This was lovely - one of the best Star Trek books I've read. I really enjoyed that it strongly featured Uhura, who never got enough to do in the series. It's got an interesting premise, too: an old friend of Uhura's comes from a world that is suffering a sudden, massive outburst of a lethal disease. The only hope to find a cure lies in ancient songs that indicate the population came from another planet, some time in the very distant past... and that planet might have a cure. The whole thing's done extremely well, from the highlighting of the medical doctors to the creation of a sentient alien species that's basically giant cats. A book about talking cats may sound cutesy, but there's rather more effort put into culture and characterisation than otherwise might be the case - notably, this book's substantially longer than many of the early TOS books, so there's more opportunity for Kagan to explore her creations.

Notable, too, is the utter lack of military conflict between characters. Yes, they're fighting the disease, but everyone's doing their best, in their own way, to bridge culture gaps and work together to try and overcome the problem. It's a book absolutely stuffed with decent people, trying hard, building relationships, and there's not a single bloody space battle or anything similar, which frankly is not missed by me in the slightest. This is far, far more interesting to read and I wish more Trek books would follow suit, really lean into the non-violence and delight in learning about others that was the basic idea of the series in the first place.