The Last Best Hope

I'm not sure exactly what I expected from this book. I knew it was intended to serve as background material for the new Star Trek: Picard series, and I knew it dealt with how and why Jean-Luc left Starfleet – the book did fulfill those small expectations. But what I did not expect was that the story itself would be so darn depressing – not what one (or, at least this reader) expects from the franchise. In the past, Star Trek (in almost all of its incarnations) has been more about inspiring stories, of overcoming what seem at the outset to be insurmountable difficulties, but ultimately providing an uplifting conclusion to whatever tale is being told. With a title such as “Last Best Hope” I did expect that to continue but I was quite disappointed to see this was not going to be the case. I can only hope that the series itself provides that positive approach, because it certainly was not present in this book. The author did do a fairly decent job with the characters (both familiar and new) and the prose itself was well-formed and easy to consume. It's just that the thing being consumed was not one that left a good taste. Earl Grey, cold.