I was enjoying this one too much to take any notes, but it’s the second book in the Star Trek universe I’ve read lately that proved to be stellar. Rich and full and engrossing are words you usually don’t associate with Star Trek books, but Christie Golden’s, Marooned, which takes place in the Voyager franchise of Star Trek, is exactly that.

As for the timeline, Kes and Neelix are no longer together, but remain close, and Paris and Torres are not yet a couple. Their oncoming relationship is foreshadowed, however, in this story by the care she gives Tom when he’s bitten by an insect on a strange world in which they’re stranded, and extremely ill.

The story is propelled forward from the onset when a powerful being from a race with a lifespan of centuries becomes enamored of Kes and kidnaps her. In the attempt at rescue, part of the crew is stranded on a desolate planet where they must find allies in order to survive, and find Kes, while another part on Voyager is caught in a booby trap. While it sounds like standard Star Trek fare, it is richly layered with nuances and true-to-character moments by Golden. As readers know, this is not nearly the case with a lot of Star Trek entries. The alien encounters are interesting and well written, whether hostile or allies, and the interactions of the crew stranded on the surface is especially exciting. The crew reads like the crew here, spot-on.

Cutting between Kes and her charismatic captor, as Kes walks the razor’s edge of Stockholm Syndrome, Chakotay and the remaining crew aboard enterprise, Janeway and crew (Paris, Torres, Tuvok, Neelix etc.) stranded on the planet, Harry trying to gain access to an old booby trap to give the actual ship Voyager, with Chakotay left in charge, a fighting chance, and Neelix, who goes off on his own to find Kes and encounters a “friend” native to the planet, all combine to give this Star Trek novel a full-bodied flavor. There’s a lot of story here, and I mean a lot, and it’s marvelous for Star Trek Voyager fans.

There are dangerous battles in the sky and up close and personal, distress, aliens, psychology, fun interactions between crew members, and a whale of a richly layered story here. There’s so much here in fact, that this story definitely would need to have been filmed as a two-part episode in order to do it justice. Between this and the last one I read, Greg Cox’s The Black Shore, I’m 2 for 2 in finding good reads in this universe, which as any fan knows, is unusual. A splendid example of a series-to-book done right, and very highly recommended! ( )