THE DEVIL'S HEART (Carmen Carter) - February 10/14

Yikes, what an ordeal. Easily the worst of the Trek books, The Devil's Heart takes an absolutely boring story and makes it so much worse by including flashbacks and side stories into the lives of characters I couldn't possibly care less about. There are stretches here that feel as though they've emerged directly from a generic fantasy novel and I found myself skipping over whole chunks of several chapters as a result. Even the stuff on the Enterprise doesn't work; Carmen doesn't seem to have an understanding of the characters, with, for example, Worf painted as a rigid and downright rude jerk. It's just weird and off-putting from start to finish. Ugh. (The sole scene that isn't terrible involves an imaginary Borg attack, but that's something like two pages out of 300+.) * out of ****