The Best of All Possible Worlds

[psocoptera]

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord is a very enjoyable Spock/Uhura NuTrek serial-number-fileoff. Ok, I know some people have major emotional baggage around calling things fanfic - you'll notice I didn't refer to SRB's Tale of Two Cities-inspired novel as Tale of Two Cities *fanfic* because SRB has strong feelings against that - so if you prefer, call it an original novel strongly inspired by the plot/characters/world of NuTrek, whatever. The home planet of the rational telepathic dudes has been destroyed by their warrior sibling race, some of the survivors are going around looking for splinter colonies who might help them rebuild their people, survivor main character slowly falls in rational-telepathic love with a linguistically gifted brown-skinned lady, complete with intimate hand-touching and, near the end, the revelation of a T'Pring&Stonn-esque backstory. I enjoyed it - I enjoyed getting some thoughtful exploration of both the emotional weight and the logistics of the destruction of the homeworld, more than a movie could show - and some of the episodes in the very episodic structure were neat. Would've liked a little more exploration/resolution of the Orion slave trade issue, but I liked that she addressed the "but what about time travel" question. I have no idea how it would read to someone unfamiliar with NuTrek/NuTrek fandom, some things might seem more out of left field?