It proved to be an unfortunate choice, as the novel was filled with clichéd characters and bad writing. When Richey's ship crashed on the planet Theta VIII in 2044, an unknown alien force created a physical representation of the novel, including the hotel and all its characters, in an artificial environment meant to provide a simulation of normal life for Richey.
Unknowingly, though, the aliens had sentenced Richey to a sort of Hell, dooming him to live the remainder of his life in the world of the novel with its poorly written characters and no real human interaction.
The opening line of the novel was "It was a dark and stormy night." Jean-Luc Picard was less than enthusiastic about its literary merits.
Richey described it in a diary entry as being "a badly written book, filled with endless cliché and shallow characters." Data reviewed it thusly: "The writing is elementary, the plotting predictable, the characters one-dimensional." (TNG: "The Royale")