As the conclusion to the Gateways saga, What Lay Beyond should have brought everything together with a satisfying, cohesive finale. Instead, it felt like six disconnected short stories — some more engaging than others — cobbled together without a solid narrative through-line. The overarching problem with the Gateways series is even more apparent here: a strong concept poorly executed.
Each story picks up after the abrupt cliffhangers from the previous novels — TOS, Challenger, DS9, VOY, NF, and TNG, respectively — but few of them actually resolve anything in a meaningful way. Some even struggle to justify their inclusion in the larger Gateways arc.
While stories like Voyager‘s “In the Queue” and New Frontier‘s “Death After Life” had their moments — especially when focusing on character work or tying directly back to prior books — others felt confused, inconsequential, or just wildly off-tone (looking at you, Challenger). The TNG entry, “The Other Side,” arguably carried the most responsibility, as it attempted to wrap up the Iconian/Petraw conflict — but even that was uneven. It wanted to be both a standalone Picard tale and a saga-ending piece, and didn’t quite succeed at either.
The lack of coordination across the various authors really shows. Some stories felt like true continuations; others like awkward one-offs. Promising ideas — like the ability to shut down the Gateways — were abandoned. Key antagonists were forgotten or abruptly sidelined. And the overall vibe? Disjointed. Messy. Rushed. What could have been an epic sci-fi crossover was reduced to a loose collection of character vignettes that just happened to involve some ancient wormhole tech.
Honestly, the whole idea of concluding the saga in a hardcover shorty story collection (sold separately from the books that set it up) feels like a cash grab more than anything else. It’s no surprise the Gateways model wasn’t repeated in future Trek fiction.
While a few of the stories work well enough on their own — Voyager, New Frontier, and TNG have their moments — the collection as a whole is weighed down by confusion, inconsistency, and lack of narrative cohesion. It’s not that every story was bad, but even the good ones couldn’t overcome the sagging framework of the Gateways saga’s overall conclusion. This wasn’t just a weak ending — it undermined much of what came before it. My 2-star rating reflects the whole experience, not just the sum of its parts.
