Spoilers DS9: The Missing by Una McCormack Review Thread
- Thread starter JWolf
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I want to know who wants the Shedai records and what they want to use them to their advantage.
Who doesn't?
I finished the book and really liked the story being told from the women leads pov. I really liked the fact Odo was back on Ds9 and hope we'll get see more of him in upcoming ds9 books. I really liked his comments about Garak in the book . I also liked Odo better than the security chief Blackner. When it came to Blackner it seems he's jealous of Odo and how the regular Ds9 crew asked Odo's opinions about political matters and Security on the station. I like how the mystery unfolded in the book. But it leaves you with more questions than answers. I also like the Cardassian & Romulan political story line unfolded in this book.
You know, I didn't even notice that the leads were women until people here started pointing it out. I guess it's not that important to me; I'm a weird chick apparently 
Funny thing is, I just finished the book, and that whole plot just seemed to get dropped and never resolved, and yet it was part of the write-up on the back cover.
Overall, I felt that the book was very disjointed and it felt like I was reading 2 "B" stories, with no connecting "A" story, and it really felt very, very rushed at times, while at other times the story was extremely confusing as to where it wanted to go. And until Reanok mentioned the
Shedai information
I have to give The Missing a 0.5 out of 10, or Poor rating.
He was identified as the person who broke in, but then it was never said "why" he stole the data. As far as the Chain were concerned, that data was part of technology that was at, essentially, the level of children's toy's. Apparently Ailoi broke into sickbay for no reason!
The beginning of the book started off okay, but then when it came time to start resolving the threads, everything just seemed to collapse in the later half of the book, with no resolutions.
He was implied to be working for the Chain's equivalent of Section 31, and the Shedai meta-genome contain's information beyond the Federation's current science/technology. It's not much of a leap to assume that it may be the most interesting thing the Federation has that the Chain wants.
From what I could tell, the Chain considered the technological level of all the Alpha Quadrant powers to be at the level of pre-school toys, so why did Aioli's secret group not go after the Tholians for the Shedai genome. Plus, whether Aioli was truly working for a secretive group was never firmly established---it was mostly guesswork by everyone. Plus it seemed as if his secret group had placed him in with the People to prevent Chain technology from falling into the wrong hands, not to steal new technology.
Plus I wasn't buying that Transworld beaming was above Federation technology. From what Spock (Prime) had said in the 2009 movie about Scotty (Prime) having invented transwarp beaming, and the Enterprise-D using near-warp beaming in the "Schizoid Man", and even transworld beaming in the TNG Season 7 episode with Daimon Bok, and even other groups using dimensional shift beaming, for the O'Brien and everyone to say that they never knew about it was extremely weak.
I guess it's actually good, because that means it was a non-forced, natural situation, instead of a "girl powerrrr!!!11!!oneone" in your face, as if to make some statement.
I'm not arguing with your point, but what does near-warp beaming have to do with any of this? It's just dropping out of warp in normal transporter range for a second or two to complete a normal transport; basically the equivalent of slowing down to toss something out the window. No special range boost or anything.
It's not a normal transport, as the ship only engages the transporter when it's out of warp, and then it jumps back into warp while the transport is still in progress. As Counsellor Troi noted, she felt like she was "part of the wall" for a second.
That sounds a lot more like what I described than what you did; there's no mention of going back to warp while mid-transport. Troi's description always sounded to me more like the ship was still moving mid-transport, and only came to a stop just before materialization. Plus there's the name: near warp, not at warp.
And even ignoring all of this, even if your conception was right, that still doesn't change the range of the transporters at all; they were still normal 40,000 km transporters.
I figured that was deliberate - it is different than most Trek novels usually are, though. Instead of being shown conversations we're told they happened 'offscreen'.
Random question: have any Olympic-class ships appeared in TrekLit before Athene Donald?
I did appreciate McCormack invoking not only Dame Athene Donald but also Rosalind Franklin (who's never gotten the credit she deserved) in the background of the ship and her mission.
I did appreciate McCormack invoking not only Dame Athene Donald but also Rosalind Franklin (who's never gotten the credit she deserved) in the background of the ship and her mission.
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