At first this starts off as an entertainingly funny and lite read, especially for any Trekkies out there. Every character is well defined and likable despite their red shirt status.  However, although it lacks hard science and pokes fun at the fact that it does, it dives through the fourth wall into existential philosophies. That isn’t to say that the book transitions into a heavy handed and dense literature. Instead, it’s more like what if Douglas Adams explained Nietzsche to Wesley Crusher while sipping romulan ale at Ten Forward.