Yes, the physical room looks small, but the holodeck seems to be able to do expansive settings where people actually get far enough away to lose sight of each other. So as a thought experiment, could the entire ship’s crew somehow enter a simulation? What would happen when the simulation ended?
Just finished this one. The premise is a great, and features a situation we never got to see on TNG: the return of the Mirror Universe. (Spoilers follow)
— I didn’t love some of the writing. Duane was adept at technobabble (perhaps TOO good as this book features a lot of technical exposition), but her dialogue for some of the characters doesn’t always ring true; Picard, in particular, sounds like an Old West prospector at times.
— It features some classic TNG elements, like Geordi getting tortured, Geordi getting inappropriate with a female doppelgänger and still striking out, etc.
— I loved the creepy depiction of the Mirror Universe counterparts as they stalked the Enterprise. Duane really captures the unsettling feeling of coming face to face with a sinister duplicate of yourself. The moment when Picard looks through his evil counterpart’s bookshelf and finds subtly twisted and darker versions of the classics he knew and loved was especially chilling.
— The book serves as a sequel of sorts to the TOS episode, and features a bleak history lesson on how Mirror Spock’s efforts to salvage the Empire turned out. All of this was superseded by the canon return of the Mirror Universe in DS9, of course, but it was still fascinating.
— Great finish! The last 100 pages fly by.
Clearly I was a fan of the Shatnerverse