The Final Reflection by John M. FordMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Returning once again to a favoured TOS paperback from way back in the day when things like continuity and canon were secondary to telling a good tale.
The Final Reflection for the most part takes place before the original series at the time of the first diplomatic exchange with the Klingons and the Federations first Babel conference. It pretty much deals with events from the Klingon point of view and the main character we follow from a boy to a starship commander is Vreen aka Kreen. In the time of Kirk the final reflection refers to a book recently published which is reported by Starfleet and vested interests to be inaccurate and features information declassified and from unconfirmed sources many of whom have passed away.
I'm not sure how much of the plot I can go into without ruining the story even though canon wise it's very wide of the mark but I have to admit I do like this interpretation of the early Klingon / Federation interaction and the fact that as with the best of Trek the "enemies" of the UFP are very much cut from the same cloth. There are no real manic/sociopathic bad guys in this story, there are only those who see events a little differently and are in their own story doing what is necessary and that works so well for this novel.
You will forget you are following a Klingons story and become invested in his failures and successors of Kreen and the people that orbit him but as with Kirk after he reads the book you have to wonder just how much of the "official" history is accurate, after all no one better than Kirk knows how one person can change the course of a civilsation.
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