The show itself won’t be back on screens until sometime in 2020, but this year ends with one more literary Star Trek: Discovery tale, author Dave Galanter’s new Culber-Stamets tale, Dead Endless.

Another great addition to the series, this novel is set at an indeterminate point in the late first or early second season of the show, and — for the first time in this novel series’ run — the story is actually set aboard the USS Discovery, featuring the crew of the ship working together to solve a crisis — with a huge twist.

…and because that twist is so fundamental to the conceit of the book, this review will contain SPOILERS going forward.

While Dead Endless is, as the back cover copy of the book implies, about the Discovery crew working to free themselves from the mycelial network, this is not our Discovery crew. They are the Discovery crew from a similar – but not identical – parallel universe to ‘prime timeline’ Star Trek.

There is only one human character from ‘our’ universe in Dead Endless, Doctor Hugh Culber. Indeed, despite being secondary on the cover of the book to Lt. Paul Stamets, this story is more of a Hugh Culber novel than it is a Stamets novel… because the Stamets of this book is from an alternate universe.

Trapped in the mycelial network following his death at the hands of Ash Tyler Discovery Season 1, Culber stumbles across this parallel Discovery that was pulled into the mycelial network responding to a distress call.

In this universe, Michael Burnham is the captain of the USS Discovery. The war with the Klingons never happened, the Battle of the Binary Stars is known only as the Standoff at the Binary Stars — and in this universe, the Discovery and the USS Glenn are in service of the Federation working to solve a major medical crisis.

And Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber never started a relationship. As a result, when Stamets stumbles across Culber in the mycelial network, he doesn’t know him. But quickly, the chemistry between the two characters asserts itself and Stamets is head over heels in love with Culber.

Through Dead Endless we get more insight into Culber’s torments in the mycelial network. Losing himself and his identity, pursued by the Jah’Sepp, this is Culber at his lowest. He has only one source of help, a surprising and welcome reappearance by the tardigrade known as ‘Ripper’ from early in Discovery’s run.

Except the tardigrade here isn’t named Ripper; it’s Ephraim, in a well-timed parallel to last week’s Short Trek. Culber only exists because Stamets uses Ephraim’s DNA to alter his genetic makeup made Culber’s resurrection possible, and so he feels responsible for Culber.

And, sensing little respite for Culber in the mycelial plane, Ephraim introduces him to the alternate Stamets and Discovery to provide Culber with some measure of relief while he waits for ‘our’ Discovery to rescue him.

The story is not as complicated as it seems, though, and flows very nicely. Despite not being our universe’s Discovery, it’s a joy to get a story about this crew interacting with each other. As we saw in the back half of Discovery’s second season, when the bridge crew are allowed the opportunity to flourish they have great chemistry together.

It’s also an interesting opportunity to see some what ifs – Burnham as captain of Discovery, Saru as first officer. It’s nice to see more of the USS Glenn, and Stamets’s counterpart Justin Straal.

But ultimately, this story is about the relationship between Stamets and Culber, including both the Stamets of our universe — despite not appearing in the book — and the Stamets of this close parallel universe.

For that Stamets, he sees what he’s been missing. For Culber, he gets the opportunity to rekindle a relationship he worried was lost to him, though it’s understandably a strange and conflicted experience to begin a romance with a man who is so much like — and yet not — your partner. The book handles how difficult that must be well, and does not shy away from the many complicated feelings that love and relationships can often engender.

If there’s one criticism of the novel, it’s that it adds further complication to the marital status of Stamets and Culber. Star Trek: Discovery has a frustrating penchant for failing to provide important character details. At several points in Dead Endless, Culber refers to the Stamets of his universe as his husband. If so, that’s pretty big news!

There is very little on screen evidence that the two are married, and if it really is the intent of the writers’ room that the two characters are married, it would be nice if they said it out loud on the screen. A character’s middle name, for example, is the perfect fodder for revelations in licensed tie-in fiction. The marital status of two main characters is not.

The serialized nature of Discovery makes it difficult to find the gaps in which novels can live and breathe. Unlike the novels being released while The Next Generation or the other shows were on, it was easy to fit stories in between the episodes.

Dead Endless is a creative solution to giving us some good action aboard Discovery that doesn’t mess with the show’s continuity, fleshes out the journey of one of our characters who was off screen for a while, and adds depth to some of the character relationships in the process.

Dead Endless keeps the Discovery novel streak alive, extending to six the number of books that provide an enjoyable read that deepens the reader’s appreciation for the show and its characters.

I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with next.

Novel #4: "The Way to the Stars"

Novel #5: "The Enterprise War"

Novel #6: "Dead Endless"