This is the first of the Wildfire-aftermath stories. It features Corsi, who along with Stevens, returns home and learns why her father has always been so biased against her joining Starfleet - because during the Cardassian war, Starfleet asked to install sensor equipment on his ship to spy on the Cardassians... What should have been a run of the mill-trade run turned into a standoff with Cardassians, and his brother, Corsi's uncle, had to pay for it.

This story deals with guilt, regret and prejudice (and of course, stupid mistakes which lead to tragedy). In the small-universe-syndrom one of the Starfleet operatives Aldo Corsi had to deal back then, was William Ross.

Corsi is doubting herself, because, while she was incapacitated, lots of her staff died on the daVinci, and Duffy had to make the ultimate sacrifice; and of course, Stevens just grieves for his best friend. Frankly, I'd have liked to see the focus more on Stevens instead of on Corsi, because I'd rather have seen a best friend deal with his very personal grief than stuck up, duty-bound Corsi deal with her professional regrets. I'm not saying that Corsi's grief doesn't come across as very real (and the background story about her father and uncle did touch me), but given the often stated relationship between Duffy and Stevens as best friends I think that not exploring that angle a wasted opportunity. There should have been more, even clichéd tears, whatever, but not just Stevens as a sidenote to shed some light on Corsi... especially not in this "aftermath"-situation.

This is definitely the best part of the Foundations-trilogy which sheds light why the SCE-teams also contain cultural specialists, linguists etc.

Scotty again remininsces about a past mission where the SCE-team was confronted with a sudden first contact situation which easily could have gone wrong and got not only the team killed but also turned an alien species into an enemy of the Federation.

A much more straight-forward story without too much technobabble and repetitions. Just hope there'll be other stories with Mahmud al-Khaleed - and I hope the next parts will refocus on the crew of the da Vinci.

It took me about a year to finally finish this story - it's not a bad story, as it deals again with the crew of the Lovell and depicts the aftermath of the shut-down of the computer Landru, framed by a similar situation faced by the da Vinci's crew... but honestly, I found the prose difficult to connect with. I don't need endless repetitions in a 100 pages story. Things aren't quite so complicated that I can't grasp them the first time around. And I'm still waiting for some fleshing out of main characters - what does it say that al-Khaled is better portrayed than most of the protagonists (which saves this part its second star, mind you)? Granted, he had a good stint in Vanguard, and I absolutely liked him and his crew there, on the other hand, the da Vinci now had 18 short-stories and they are nowhere near any kind of complex characterization.

Just the thought of Wildfire, which is said to be a turning point within the series, is keeping me going right now.

First of all, Purgatory's Key is the third and final book of the Trek 50th-anniversary trilogy Legacies. The first two books delivered exciting action and an intriguing mystery concerning the Transfer Key and the menacing Jatohr. Ward & Dilmore's entry does a good job in some respects and a poor job in others. First the good: it capitalizes on the Jatohr element. They are less the two-dimensional villains of the first two books and are revealed to be a rather interesting alien species... but there could have been more. The strange dimension that they come from never did make any sense, and the authors did nothing to explain how such a species could come from such an ethereal place. What we're left with is a gaping plot hole... too bad, because this one had potential!

Another good thing is the Klingon drama. This subplot draws on the strengths of the "Shakespearean" TNG Klingon stories, and it even drops hints as to how Gorkon comes to be a major player by the time The Undiscovered Country rolls around.

Good things too: Sarek and Joanna McCoy get a few good character moments, while Captain Una holds her own. I feel that this trilogy overall has been a good Una story, leaving me wanting more, whether those stories be in the April, Pike, or Kirk era.

Bad things: the aforementioned Jatohr failure. Also, the trilogy hyped the Transfer Key as a secret passed from April to Pike to Kirk... and yet, Pike makes no appearance, just a paltry piece of lip service from Una. The Transfer Key is an interesting plot device, and I would have liked to see its potential realized to a greater degree.

Moreover: the climactic emergency in the Jatohr citadel, while in concept a worthy one, is never developed to the heights that the exciting climaxes of the previous two novels reach. And the last three chapters are pretty boring epilogues. A better-developed climax with a short epilogue chapter would have been preferable.

This review probably sounds a bit harsh. I did like the book most of the way, despite lamenting Pike's absence. The action is well described, the characters are almost always convincingly "voiced", and things move along at an enjoyable clip. I just felt that the potential of this book was not reached.

All good things must come to an end and so...I finished Purgatory's Key which is the final installment of the Legacies trilogy which you may recall me mentioning a few times (this post and this one just in case). Firstly, if you haven't read either Captain to Captain or Best Defense and you want to avoid spoilers then I'll say this: I very much enjoyed this trilogy and I think you should read it. If you want a bit of most likely spoiler-y info then stick around because I'm about to spill some beans. Okay, I hope all of those still reading are ready to be spoiled...

The conclusion to the trilogy was everything you'd want from a sci-fi adventure set in the Star Trek universe. If you're looking for a way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this amazing show then you can't go wrong with picking up the Legacies series. 9/10