I just finished reading what is probably the best Star Trek novel ever written. Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. I read it for the first time a good while a go, I was probably in 8th grade or so. I knew then that it was a book I would probably re-read someday, but since I'd borrowed it from the library, I couldn't exactly keep it. Recently, I found a copy for less than a buck in the Amazon Marketplace, and acquired it. Now, about a year later, I've finally gotten around to reading it.

It's hard to describe much of what transpires in the book without giving it all away. What I will say, however, is that it was written before the First Contact movie and portrays a much more realistic first contact scenario, and a much more realistic Zephram Cochrane.

What I like most about this book is that, while acknowledging and confronting the ugliest side of humanity, it's still optimistic about us and the progress that we will make. Much like the rest of the Star Trek universe, but with less of the blind allegiance and abject stupidity that often crops up.

That said, it's also a great space romp, and will bend your brain thinking about time, space, and space-time. If you let it, anyway.

Honestly, it's stories like this that keep my faith in modern culture, we're still thinking, questioning, exploring, just in different backdrops. As I'm learning to be open to them, I can only hope that others are too.