I'm just watching the pilot movie for DS9, and I couldn't help but think how many times I've tried reading J.M. Dillard's novelization, and how I never manage too get past Chapter 6, even though I've tried reading the book about half a dozen times since I first checked it out of the library in 1994 (since then I've acquired a copy for my collection and I've tried reading it without worrying about returning it late) but I find the book just hits a dry period around Chapter 2 and then it just gets bogged down. How do the rest of you find it?
Was the second Star Trek book I read, not long after the pilot itself aired. So maybe that made a difference.. There were fewer episodes to influence my opinion of the book for one thing.
But even taking that into consideration, I've managed too read the novelizations of TNG, VOY & ENT and get through the (Voyager's I've read about 4 times, and Enterprise's I would recommend over the actual episode), along with getting through TMP, but Emissary seems to be the real clunker of the bunch.
I don't know if you're reading it only for completion purposes but it is definitely a book you can skip over. I thought Caretaker did a better job of adding story to what I saw on the T.V. screen. Emissary just seemed to be a word for word script. Bottom line is that you probably won't pull anything out of the book that you didn't see on screen.
The novelization is interesting as it is based on Michael Piller's original script. For example, Keiko and Molly appear, whereas they weren't seen in the series until "A Man Alone". There are also references to "The Wounded". More significantly, Picard vows to be a secret benefactor to Jake, which I don't think has ever been mentioned again.