Q-Squared

 Q-Squared (1995) by Peter David

Take Q and make him even more annoying and arbitrary and you get....Trelane. The infamous Squire of Gothos with whom Captain Kirk had a run-in over a hundred years ago. Wound up he was just a kid Q who got loose from his parents and wanted to interact with humans for "fun and games." Well...a century has passed and Trelane hasn't grown up much. But now Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise D crew must deal with a Trelane who has tapped into the universal power source and has delusions of godhood. He messes with the powers that keep all alternate mutliverses separate and with the plan this teen-aged Q filled with teen-age angst has for "life, the universe and everything" it seems more like devilhood. Because if Trelane has his way all possible alternate timelines will be gone--but only after the Enterprise crew (and everyone else in the universe) and their alternate selves fight it out to the death to see which one will remain. According to Q, Picard is the only one who can save the universe...and all of its alternates. But how can a mere mortal take on a god...or a devil?

In his introduction, Peter David says that he generally writes two types of Star Trek novels. One is simply problem-oriented--the crew, whether Kirk & company or Next Gen, get involved in events with alien races or whatnot and they have to resolve it. The other takes a look at Trek as a whole and tries to stitch together threads from various iterations of the Trek universe to make a tapestry of sorts. This is the latter type of story. And, overall, I like it very much. I enjoyed the way he brought Trelane into the Q Continuum and made his interactions bridge the time period between Kirk and Picard. I'm also really interested in the multiverse (alternate timeline) trope in science fiction and enjoyed David's take on that concept. The one thing that kept this from a full four-star review was the chaos at the end--I realize that was the point of Trelane's little "experiment," but with all of the various Picards and Rikers and Crushers (both Beverly and Jack [!]), etc. running in and out of each other's timelines it was very difficult to keep everybody straight. And (slight SPOILER ahead)...

even though we're meant to believe that we're back to the "real" universe (that is the one from the TV show) at the end. I'm still a little unsure. A great concept, pretty nicely realized. ★★★ and 1/2.

First line: The child looked up at the adult eagerly, wonderingly in that way that children had.

And which of these multiverses is the real one? (LaForge; p. 126)

Last line: She turned back to ask him why he sounded so strange when he said that...but he was already gone.