No, no, no. You can't end a novel with a mysterious unveiling and expect your audience to be happy about it. I'm sorry, but between the Preserver's and the Q Continuum we've got far too many omnipotent uberspecies kicking about without adding another to the mix.

The writing was pretty good, despite the ending, and the way in which the 2 vessel commanders thoughts are so clearly different was very neat indeed: there was never any doubt as to who we were with, even when physically it was less clear than it might've been! I did wonder if there weren't perhaps a few too many drops into the future (Sulu's command, Kirk's mountaineering), just because a novel is written today it doesn't mean it has to bow down and suck in everything that's happened since.

I found the religious tolerance allegory, with Zaldana's veil, utter ridiculousness, and the blase certitudes of precision time travel rubbed me a little, too.

Still, for all those irritations (and the ending did verily piss me off) I found myself hooked. So it's not a book I'd read again, but I did rather enjoy the story.