Star Trek: The Next Generation- Immortal Coil by Jeffrey Lang

Commander Data has always known, intellectually, that he would live much, much longer than everyone around him. And while he had no emotions, that prospect did not bother him. But now with his new emotion chip installed, the death of his "mother", the android known as Juliana Tainer, it begins to hit home for him in a completely new way.

He nearly breaks down completely, but luckily, his emotion chip turns off before he can become completely useless. And with Worf gone, the Enterprise has a new security chief, a woman named Rhea McAdams, who has become friends with most of the officers. Strong but petite, Rhea has an entirely different reaction to Data when he comes on board. She is fascinated with him, and he finds himself fascinated with her. For the first time in his life since Tasha Yar, Data finds himself falling for someone. Only now he has a full emotion chip, allowing him to enjoy the experience.

Not that he will have much uninterrupted time to do that. The Enterprise is diverted to the Planet Galor IV, where a recent catastrophe has destroyed an important experiment that several scientists were working on. In the catastrophe, one of the scientists was vaporized, and another was sent into a coma, and their work destroyed, but the true surprise was that the experiment was to create another android like Data, and the scientists working on the experiment were Emil Vaslovic, Bruce Maddox, the man who had tried to get Data declared a thing rather than a person, and Reg Barclay.

While trying to create Soong-type androids has always failed because their increasing number of experiences create a cascade failure in their positronic brains, the scientists had come up with a way around that, to use holograms as part of the brain to handle the overload. But something seems not right about the site of the crash, and Picard realizes that Data has finally gained intuition. Although he cannot point to anything being wrong, he still feels something isn't right. He and Rhea McAdams set out to investigate the disaster, and discover that Data's intuition was right on the money. The destroyed android is a fake, and it is likely that Emil Vaslovic wasn't destroyed in the explosion. But the explosion at the lab *was* orchestrated, and in tracing back Vaslovic, they discover that he isn't really Emil Vaslovic. Or rather, he was once known under another name: Flint. And/or Ahkarin.

But in tracking down Flint/Vaslovic, the team is attacked by much cruder-looking androids who seem to be angry about something, and come after the Enterprise team with a spaceship of their own that has been hiding on the planet in the form of a glacier near the northern poles. As the Enterprise struggles to deal with this threat, the new Enterprise Bartender, a man named Sam, reveals himself to be an android as well, and the source of the crude androids' anger. But meanwhile, Data has been severely injured by the attack of the crude androids, and his brain is going into cascade failure. He is saved by Rhea, who reveals herself to be an android and the one that was created by the three researchers at Starfleet.

She and her father, Flint/Vaslovic, tried to keep her true identity a secret, but to keep Data, who she loves, alive, she has thrown off her veil of secrecy to save him. But can she and Data save Flint, herself and the Enterprise when the secret of the crude androids is revealed? And will she and Data have any chance together when she reveals who and what she really is?

This is another book that really blew my socks off. The story brings together all the creators of androids in the Federation and reveals that humans aren't the only ones who have been creating androids, or who have created androids. And all the different types of artificial life, from androids to exocomps to Nanites, are featured in this story.

And what a story! It mingles past and present and possibly the future as Data and Rhea McAdams encounter every sort of artificial intelligence from TOS and TNG. M-5, Ruk and Rayna all make an appearance, as do Lore, Lal and Juliana Tainor (albeit the last 3 are deactivated and in Data's quarters), making this book like a who's who of androids and synthetic beings in the Star Trek Universe. But it goes far beyond that in creating a league of synthetic beings who find wonder in exploring the universe. Data has a career in Starfleet and is not ready to join them, but perhaps one day...

The commingling of threads, of how Soong and Akharin and Ira Graves found androids and thus became interested in creating artificial life themselves, and the life, emotions and newfound love that Data experiences, as well as the revelation of Rhea McAdams identity weaves into a single compelling whole that energized my whole mind. Read this book if it's the only Star Trek Novel you read this year. You won't be sorry.