Greg Cox's 1997 novel The Black Shore, she feels a "psychic call" when the crew takes shore leave on a planet. Kes is featured in the novels Mosaic (1996) and Pathways (1998) in which she accompanies an away team on an unknown planet and helps the crew escape a prison camp, respectively. Jennifer Lien contributes recipes for potato salad and a "good-karma lentil soup" for the 1999 cookbook based on the series. Written by Ethan Phillips and William J. Birnes, the book mentions that tubers are Kes' favorite food. In Christie Golden's novel trilogy Dark Matters, Kes is known as the "Entity", and gathers mutated dark matter. She has forgotten about her past aboard Voyager after turning into living energy, but slowly regains some memories over the course of the books. She does not contact the crew and is told she is a parallel-universe version of herself, separate from the one featured in "Fury". Tuvok, however, does briefly sense her presence before her departure. In Kirsten Beyer's 2012 novel The Eternal Tide, Kes and Q Junior resurrect Janeway after she is assimilated by the Borg and subsequently killed. Q Junior teaches Kes how to pull Janeway's body back together and restore her to her most perfect state. Kes also features in Heather Jarman's 2006 book Evolution, the third installment of the trilogy String Theory, in which she helps the Doctor and Q with the birth of an Ocampa-Nacene hybrid. When the Ocampan mother is unable to carry the baby to term, Kes merges with her to act as a surrogate. After giving birth to a boy, Kes takes him to Ocampa; a rainstorm on the planet hints at the recovery of its ecosystem. The novel retcons Kes' appearance in "Fury" as the manifestation of her dark side, formed as a side effect of a confrontation with a renegade Nacene. In Penny A. Proctor's short story "Restoration", included in the 2001 anthology Strange New Worlds V, Kes sacrifices herself to revive Ocampa's ecosystem. The mirror universe version of Kes features in the Star Trek: Mirror Universe novel series. Reception Critical reception Lien received some positive feedback for her performance. In a 1995 review of "Caretaker", Variety's Kinsey Lowe praised Lien's performance as a "beguiling blend of naive wonder and fierce dedication". Screen Rant'''s Alexandra August applauded Lien for trying "her best with what she was given", but felt she could not