This is epic. No doubt one of the best Trek stories I've ever read or watched. But it is also intense. Very intense. I am exhausted.

Especially book 2 had me in pieces. I cried, with tears running down my face, about the heartbreaking events around Hernandez and her crew, especially in their later years. I cannot imagine how Hernandez lived through this massive guilt she must have felt, and with the disappointment her crewmates felt towards her all those decades. Or how the other women endured their lives in Axion, some of them coping better than others.

In book 3 we then learn about Mantilis and the rest of the Columbia away team. I had a hard time reading those chapters. How did the Columbia deserve this fate? Reading their story I remembered that I had read about that book before, and that the origin of the Borg were survivors of the Columbia on a planed they crashed down on. I never liked that. I didn't want our heroes to be the origin of a people like the Borg. But Mack found the right words to tell that story. I was heartbroken and felt compassion for them all the way.

And that's why I loved the solution at the end to liberate the Borg drones and to bring them back to the Caeliar. To offer them a new kind of collective, one where they are still connected, but also free. It reminded me very much of the Borgati collective of season 2 of Picard. I was not happy with that when I watched it. Especially because I wanted something else for Jurati, who's a character I can identify a lot with. But seeing Hernandez choosing a similar place for herself made me appreciate the Borgati solution so much more. It's all in the way you tell a story. Or rather: in how you perceive or experience a story. (I am very well aware of the restrictions of a tv show compared to a novel.) To see Picard and Seven be finally liberated is beautiful. I'm curious to find out how that affects later stories. (I also like that on tv we can see a different path. It's always fun and interesting to think through some "what if" scenarios.)

As a big fan of both Jadzia and Ezri Dax, I loved seeing Ezri becoming and being a captain of her own ship here. I had this (small but not insignificant) revelation while reading the scene with her and Worf in the transporter room, that is a bit too personal to share here. But I want to say that it brought me a step forward on this path I'm walking. I absolutely need to read all the books she's in from here on out (maybe minus Coda 🫣).

I enjoyed all the stories around the crew outside of the main plot. Getting to know them may not be important for the plot but it makes them feel more real and alive. And it's always nice to get a little breather between all the heavy stuff. I especially love when minor characters on screen make the jump to the page, as e.g. here with Melora Pezlar and Simon Tarses, and get bigger stories that way. The only big minus point for me here is that I didn't get enough Tuvok. Though I loved his scene on Deneva with his wife. To see the old fashioned way of the man as the cold and strong one and the woman as the emotional and weak one to be reversed here was good. It just shows that how a person copes with tragic events like loosing a child has nothing to do with gender. (It also doesn't mean that just because a person isn't showing emotions, they in turn don't have any.)

This book is, even if it is not hard canon, but who cares anyway, a very important one for the whole of Star Trek. I mean, it gives us the origin story of the Borg and ends them for good! And it was a woman who did it. Again. 💪

I'll continue with "A Singular Destiny" soon. But first I need some lighter reading. 😅

David Mack talked to Dan Gunther and Bruce Gibson on Literary Treks about this book and the trilogy as a whole. As always, this is absolutely worth a listen. Alone for Mack talking about the techniques of story telling. Thumbs up!

PS I know that I gave the individual books 4 stars each and that would not calculate to 5 stars for the whole trilogy. But I don't care. This story is so epic and fundamental it deserves nothing less than 5 stars.

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