"Season 8" might not be the best way to describe what I mean. Basically, I'm talking about the books that take place after What You Leave Behind up to Unity. The Never-Ending Sacrifice The Left Hand of Destiny, Book One The Left Hand of Destiny, Book Two The Lives of Dax A Stitch in Time Avatar, Book One Avatar, Book Two Section 31: Abyss Gateways, Book 4: Demons of Air and Darkness Gateways: Horn and Ivory Mission: Gamma, Book 1- Twilight Mission: Gamma, Book 2- This Gray Spirit Mission: Gamma, Book 3- Cathedral Mission: Gamma, Book 4- Lesser Evil Rising Son Unity Quality/Entertainment value wise, where would you rank this nominal season 8 among seasons 1-7 of the series? *list of books shamelessly cribbed from https://startreklitverse.yolasite.com/deep-space-nine.php Not sure if I should have included Never Ending Sacrifice.
The term we usually use around here is DS9 Relaunch or DS9R. As for the quality of the books, overall they are great, and I'd put them right up there with the last 2 seasons of the show, which were my favorite.
Also “The Never Ending Sacrifice” is not really a post-WYLB story as it spans from Season 2 into the Season 8 books.
I loved the season 8 novels, even though I haven’t read a few of these. My next book, Worlds of DS9 volume 1 is a little slow going so far.
First of all, I wouldn't include The Never-Ending Sacrifice with the "season 8" novels (though it is a great novel in its own right). Second, the sequence of novels from Avatar to Unity is among my favorite "arcs" in Trek literature, and it holds up very well. IMO, as a whole it's FAR better than the "season 9" novels (WoDS9 to the Mirror Universe arc, with TNES as a coda of sorts, or a standalone) and it better than "season 10" (post-Destiny novels).
For me, this series of books are the highlight of my Trek reading career. I would definitely like to re-read that stretch at some point as it's difficult for me to remember the little details when they are released so far apart from each other.
I've read most of those books and loved them, though found that after that the quality seems to drop and the stories get too wrapped up in everything else that's happening in the novelverse, which holds little interest for me.
The DS9 novels have had a good run but I wouldn't mind if they rebooted the series to take into account what we'll see and hear the writers pitch in the DS9 documentary.
I would only be okay with that if Pocket fails to renew their contract and a new publisher comes in and decides to scrap the whole Pocket continuity.
I remember reading that Ira Behr turned down an offer to turn their ideas into a DS9 comic but I hope he would be okay for the ideas to be incorporated into a novel.
I know that the recent DS9 novel, Original Sin really didn't hold me. I've only made it about half-way through and the just became uninteresting to me. And it's been sitting in my pile now for about 4 months.
I admit that I'm not too crazy about the direction of post time jump DS9, but I'm not sure I'm ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. How hard would it be to return the series to something that resembles the tv series without a reboot? Completely impossible at this point?
Or Kira wakes up in her bed on the station and realises it was all a bad dream, before quickly forgetting about it and getting on with her day onboard the Cardassian-designed Bajoran-built station
I would have no problem with David George returning to write for a rebooted DS9 novel series based on the DS9 documentary; I would just want the old station back and most or all of the original DS9 characters there. I don't expect this to happen and would definitely buy another post-Destiny DS9 novel written by DRG III.
I like the new station and Ro as Captain. But most of the new characters are too bland. I don't care for them yet. On the other hand: David George had many great Trek novels and short stories. The new characters need development and depth, no matter who writes them. I'm still looking forward to reading new DS9 adventures, though.
I felt the same way about all the new characters in Titan. Now I enjoy the later books much more now that I know a bit about them. It just takes the authors time to get there.
The original run from Avatar to Unity - and I'd include the Worlds of DS9 as well - is easily my favorite run of Trek Lit works. As I stated in the '2018' thread, I love how rich the character development in these is. Given that a significant portion of the main cast left the station at the end of the tv series, the Relaunch suprised me with how well it did without them. I love Vaughn, Shar, Taran'atar, and 'Relaunch Ro' as much as I do the tv series characters and have happily reread this part of the series many times already. Post-Worlds is a bit different, as I find that those novels are more 'action-driven' (for lack of a better word) than the earlier ones. After the time jump things have taken a while to settle down, and there have been a few novels that I did not enjoy that much. I'll second @Kilana2 in that I'd like the newer characters to be given some time in the spotlight, to give them the chance to become as rich and interesting as the original additions.