This is hardcore military history. It is mostly made up of phrases like 'X Battalion of Infantry Group X rallied to the defence of X Unit of X something or other somewhere...

The premise is great: a literal Hangover moment, where you realise you're married, but to who, and the gradual reveal of What Happened That Night. The slow-reveal of this is the most interesting part of this book.

My low-ish rating is tempered by the end. Doubtless the gist of it and many of the events of it are true. But Caligula was ridiculous, and his litany of appalling stupidities began to grate with me. The fact that it took that long to assassinate him is perhaps the most ridiculous thing of all. It turns out making a horse a senator is the least stupid thing he did.

The entirety of this story rests on its twist at the end. It feels unsatisfying because not enough links are made to the twist itself. Reading this feels rather unfulfilled - 'is this it? - until you have it explained to you. The journey needs to work too. I might compare this to M. Night Shyamalan, which is basically aimless crap until you go 'ohhh'. To be clear, the aimless stuff is this book is not quite as shallow as Shyamalan. But it won't hold a lot of interest to the unitiated to the Star Trek litverse until the end.

The cover story is probably the best of the longer stories. Its setting is quite an interesting political situation, positioned as the protagonists are on an alien world. Its moral dilemma is adequately dealt with, if a little false. Science fiction often has a scaling problem. Most 'planets' amount to space the size of a town. PLANETS ARE REALLY BIG. IMAGINE ANOTHER EARTH. In relation to this story, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! Does every part of the planet have precisely the same ecosystem?