I needed a break between books from Tales of the Malazan Empire (Steven Erikson, good series btw) so I decided to mix it up with some pulp sci-fi.  I don't know about you, but I've enjoyed pretty much every appearance of Q in the Star Trek television series.  Well, aside from his first appearance on DS9.  That was pretty forced.

So I picked up Q&A.  It's a book that takes place well after the Star Trek movie where Picard faces a young clone of himself who'd taken over the Romulan empire.  (I don't remember the actual movie number or title.  Anything after First Contact hasn't stood out enough to keep track).  Anyhow, there was apparently a war with the Borg, which was another book that apparently comes before this one.  A lot of the original crew is gone, only Picard, Worf, Crusher and LaForge are left on Enterprise.  The others have all been replaced with new characters.

Enough preamble.  What's this book about?  Well, Q is back, but he doesn't actually show his face until about a third of the way through the book.  Prior to that, the book works hard at tying together Q's antics.  It seems, below the shenanigans and whatever obvious lesson the gang was to learn, laid a deeper motive.  I didn't think they'd be able to do it, but the book makes an excellent job of giving Q a reason for all of his tampering, beyond his own merriment.

I won't give away the story, but as you might expect, the universe is at risk.  The only thing I didn't enjoy, although I know why the author had to do it, was reading about a bunch of other ships, in other parts of the galaxy, in seemingly unrelated storylines, just to show how the universe was coming apart.  It's that aspect alone that prevents me from highly recommending the book.  Instead, I'll just say that if you like the character of Q, and can stand reading conversations between a dozen Q, then you'll probably enjoy this book.