Nepenthe was perhaps my favourite episode of the Picard TV show. Rikers "Red Alert!" melted the ... has it really been decades? And I felt, finally, as though I was really watching Star Trek again when I heard that.

Of course we see Riker and family onscreen in the year 2399 and this novel is set some years earlier. Despite not being up with Titan's crew, I can appreciate the hoops that had to be jumped to fit a novel series into a retconed TV setting. This seemed handled well here: combined with the wonderful reveals at the end of the novel (both about the identity of the advocate and troi's news in the last scenes), and the delightfully accurate Romulan portrayal, this was a pleasure start to finish.

A bit like at the end of Last Best Hope though, we know there's much more sorrow to come. And why has Picard never met Kestra, I wonder? Surely there's a scab to pick off and look beneath there. Incidentally Lulu Wilson was amazing, one of the best child actors on any series in my book.

Whatever your views on Picard as a series, this novel merges Titan from what many trek fans call the "real" universe (having turned to paper after screenings fizzled) with the depiction of the Trek universe as onscreen today. The first may have taken liberties and been a departure from Pocket Books history, but this one has an encapsulated adventure to get behind, recognisable politics with the Tal Shiar, and a great and cohesive crew to explore. Picard himself being off-field makes things a little easier for us to swallow, and Swallow himself has clearly already got credentials in the universe and knows his stuff. An excellent addition.