Spoilers PIC: Second Self by Una McCormack Review Thread

I expect better paper quality with the German edition from Cross Cult next year....

 

I haven't managed to watch Picard yet, but I didn't have any trouble following or enjoying this one. Was nice to see Garak again. But then I like how Una writes Cardassians.

 

It was nice to see Garak again in one of Una's books again.

 

I finished. Not certain think the fate of Garak was appropriate. Then again, I thought that he "deserved" to be castellan.

 

yep, The Last Best Hope, page 16/326. "And then Bajor joined the Federation."

 

Good, that’s intended to be one of the major questions left by the book.

 

I've finally managed to catch up on my reading, and finished the book. I voted outstanding.
Read my full review here: Picard: Second Self by Una McCormack book review

 

Picard: Second Self

I continue to find the Picard books more engaging than the TV output. Then again, this is a McCormack book and one with far greater latitude than The Last, Best Hope. That book was seriously limited by the TV decisions.

This story is built around Raffi but expands to look at the fall out from the destruction of Romulus, the legacies of the Dominion War and how it all impacts on Bajoran, Cardassian, Romulan and Federation relations. Woven in on top of that is the Cardassia-Bajor history.

The book does something neither the TV series or the relaunch books for DS9 did. Garak is known to not be a hero, yet in the series he never quite made it to villain status while still being a bad guy. What McCormack looks at here is the legacy of Garak's past in the Obsidian Order, as Tain's protege, and brings him to account for it.

At first, the fractured narrative seems to lack purpose, but it quickly becomes clear as to where it is going. This is not a simple book, it doesn't give neat, easy answers. How could it when the web it builds up is so complex.

The final resolution is very effective and final. At the same time it sets other things in play for the other characters. Hopefully, even with the third series being it for TV, the books sell well enough to continue as this was a great bit of work.

 

PIC is my least favorite of the streaming-era Treks, but has my favorite characters and favorite bits of world-building so far, so I tend to look at the gap-filler books as a chance to spend time in the setting I like best, with characters I like, without whatever creative tug-of-war is going on between the producers, the show runners, and the writers room.

 

I somewhat agree with this. I liked S1 okay but S2 really lost me I’m sorry to say. The Picard books however have been outstanding (at least the ones I’ve read) — I must read the Rios book soon everyone says it’s great.

But this one (Second Self) was a real winner — even if you aren’t a big Picard fan there is so much to like about it.

 

LD didn't answer the question this week...

 

Picard is not a favorite series, but the boks are much better.

 

Finally started it last night.

 

Starting this, this weekend for Literary Treks next week!

 

Interesting structure. Kind of a temporal V-shape: the part-breaks go downtime, downtime, uptime, uptime.

And the paper seems fine to me. Not Crane's Lettra, but decent enough. And nicely bound, too. You want to talk about lousy paper, I've got an extremely rare Bobbsey Twins opus that is quite literally crumbling (high acid high lignin wartime paper), and never reprinted.

 

Tour de Force. Filled with surprises. Employs all three of the "Techniques for Suspense" cited by Rust Hills. The ending made me want to immediately re-read parts of the inner flashback.

 

Here is my review of Una McCormack’s “Second Self.”
My review CONTAINS SPOILERS. But one thing I can say here: I give this book five out of five bottles of kanar (or five out of five cups of red leaf tea for those in recovery).

I can also share that Una is my writing mentor and she is just as lovely in person as she is in her books. So wise and insightful and experienced.

https://treksphere.com/star-trek-un...L-GqCfBDnoLN9kuWZ_syCCtYBIVAJh7bSloRrsvP0_Gek

 

Thank you for sharing this awesome review.

 

Thank you so much for reading!