eBook Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night download

Simply the best Star Trek fiction I have ever encountered. The only, ONLY shame is that it's beta canon and not officially part of the lore.

Have you ever wanted to know more about an antagonist or creature but you were scared that knowing would only ruin the mystery? Well here is a story that takes one of the best and most mysterious "villains" of all time and gives them a be-all-end-all story that they truly deserve.

This novel spans almost all of known federation history and brings it all together spectacularly. The ONLY criticism I would have is that as someone who hadn't read most of the relaunch novels when I first read this, it was very difficult for me to keep track of all the characters on all of the crews. Fortunately there is an index of all main characters in the back of the book that really came in handy. I am re-reading this series now as someone who dove headlong into the relaunch novels, and now that I know the crews and characters better I am just having a blast.

If you read just one piece of beta canon Star Trek in your life, please let it be this one.

PS: This is all three books in the trilogy in one volume, which makes it a tad unwieldy to carry around. I actually recommend picking up the individual novels if you can find them, or if you have a kindle, even better to read it on there. If not (or if you don't intend to carry it around much) then reading them in this format is better than not reading it at all.

Before buying this trilogy I hadn't read any of the books that accompany the various shows. But the consensus seems to be that this series is a great starting point for post-Nemesis Trek and it typically gets glowing reviews.

If this is the best that the world of Star Trek books has to offer, I'll be giving the rest of them a hard pass.

It's a crossover story, so be prepared to be inundated by dozens of characters from several different branches of the franchise, none of whom are given enough to do in the plot. They vary between being redundant, irrelevant, or not at all like their past selves. But rest assured that all the female characters are beautiful, because Mack introduces every one of them with name, rank, description of their beauty, and one random trivia item about them. Even while they're in combat.

Also be prepared for half a dozen subplots concerning some of these minor characters. Most of the players aren't interesting and none of their backstories/subplots are, either.

Mack also ratchets up the violence and gore to surprising levels, given that Trek usually handles combat like 'shoot man with ray gun, man falls down.' Here we have people getting melted, impaled, ripped apart by high explosive rounds, disemboweled, etc. Seems to be played for shock value or as an attempt to demonstrate that the stakes are higher than they've ever been. But at the same time I didn't find the combat particularly gripping and the Hirogen attack was pretty clearly included because at that point in the narrative it had been a while since anybody had been stabbed, garroted, or shot.

It seemed to me that only Captain Hernandez's story is worth telling here. She's the key to the whole thing and the rest of the characters really only exist to find her and place her where she needs to be to resolve the plot. The whole tale tends to plod along but there were a few parts of her story that really grabbed my attention; unfortunately by trying to cram everybody into one big super-story it all falls out of focus. The deeper into the series I progressed, the more sections I tended to just skim.

The tension nearing the conclusion where the Federation leadership is watching the unstoppable Borg armada bearing down on their core worlds did grab me, although as per Star Trek rules the ending was abrupt, too clean, and not really caused by anything our heroes did. By that point all but one of the characters were spectators.

How could it have been better? I'd say chop the whole thing in half and lose all the cutesy cameos and irrelevant soap-opera stuff, for starters. Tighten the focus on the actual plot. Then you have two different stories you can tell: Hernandez's story, or the story of a starship crew fighting desperately against overwhelming odds to save the Federation (although Trek has done a pretty good job over the years of really limiting what you can do with the Borg since they're straight up better/faster/smarter/tougher than everybody else).

It's fan fiction, written to satisfy rabid fans who want more content. You'll get all the references you want and all the 'just realign the deflector array to emit a chroniton pulse' solutions that you expect. If you're not a Trek fan, or you're thinking like I was that maybe the books are worth checking out, go read something better.

I'm a very long time Trek fan. This book tells a very important story for the Trek Universe certainly, so it should not be missed by any die hard Trek fan. However, it is incredibly bloated with so many useless and pace destroying details. So many diversions into someone's thoughts and impressions. So many silly interjections, like during the hottest action sequences we might hear something like ' "Orders captain?" said the chestnut haired beautiful officer.' Really? The epilogue itself was so bloated and descriptive of how people were so relieved that the danger was finally over and how grateful they were.

This could and should have been 2 books.

This is an ambitious trilogy. This long epic utilizes many characters in a story that is now an important part of Trek’s history in the novels. Sometimes things get confusing as the tale jumps between different characters in different periods of time and different locations. Some of the characters are written excellently and others mediocrely. Ezri Dax is written well in this tale. I really enjoyed her portrayal. I liked this trilogy despite its flaws. If you are a Trek fan you will probably be entertained.

I wanted some good fan fic to get a Star Trek fix since what's being made for TV right now isn't exactly floating my starship. But this left me disappointed. The writing was uncreative and stilted. Too many adjectives and unimportant details included. Not enough action. It was reminiscent of the famous Nancy Drew style of writing. Which is cool when we're talking about charming 50's children's literature. Not as appealing for middle aged women who just want to know how good of a captain William Riker makes. I read about five chapters and I just couldn't keep going. Maybe it gets better? I hope you have the courage to find out.

Just go ahead and buy all 3 books together. There's no way you will only be able to read the first one and stop so go all in here. A wonderfully complex and rich epic, encompassing thousands of years, 4 Star Trek shows and the birth and death of the Borg. This is one you WILL keep going back to, I have already re-read it twice. Awesome as well to get a full Columbia/Erika Hernandez story as I always felt she was short-changed on the show.