When I started my big Star Trek rewatch project over the summer I decided to go ahead and read a bunch of the books too. I still have a small stack waiting for me when I feel the time is right. However, I've mostly reread books I'd already read back in the 90's. I wanted to read something beyond what I'd already experienced so I googled 'best TNG novels' or something similar and I was bombarded with lists. This one actually appeared more than once. 
 I have to confess that I was already a bit put off. I read a Q-centric novel in the 90's and hated it. And this clearly being a comedic exploit made me nervous - those rarely impress, in my opinion - but I figured I ought to give it a shot. 
 And I hated it. 
 First, omniscient POVs are really not in favor these days, and certainly not in the style the author does here. I mean, one page might jump into three of four people's heads one right after the other. It's dizzying. And Peter David has written some fine novels, including Vendetta, which predates this one, so I'm sure it's the author's choice (not a lack of knowledge, or skill, as a writer) that we're all over the map in this novel. 
 But beyond that, I wasn't interested in the Wesley sub-plot where he insists on staying a virgin despite the most beautiful woman he's ever seen disrobing in front of him and begging him for sex repeatedly. His reasons for remaining chaste are hard to understand (Well, that probably isn't fair, she was a 'gift' to him from a noble family, so he was considering the other person's rights as an individual, it's just that she made it pretty clear she was immensely excited to be with Wesley - so I guess there is some human rights issues at play here. Whatever) - especially from a teenage boy growing up in a pretty hedonistic world. Even his mother assumed Wesley and his live-in girlfriend were sexually active and was shocked to learn that they weren't. 
 In all, it felt like an early episode of TNG, not one of the good ones. The epic meeting of Q and Lxuanna Troi was actually pretty good, and the climax was very good, but it didn't make up for the lack of engagement I felt with the rest of the book.