My first Trek novel too; same age as well. I picked it up at the World Science Fiction Convention in Brighton shortly before my Dad and I were ejected for being there and not having paid to go in!!

(1) Has the Congress ever demoted an officer in the U.S. armed forces?

I found this part of The Voyage Home perplexing. I was under the impression that was usually handled by the military itself. And in extreme cases, by POTUS and Secretary of Defense, in their role as civilian controllers of the military. But I just don’t know. Maybe the military historians among us can provide more insight than I can.

(2) Can a person actually hold the title of “commander in chief” without being president?

With regards to the commander in chief issue, I am not suggesting the president was ever an active duty Starfleet admiral. However, Admiral Bill in The Undiscovered Country was addressed as “The C-in-C,” not Chief of Staff. I suspect this was simply an error nobody caught before the shoot. But it is out there and has been the catalyst for all sorts of debate over at Memory Alpha.

The President’s shows in Star Trek has never been a Star Fleet admiral. I think you may be confusing one of the chiefs of staff or one of the Vice-Admirals for the President. Only 3 have been shown on screen, and some have been noted in the novels. I believe there may have been former Starfleet officer mentioned in the books that went on to become President, but they were retired from Starfleet.

Star Trek always left the impression that Kirk and McCoy already knew each other before they were assigned to the Enterprise. They never established how, though. In the book Strangers from the Sky, Margaret Wander Bonanno noted that McCoy was away from the Enterprise when Piper was CMO due to personal issues. However, the Vanguard book “Harbinger” does go with the theory that Kirk and McCoy did not know each other. So there is some dispute here as to whether they were actually friends before the Enterprise. I guess take your pick.

Having McCoy as Kirk’s classmate is an oddity. However, he might have been pursuing another degree at Starfleet Academy as a graduate student. When the Enterprise was called into service, I got the impression that “cadet” McCoy actually outranked most of the other cadets as Assistant Medical Officer. That’s probably some sort of acknowledgment to his experience.

But I don’t understand Star Trek’s chain of command in general. Sometimes the Federation President is referred to as “commander in chief” and sometimes it is a four star admiral. The Federation Council actually demoted Kirk in The Voyage Home. They’ve also given operational orders to officers in the field (TNG, DS9). Isn’t that like Congress micro-managing a war over the authority of the president?

These Academy stories are not nearly as interesting to me as stories set after the end of Trek 2009 in the new timeline.

I mean Lucas had no fears about Alan Dean Foster writing Splinter of the Minds Eye when he was busy working on The Empire Strikes back because books are EU.

The difference now between book canon and film canon though got skewed by the writers of the new film. So i wonder if its because fans would think these books are canon sequels and it would ruin whatever the second film could do business wise.