Jean Lorrah, who had previously penned Survivors for The Next Generation book series delivered the first Giant Novel in the Star Trek line. Once again, it focuses on Data.

Sure Data was an interesting character, but the rest of the Enterprise-D crew gets the short-shrift in this story. But that may be a blessing for the characters. Much like the episodic nature of Star Trek, which changed through the course of this series, things in the novels had to be returned to the status quo by the end of the story, as it wouldn’t affect any of the ongoing burgeoning continuity.

Consequently, the novel ends up reading like a three or four part episode that drags out, and bounces between some temporal folds, incomprehensible aliens blossoming on the level of gods, a fairy tale, and some actual Star Trek.

The short log line for the novel is that Data gets his ‘fondest’ wish, to literally become human. And as the story progresses he sees that he is important and unique just as he was, and may even be instrumental in stopping an intergalactic war.

Lorrah has a pretty good handle on the characters, though why there’s a cat named Mystery on the Enterprise, and why they weren’t just Spot instead beyond me. And some fans apparently had issues with Daata pursuing a physical relationship with an old friend after he is turned human. Honestly, I know even Lorrah wasn’t a fan of it, but it’s handled intelligently, and who could blame Data?

Also why is it Wesley who has a secret love for chocolate? We already know that Troi is the chocolate fiend…. but did we know it when the novel came out? Perhaps not.

Most of the series regulars are little more than guest stars in this tale. Data is front and center throughout in a tale set squarely in season two. How do we know? Riker’s beard gets a brief mention, and Pulaski is working sickbay.

It’s not a terrible novel, but it’s far from a winner, and it’s unfortunate that this was the first ‘Giant Novel’ of the series.

It’s not as undesirable as some of the early Original Series novels, but it’s arguably not the best the book series could or would offer. But remember, they were still just starting out at the time. It was a different time. Star Trek wasn’t everywhere like it seems to be now. We didn’t even have six seasons of live action series at that point. We had three original, and two and 3/4s of Next Gen.

Fans were hungry for more and were willing to boldly go on flights of imagination found in the pages of Pocketbooks, even if they didn’t quite align with where the series was going, or the characters we were taking into our hearts.

But the Human Adventure continues…