Today’s episode is actually three episodes! The Federation manages to steal a Jem’Hadar ship in one episode, only for it to get shot down the next, and all the while, the surprise appearances of multiple teenagers make several people uncomfortable. When can you start to see the Diane Carey traces? If we believe hard enough in art, will it do something? And how can I minimize my Fandom exposure levels? All this and more in A Call to Arms, the book that’s here to kick ass and chew toothpicks.
Peter David, a writer beloved for his literary takes on dozens of popular franchise characters across a variety of media, died on May 24, 2025. He suffered a number of health issues in the final decade-plus of his life, including, in 2022 alone, multiple strokes, kidney failure, and a heart attack. He was 68 years old.
David was extremely prolific in the world of Star Trek novels, writing almost fifty between 1989 and 2011, nearly half of which belonged to the New Frontier series, his biggest and most ambitious footprint on the franchise, a sandbox all his own that successfully melded the cowboy sensibilities of the original series with the more strait-laced bureaucracy of the 90s shows and allowed him to indulge some of the more risqué and dangerous elements that were considered anathema by some of the less adventurous stewards of the TV arm of the franchise. Under the command of Mackenzie Calhoun, who was once the young leader of a revolution on his home world of Xenex and is still unpacking a lot of the trauma from those years, the Ambassador-class starship Excalibur holds it down in the Beta Quadrant while the Dominion War rages on elsewhere, its crew standing up to adversity with an ample supply of David’s trademark humor and humanity at every turn.
Some of David’s other Trek novels, like Q-in-Law, Imzadi, and I, Q (which I’m personally looking very forward to getting to as we approach the books of 1999), remain fan-favorite takes on their main characters to this day.
He was also a big name in comics, being lauded by fans for his similarly pensive takes on Aquaman and the Hulk in the 1990s.
David didn’t always hit the mark—his earlier Trek works were sometimes derailed by gratuitous puerility—but he always wrote with an inimitable style and could never be accused of merely taking the paycheck. He had a knack for naturalistic dialogue that many writers spend their whole lives reaching for and never get close to grasping. His own voice was a rare one in the world of Trek, one that strove to bring a different, more modern sense of humor to the franchise while still aspiring to its original ideals—and, more often than not, succeeded. He will be dearly missed.
In today’s episode, the universe won’t even allow Ro Laren to keep a Canadian boyfriend. But she possesses some important intel that will be crucial in stopping the Dominion from carrying out Wormhole II: Artificial Boog-a-loo. Will Data give in to the temptation to run horrors_of_war.exe?Will today’s canned fish populate tomorrow’s aquariums? And is there anything Picard won’t tug on? All this and more in Behind Enemy Lines, the book with the ACTION FLAP.
Fellow Trekkie and friend of the site Adam Selvidge runs an excellent website called Star Trek Book Club, which compiles the latest and greatest in Trek lit news and reviews. Recently, he reached out with an opportunity I was more than happy to pounce on: he asked me if I’d like to write a piece for a fledgling feature on the site called TrekLit Connection, in which figures in the world of Star Trek lit-crit recount some of their histories with Trek writing and literature and talk about the events and ideas that led up to their current projects. I did just that, and he posted it a couple days ago. Go check it out posthaste! There are some parts of the origin story that I’m not sure I’ve ever talked about on here, so even long-time readers are liable to learn something new. I’m incredibly honored to have been asked to do this, and revisiting the road that eventually culminated in Deep Space Spines brought me a lot of warm fuzzies.
Next review should be out very soon, by the way.
In today’s episode, a misguided admiral teams up with a mysterious partner to bring one planet’s Fountain of Youth to the rest of the Federation. But the scowling man with unnaturally stretch skin draped in robes and jewels seemed so trustworthy! Will there ever be another Search for Spock–level novelization? Does Picard have a crush on his dead mom? And shouldn’t Worf know more Earth references? All this and more in Star Trek: Insurrection, the film that un-grows the beard.
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