By Una McCormack

Simon and Schuster, out now

Admiral Jean-Luc Picard is given the job of relocating millions of Romulans before their star goes supernova. The difficulties are magnified by distrust amongst the ranks, sabotage and mixed allegiances.

The first spin-off novel from the currently airing Star Trek: Picard series is in safe hands with Una McCormack, a veteran of Star Trek and Doctor Who novels, and she gives us a surprising amount of new material to chew over. While there’s nothing obvious here that would spoil the reveals within future episodes of the show’s first season, a lot of time is spent in filling in the gaps between Picard’s assignment to the USS Verity and the start of the show in 2399.

As you’d hope, we get to meet spiky Raffi Mussiker, her background details given far more content than TV could allow, and we’re also introduced to Agnes Jurati at the beginning of her relationship (professional and personal) with Bruce Maddox. There’s a whole swathe of new info about the creation of the Daystrom A500 synths and how they were created at speed to meet increased shipbuilding demands, as well as some much appreciated additional content around the warrior nuns of Qowat Milat, their leader Zani and young Elnor as they are relocated to Vashti.

I won’t share any more of the story for fear of spoiling surprises, but I will stress that it feels completely true to the show that we’re watching weekly. It’s so easy for a spin-off to go in an unlikely or inauthentic direction, but Dr Una writes as if she’s been given some scripts to an unproduced year zero and that this feels as canon and essential as what we’re seeing on TV.

On a personal note, I see that the author (like me) has a daughter called Verity. Did she manage to sneak that reference into her manuscript as the name of Picard’s ship, or was this coincidence? I suspect the involvement of the Tal Shiar!

Verdict: An authentic and insightful prelude to Star Trek: Picard’s first season. If only all tie-ins felt so genuine. 9/10

Nick Joy

Click here to order The Last Best Hope from Amazon.co.uk