A fantastically silly imagining of an eighth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, McMahan lampoons a spectacular number of Star Trek tropes. Ostensibly meant to convince the producers to stop making the show because of the toll it was taking on the actors, every episode takes an easily imaginable TNG plot and twists it Into utter silliness.

Hate Wesley? Well, he’s back (and still hatable—sorry Wil). Worf is his usual hapless self. Riker is sexier than ever. Geordi and Data team up for wacky hijinks way too often for comfort. And Picard, Bev, and Troi are themselves (although Picard does get trapped with children and/or in turbolifts slightly more often than in the actual show). Oh, and Lwaxana. (I don’t think I need to say any more.)

It’s all immensely silly, and clearly based on the author’s love for both sides of Star Trek, the serious and the silly.

McMahan is the creator/show-runner for the new animated Star Trek: Lower Decks, which takes the same approach to the Star Trek universe, making fun of the silliness while being completely plausible within its history and mythology. Both the book and the show have lots of callbacks to people and events from the shows, and some of the storylines in the book appear in some, possibly mutated, form In DT: LD.

If you’re a Trekker purist who takes everything far too seriously, you’ll hate this book. And the show. (And I’ve seen some of those posts.). If you’re just a casual viewer, you might hate them, too, but the core audience is people like me, who have seen every episode* multiple times, have some of the books, and have spent way too much time thinking about and arguing about Star Trek, but can still appreciate that some of it is just way, way too silly.

* Okay, so I’ve never seen ST: Discovery, because my partner and I were creeped out by the weird human/alien ointment groping scene in the first episode. Also, DS9 is the best show. (But you knew that.). And everything after Star Trek Generations is in a different universe. (You knew that, too.) ( )