Oh, first two seasons of TNG are pretty bad. They basically veer between pointless remakes of Original Trek episodes and doing their own original pointless episodes :-)

Then they settle down, get a handle on the characters, and decide to write stories about the next generation, so it gets good from then on.

"Dark Mirror" by Diane Duane - yes, yes and yes! The audacity of rewriting (slightly) Shakespeare fits so beautifully into the Mirrorverse, where leaving one bit-part character out of a play makes a huge amount of difference. Then again, Duane Trek is the best Trek novelisations, in my opinion.