TP: Plagues of Night by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Mage]

KingDaniel wrote:

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KHHAAAAAAAANN!!!!!!

Yours might as well. I was not supposed to recieve RtD untill tomorrow according to estimate I got when ordering. Then, suddenly, last saterday I got an email in the morning saying it was shipped. Few hours later I was reading.

Different company, but still, you never know.

[JRoss]

Really liked it. I've got a feeling that the beginning of Raise the Dawn will show that the whole station did not blow up. I know the book is already out, but I obviously haven't read it yet.

I am disappointed by two things. It seems that we're getting a war with the Typhon Pact. We don't need another war story. I noticed a few times where characters' POV summed up the events of the novel up to that point. I thought that it was unnecessary.

[Warp Coil]

Finished Plagues of Night a couple of days ago. Really enjoyed it. I was somewhat disappointed with DRGIII's Rough Beasts of Empire - in part due to all of the shocking and dramatic changes to many of the DS9 characters in the time jump - but I was quickly drawn into the story this time around. I'm about 150 pages into Raise the Dawn and I'm still loving it. The story is very large in scope and it incorporates a large canvas of characters. The story is juggling many different angles but does so superbly.

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

I got Raise the Dawn today - 4 days earlier than the revised delivery estimate!

[Enterprise1981]

Got my copy of PoN last Saturday. So far, I've read a considerable portion of the "establishment chapters". But rather than a simple rehashing of all the things that happened in ZSG and RBoE as a lead-in to the main body of the story, it retells pivotal scenes from other points of view--i.e. the sabotage of Utopia Planitia from the Romulans' point of view, Kasidy receiving Sisko's message at the end of RBoE, events of ZSG from Sarina's point of view. It's a storytelling device that fits a novel series that affects the entire Trek-lit universe just like in the Destiny trilogy.

The opening portion does certainly provide an appropriate reconciliation of ZSG with RBoE, where the biggest surprise was that the changing of the guard in the Romulan Empire happened before the main events of ZSG. We now see that even though the RSE is whole again, there are still some rogue elements that the new praetor is unable to reel in.

[Thrawn]

That was one of my favorite aspects of the book, the way he retold and tied together the previous entries.

[MatthiasRussell]

Yeah, I liked having more details about what happened at Utopia Planitia.

[Sxottlan]

Mild recommendation. An improvement over RBOE. Still don't much care for Sisko's development in these books. Really would have preferred that he become a Yoda-esque character deservedly left alone in peace with his family. While his development in this book isn't nearly as distasteful as it was in RBOE thankfully, I think what I'm realizing is that I find Sisko's story just plain boring.

The political story is more interesting. Alas the first 50 pages is recapping the previous TP books. Even if it's from different angles, it was still irritating. The phase cloak is confirmed at least. Still don't know why Starfleet isn't completely freaking out about this like the Typhon Pact is flipping out over slipstream. Seems like a warbird could just hold station in the Palais and Starfleet HQ to listen in on policy and strategy. As an aside, where are Starfleet's transphasic torpedoes nowadays?

The biggest problem: lack of focus. This book jumps all over the place, seemingly at random. First half of the book doesn't feel it's going anywhere in particular. Scene after scene plays out without a sense of building towards anything. I'd be hard pressed to say who the actual main character is here. I'd probably say Romulan Praetor Gell Kamemor. Here we are with the Cardassian castellan. She plays no real role later. There we are with Ro bizarrely freaking out over her chief of security without much context that then has to be explained later. This feels like such an unreasonable assumption on Ro's part that I almost hope it turns out to be true later. Sort of like the mole in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. At least in the movie.

I really did like the Enterprise-E finally going into the Gamma Quadrant. That was cool. So glad that Spock finally left Romulus. That's only been a subplot that's been spinning its wheels since 1991. Holy cow. Has it been that long now?! Geez.

As for the book's last line. Well, I was able to move right into Raise the Dawn after reading this, so I got my answer right away. Strangely enough, I don't know how to feel about it. I guess I've become so disappointed with DS9 lately that I just don't care anymore. Sure doesn't seem like TPTB cared about the station anymore either. Even though it was a character that we watched grow over the years. I guess they've fully embraced how we're not going to see this era of Trek on screen ever again. So anything is fair game. My point of view has always been that it should have been about the station and the characters assigned to it.

[Thrawn]

FWIW, I suspect you'll enjoy Raise The Dawn a lot more. A lot of stuff that seems random in Night starts coming together really nicely.

[DaveR]

Thrawn wrote:

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FWIW, I suspect you'll enjoy Raise The Dawn a lot more. A lot of stuff that seems random in Night starts coming together really nicely.

I would agree with this, except that Raise the Dawn still felt really disjointed until at least half-way through the novel, and even down to the last 150 pages or so.

It was much better than Plagues, but it still seemed to jump all over, like it was trying to cover too much story at once.

[Thrawn]

That's true but it isn't quite the point that I was making. It does move quickly and cover a lot of ground, but every single ongoing plotline manages to be important to the climax. Nothing is in those books just to cram it in; all of those plotlines pay off.

[DaveR]

Thrawn wrote:

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That's true but it isn't quite the point that I was making. It does move quickly and cover a lot of ground, but every single ongoing plotline manages to be important to the climax. Nothing is in those books just to cram it in; all of those plotlines pay off.

They do, yes. I just didn't enjoy the trip as much as I did the destination.

[Thrawn]

That's fair.

Actually, I find that's been true of DRG3 a few times. Serpents Among The Ruins, especially, spends a lot of time just summarizing history and laying groundwork; if the last 10% or so wasn't such an insanely perfect series of twists and surprising connections, it would be like a 7/10 at most. But that ending makes it an obvious 10. I felt the same way about Dawn, but I can see how you wouldn't.

[Mage]

Thrawn wrote:

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FWIW, I suspect you'll enjoy Raise The Dawn a lot more. A lot of stuff that seems random in Night starts coming together really nicely.

Which is why I never rated this book by itself. It's so much a two-parter, that I felt I could only grade it AFTER reading RtD, since so many parts of the plot and characterdevelopment is left for the second part.

It would be like watching part one of a two part episode, then judging both episodes based on that first episode.

[Admiral_Young]

I just finished reading Plagues of Night...thought it was marvellous. Going to jump right into Raise the Dawn and give my thoughts on both afterwards, but this was seriously awesome. I think one of my favourite scenes was the one between Picard and Ro.