No Time Like the Past by Greg Cox 

Genre: sci-fi

I read it as a(n): paperback

Length: 388 pp

Her Grace’s rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

On an away mission to a planetoid with a weird reading, Seven is swept back in time to the 23rd century. Specifically, to Kirk’s Enterprise. What follows is a quest through space-time to gather the scattered pieces of the device that sent Seven back while at the same time trying not to pollute the timeline, evading a band of Orions who want Seven for themselves, dealing with an unknown traitor, and getting Seven back to her time before the lack of regeneration does her in.

This was a fun read. Not the very best Trek book ever but not even close to the worst. I don’t generally enjoy crossover novels that much – a large part of why the vast collection of relaunch books irritate me – but this one was very well done. I think the crossover aspect was partly why it took me until the end of 2022 to read this one rather than when it was actually published.

The plot was interesting, if somewhat pedestrian, and I think Cox did a great job getting the interactions between Seven and the original crew right. Seven finally understood the relationship between Tuvok and Neelix after seeing the banter between Spock and Bones. It’s always a pleasure to see Spock and Bones bicker like an old married couple, when it’s done well.

My main issue was that the Orions were like a bad rash that keeps cropping up. A couple times it felt like they were dropped into the plot just because they were the Bad Guys in this story. It was a little forced in that regard. And there were a couple other scenes that I think could have been shorter or eliminated altogether. But in the scheme of things, that’s not so bad.

My favorite part wasn’t a single part, per se. It was the jaunt back through a few of the best episodes of TOS. I loved that. I would love more of it across all the Star Trek series, even if it means crossovers. Just so long as they’re standalone stories, please.