Partway through a science mission investigating an unusual region of the Beta Quadrant (standard Trek this is why we are here stuff), the USS Titan receives a garbled distress call from another Starfleet vessel and decide to help. Problem is when they get there the Titan becomes affected by the same phenomenon that crippled the original ship.

Stuck in space, Riker sees no alternative but to put aside the Prime Directive and order a mission to the nearby planet, one known to be fiercely xenophobic. Things however do not improve when the away team pass through a barrier around the planet which transports them through time.

So just how are they going to get out of that, then? Well it's certainly going to involve the usual Star Trek made-up science. There is a large amount of Trek techno-babble in this book. At times it almost threatens to overwhelm the action, but manages to stay just the right side of comprehensibility.

The writers and publishers of Star Trek novels certainly know their trade by now. For despite there not having been a Star Trek TV series for some time now they have managed to expand the book range all on their own.

Titan is one such expansion. These novels have taken a throwaway thread from Star Trek: Nemesis (that of Riker leaving after the mission in that film to take over the Titan) and turned it into a whole new range of stores. Now in some ways this is a bit of a risk. Splitting such a well-loved team as Picard's Enterprise crew could have left a weakened Next Generation book series whilst adding an unpopular new sub-series.

But what you have is a fresh start, and a fresh set of Starfleet officers to interact with each other and old favourites. Plot wise also, they know what they are doing. There is enough of a main plot to entertain without it blocking out the character-driven sub-plots.

This book certainly makes you look forward to the next Trek read.

Synopsis
Captain Riker and his crew have discovered a mysterious planet populated by a civilization where science and faith are struggling for supremacy, due in large part to a strange, unexplained phenomenon known as the Watchful Eye, visible in the sky above the planet. Two teams from the Titan have been sent to investigate. One must covertly observe the people and culture of the planet while the other team takes a shuttle to study the strange Watchful Eye. But when the team on the planet is discovered, a dramatic chain of events is set in motion and cause and effect collide, creating a temporal paradox which threatens both the past and Titan's future.