Finally read (well, listened to) this one after all these years. Liked that it didn't need a previous original Trek mission for it's story, but it clearly was setting up one for the next two books... which, for once isn't an actual TOS episode, but still after binge listening to all of these in a row, is a bit tiresome. But still pretty good.
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7/19/21 - listened to it unabridged, liked it; probably much better than it abridged, but 2018 was a while ago, so definitely don't remember.