Through four decades, five television series comprising over seven hundred episodes, ten feature films, and an animated series, fandom's thirst for more Star Trek stories has been unquenchable.

From the earliest short-story adaptations by James Blish in the 1960s, followed by the first original Star Trek novels during the seventies, and on throughout the eighties, nineties, and into the twenty-first century, fiction has offered an unparalleled expansion of the rich Star Trek tapestry. But what is it that makes these books such a powerfully attractive creative outlet...