Parker

What a delightful surprise!

I stumbled upon this book by chance, catching my eye in a small local bookshop, which had it on display due to the author calling this very state home.

I was intrigued by the promise of a fantasy adventure through the woods, written with the experience of an actual park ranger, and I was not let down. I learned a few things I didn't know about caring for the forest, and about the creatures who live there, creatures that are all real, by the way. So not a lot of fantasy in this fantasy, really the only thing ‘fantasy' about it is the made up kingdoms and the cultures that reside in them, so beware if that's a problem for you.

As a reader, I'm usually pretty forgiving of plot contrivances, if I can see a clear reason for their inclusion. In my view, especially in a more adventurous novel such as this one, there's an unspoken understanding between author and reader, that you may need to stretch the logic a few character choices and motivations in order to create interesting situations for our characters to navigate. All that is to say, I must tip my hat to Mrs. Martin. The few instances where I felt things were a little contrived, the main examples being how quickly Mae agrees to help the Allistaires, and how quickly Valien dismisses the idea that Mona and her brothers are royalty, were perfectly explained by the twist reveal of Mae's true allegiance at the end. A classic case of unreliable narrator, a trope that can so easily leave the reader feeling annoyed and betrayed, executed in a very skillful way.

Very keen to read the other two books in this series; I already know I'm gonna be sad when it's over.

I had never read a TNG relaunch novel before this one, but I started here because the story arc with the Enterprise crew exploring the Odyssean Pass seemed interesting to me. I was a bit worried about jumping in so late in the Star Trek novel timeline, but the book does a good job of filling the reader in on necessary backstory without giving too much detail.

I enjoyed the way the book used the character of T'Ryssa Chen as somewhat of a POV, getting her perspective on a lot of the important story events. Initially, I was a bit put off by such a focus on a novel-original character that I knew nothing about (from what I can tell, Chen is a fairly major character in the TNG novels, so this is probably just a me problem), but it ended up being a non-issue because I found her a really fun character to spend time with. Interesting as well, because she is a half Human, half Vulcan who leans more towards her human side, something we don't see super often in Trek. Plus, she's just super adorable.

My only issue with the book, is that the ending let it down a little. The twist towards the end didn't really land for me (we learn that the aliens in the time ship are actually double agents working for the other set of warring aliens, but this doesn't really change much in the end because they decide not to blow up either planet anyway), and the way the conflict was resolved felt just a smidge cheap IMO.

Never mind all that, I'm off to binge the rest of the post-TV Next Gen novels and then the Voyager relaunch after that and then might as well do a TNG rewatch while I'm at it somebody please send help