David Mack teases The Fall: A Ceremony of Loses

Garak has appeared in several novels since Worlds of Deep Space Nine was published, including DSN: Fearful Symmetry, DSN: The Never-Ending Sacrifice, Terok Nor: Night of the Wolves, Destiny: Mere Mortals, and Typhon Pact: Brinkmanship.

 

All of them being minor to small supporting roles. Sounds like his appearance in The Crimson Shadow will fairly large, at least the same as The Lotus Flower, also by McCormack.

 

I was always mildly worried that Garak's assignment to the position of Cardassian Ambassador to the Federation, as depicted in Mere Mortals and others, was a misunderstanding of what happened in "The Calling."

When Destiny was first being teased, we were informed that it came after "The Calling" chronologically. "The Calling" featured Garak appearing to be sent to Earth by what passed for the Cardassian government at the time, except that it never actually happened, it was all part of his vision in the Vinculum. So when Garak appeared as the ambassador on Earth in Destiny, I was like, "Noooo! That's not what happened! It was a dreeeaaam!"

Now, it certainly makes sense that Garak would be assigned as the ambassador - he's certainly the one with the most experience living and working with the Federation on friendly terms while remaining loyal to Cardassia. I was just afraid that they thought that had already been established prior to Destiny, when it hadn't actually.

And that's the kind of blow-it-out-of-all-proportion thoughts I suffer from constantly.

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I'm definitely glad Grak is going to be in another Startrek novel.It sounds like an intriguing ds9&Tng crossover miniseries.I've enjoyed rRading David's latest novels.I'm definitely going to be buying this novel when it comes out later this year.

 

And Garak written by MacCormack is always good. His scene with Rugal in The Never-Ending Sacrifice is one of my favourites in Treklit: with Garak slipping between different facets of personality - charmingly pleasant, analytic, damning, generous, ironic - to interrogate the man sitting in front of him.* Also exciting about this book will be to see how she treats the TNG crew: in Brinkmanship it was unconventional and excellent for this.

*also i love the nod to the German embassy of the early twentieth century, and how she has Garak refer to it:

“When I took up residence here, I took the trouble to investigate the history of the place. It turned out to have once been the embassy of a military dictatorship whose name is synonymous with cruelty, aggression, and sheer brutality of the most unspeakable kind. Someone at the Federation Diplomatic Corps went out of their way to calculate that insult so finely. I was quite flattered; I’m sure not everyone earns such particular attention. Besides, it’s a remarkable building and a magnificent city.”

 

Thank you, Jarvisimo, that is a favourite scene of mine too. I'm glad you picked up on the history of the building assigned to Garak by his hosts.

 

Your welcome, Una. Thanks always for writing so well.

 

Re: David Mack teases The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses

I'm very tired of "serious and lasting consequences." They seem to be most of what the non-TOS line consists of these days.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the only Destiny/Typhon Pact-era novel I've enjoyed (Zero Sum Game) is the only one I've read that took an incremental approach to character development and plot advancement. Aside from the entirely gratuitous graphic sex scene, it felt very much like a novel from the heyday of the DS9 relaunch (which used incrementalism very effectively).

Most novels today seem to be following a similar model to that used on the Star Wars novels since the advent of the New Jedi Order, which favors "shocking" and often brutal status quo changes in rapid succession in the service of a shallow progressing narrative.

 

Whereas that was one of my least favorite Trek novels post-Destiny, for exactly the same reason. Nothing really happened.

Just goes to show you can't please them all, I suppose

 

^ ZSG may not have been my favorite Typhon Pact book, but that had more to do with the characters involved than anything else. It was the first DS9 story I'd read since before Unity that didn't seem to move at an overly frenetic pace, so I definitely get what Cicero is saying.

I understand the desire to have "big events," as those attract attention and sell more books. But at the same time, especially in the case of the DS9 Relaunch, it seems to have prevented the story from evolving more organically.

Stuff like that's been going on in the comic book industry to one degree or another for the past couple of decades. Big crossovers, radical changes to characters, all to drive sales, and it's led to "event fatigue."

I was definitely feeling fatigued by the time Destiny came out, which is why I put off reading it and Typhon Pact for so long.

 

Yes, I see the argument here. I don't disagree overall with the vast swaths of storytelling that has gone on of late but perhaps it would bode well to pepper in some (more) stand alone stories that are started and resolved within a relatively short period of time.

 

I really didn't like ZSG. Out of those first four TP novels I only liked Rough Beasts and Paths Of Disharmony.

I wasn't as blown away by Destiny as everyone else, although it did get me back into Treklit.

What did convince me about Mr Mack was the excellent Cold Equations trilogy - truly outstanding ! Looking forward to this one...

 

That would be my preference, but I'm sure there'd be a ton of readers who would complain that "nothing happened" and "it's taking too long to catch up."

It's a catch-22 for the editors who are mapping out the plan, and for the writers who are executing it.

It's a testament to the writers that we've gotten some good, legitimate character development at all, amidst all the catastrophic scenarios that have occurred since 2381, story time.

 

I'm not all that keen on Destiny, myself, honestly. I certainly don't think it's the best thing that David Mack's ever written. I'll see if Cold Equations will take that moniker when I get to it. At this rate, that'll be sometime next week.

But what "convinced" me about David Mack was "Twilight's Wrath," and then Harbinger.

 

I loved that too, also, as a reader with a more intimate knowledge of Earth than Garak, we could see that the Diplomatic Corps could have been giving Garak hints about how Cardassia could develop, considering what a great place Germany has become.

I like the way Garak is generally used in the novels currently; he'll get one, maybe two pages, but they're usually the best bits of the book.

 

I hadn't thought about that as part of their motivation, and I think that's brilliant. Thank you very much for that.

 

I can't wait, really.