My own reading Marathon, Fall through Coda

[NStephenH]

Lust's Latinum Lost (and Found) by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann
In-Universe Date: 2385
Publish Date: September 1, 2014

This is a short and sweet novella that details quark on an adventure to find the true publisher of Vulcan Love Slave IV.
It feels like it very much could have been an episode of Deep Space Nine, and the eventual publisher is revealed to be Pel, the Ferengi with the prosthetic ears from Season 2's "Rules of Acquisition". In reading up on Pel, apparently the actress had claustrophobia from the make-up she discovered on set, so couldn't reasonably return on-screen.

I don't have much to say about the novella. I enjoyed it, it was short, had a bit of what I can only assume is lived experience from the authors about trade shows, and had some Quark hijinks. From the acknowledgements, it sounds like this was their first fiction work (together at least), as they tend to be guidebook writers. I hope they enjoyed it and it seems like they've got a few more Ferengi adventures to come.

Next up is "the missing".

 

[NStephenH]

The Missing by Una McCormack

In-Universe Date: Late November 2385
Publish Date: December 30, 2014

According to the acknowledgements, this was pitched as a/the Katherine Pulaski novel. We certainly do get a lot of her, and a focus on her as a character being quite grating (and she knows it). I felt it was interesting to see the interaction between her and a lot of characters, old and new. I'm not sure if any other books have paired her up with crusher/have any comments on her brief tenure as CMO of the Enterprise, but it was definitely interesting to read.

This felt like a good example of episodic storytelling to me. It had a encounter-of-the-week with the People of the Open Sky/The Chain, and additional developments with the relationship to the Tzenkethi. I love seeing some attempts at peaceful relations, as Bacco was working towards.
The one downside of this type of story, is that we can be given an influx of new characters, and this group had a lot of very similar names (in particular, "Oioli, Ioile, and Ailoi") such that I wasn't sure which one of them was killed, being killed, accused of killing, etc.

The other thing about trek literature, or at least McCormacks, is that we often have multiple plots going on at once and converging. This is decidedly less linear than the last two books I read, which I enjoyed, but it does make describing all the plots going on without taking over an hour to write up much more difficult. I don't think I should bother writing out all the plots going on, if you want that, you can read a wiki summary or a better review than mine. Suffice to say, the main plot is that a group of refugees from poverty is fleeing an oppressive government, and the conclusion is that they are let go by an understanding commander of the oppressive government. There is a lot more going on to make it a lot more complex, particularly with some spying all around, but that's the crux/theme. It's a nice, hopeful, very trek theme.

We get follow-up of the Tzenkethi who left Ab-Tzenketh in Brinkmanship, and it was interesting to see how she interacts with a society so different from her own. I think her journey of self-discovery and freedom is supposed to parallel people of the open sky having left the oppressive culture of the chain. Thinking about it now, the 3rd plot we have here, of Ro and Odo working to return some Cardassian prisoners of war from the Romulan government, is also to some degree about working around a more rigid social structure for decency.


I enjoyed this book, and somewhat hope that we'll get to see the side characters again. It's very interesting to see Crusher with a different crew, although she's going back to the enterprise after this one. I'm making note of that for when I attempt to come up with my own, clearly superior to everyone else's, reading order after I get through all of this. It also seems like Odo is going to be around to stay on DS9, not as a constable (and hopefully not as CMO, which might have been a joke from Ro or just a segue that could have implied the possibility).

Next up is the second Novella from the previous pair, The Rules of Accusation, then jumping into Sacraments of Fire and Ascendance. It sounds like sacraments is supposed to fill in a lot of gaps, and It's also from David R. George III, so I'm hoping it follows up on mysterious man from the past, and maybe we get Kira back. I also particularly enjoyed his narration that something strange was going on with Rebecca, and I'm interested for that to be flushed out more.

Sorry I'm jumping around in my thoughts, but I don't want to spend a ton of time editing this. Towards the start of the novel, it seemed there was a lot of personified narration going on, stuff like

Corazame—but let us call her Cory, the name she has been using since coming to the Federation, and as we are prying into her private thoughts, we should at least show her the courtesy of using the name she is using—Cory [did stuff]

As the book goes on, there's seemingly less and less of that, however. Perhaps it's just that there's more plot going on and so less need for it. My wife has been reading "The String of Pearls" (what Sweeny Todd was based off of) and that style of narration was much more common then, or perhaps it varies by genre. I'd be interested in knowing more. If only there was someone with a Ph.D. in English literature, with a specialization in Victorian literature and science in this forum.

 

[Christopher]

This felt like a good example of episodic storytelling to me. It had a encounter-of-the-week with the People of the Open Sky/The Chain, and additional developments with the relationship to the Tzenkethi.

As I recall, that was the one where McCormack avoided using any gendered pronouns for the alien characters, yet many readers and Memory Beta editors assumed they were male.

 

[NStephenH]

Rules of Accusation by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block
In-Universe Date: 2385 (Between The Missing and Sacraments of Fire, with a prologue set 14 years before.
Publish Date: July 4, 2016 (half a year or so after Sacraments and Ascendance)

The second of the Erdmann and Block e-book novellas, I liked this one more (and it had 20 more pages). Namely, because it's a big family spectacular of the, well, I suppose there's not a term for collective Ferengi families I'm familiar with, so I'll just refer to it as the House of Ishka.
It's a big, jolly romp, with many cutaways to everyone's favorite Mourn. If I had to criticize it, I'd say that the main characters aren't particularly involved with the resolution to the plot, but the mourn sub-plot makes up for that, as he's the one who resolves it. I enjoyed how they described mourn, and the in-joke continues of everyone saying he's quite the talker, but us never getting a line of dialogue from him. It helps that he's so expressive in the show, and the authors make his descriptions quite expressive as well. I don't know that you could make Mourn work as such a central character in a comic, and even in a show while continuing the in-joke, as they do allude to him having dialogue in his scenes, but it's glossed over.

It seems like the authors make allusions to the plot of Sacraments, though it could be an assumption on my part. There's mention of Sisko having to decline the invitation to Quarks due to a priority message from Starfleet, and I thought Odo was similarly not going to appear due to something about a changeling artifact, but he has a decent presence through the second half of the novel that I enjoyed. Perhaps foreshadowing good things for the authorial duo's third novella, I, Constable.

As I recall, that was the one where McCormack avoided using any gendered pronouns for the alien characters, yet many readers and Memory Beta editors assumed they were male.

Very interesting. I don't know that I thought of them as a particular gender, but I pictured them as ewoks at first, particularly with all the children around. Somewhat of a cheribic a-genderness, though from what I remember of the descriptions of the adults, they're probably roughly human height and fleshy with tattoo-like stripes that change colors based on their mood? I hope they appear again, but looking at memory beta it doesn't seem they do.

I know many pre-2010s books are trying, but aren't super great about neopronouns, with a lot of characters defaulting to male, except for Burgyone in Peter David's series, and at least part of that was so he could make the joke about how they identify as he/she/it but they went with 's/he' because terrans laughed about 's/he/it'. It was at least nice that the president was referred to as Zha President instead of Madam President. Too bad they're not going to pick up the Andorian gender thing on screen, as it's quite interesting to explore. This reddit thread, in particular, I thought was interesting.



Next up, I'm on to Sacraments of Fire, though I'm also almost done re-reading Avatar Book 1 and will post my thoughts on that as well.

 

[Stevil2001]

As the book goes on, there's seemingly less and less of that, however. Perhaps it's just that there's more plot going on and so less need for it. My wife has been reading "The String of Pearls" (what Sweeny Todd was based off of) and that style of narration was much more common then, or perhaps it varies by genre. I'd be interested in knowing more. If only there was someone with a Ph.D. in English literature, with a specialization in Victorian literature and science in this forum.

Hm, that's an interesting question. Most media tie-in fiction goes for this kind of tight, personality-less third person. But early novels usually had some kind of explicit narrator, and even once novels move away from that into the "free indirect discourse" that really makes the modern novel what it is, you still get narrators with their own personalities throughout the Victorian period. Dickens can have pretty lively third-person narrators: "I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail." I'm a big fan of George Eliot's Adam Bede, where the narrator actually pauses to defend the story they are telling! But I do think you still see contemporary fiction with interesting third-person narrators, just not in tie-ins.

 

[NStephenH]

But I do think you still see contemporary fiction with interesting third-person narrators, just not in tie-ins.

Hmmm, perhaps I just need to read more non-tie-in contemporary fiction!

Plenty more tie-ins to go first though. And then some books I got my wife for the holidays. And the "Strange Novel Worlds" essays.

I've started Sacrament the other day and I forgot what Dukat did to Ghemor, since it's been a while since I read the last ds9 novel. It's awful, though basically inline with him as a character.

 

[Zarm]

The Light Fantastic

The epilogue also indicates that there may be some greater mystery/threat that the Mudd Androids know about, and they are from outside the galaxy (again, I really do not remember this episode). Not sure if that's going to get a chance to be followed up on, but if it does, I hope there's some chance of saving Alice.

The lack of follow-up to this sequel hook is my greatest single disappointment with the end of the novel-verse.

 

[NStephenH]

N-Vector 1-4
Published 2000
Set in 2375, between the end of DS9 and Avatar, book 1.
I decided to read this to learn about Tiris Jast, Commander of the Defiant at the start of Avatar Book 1 (Which I'm reading to my wife and am almost done with). In Avatar, everyone on DS9 is sad that she's dead and notes how much they got to know her and liked her.

She is barely in N-Vector, and where she is it's poorly communicated that she's in charge of the defiant. She's mostly there to arrest miles and take him to DS9 under suspicion of sabotage. I suppose there's a month or two in between this in Avatar, but there's no time to get attached to her in this book and the situation makes you like her less, so reading it doesn't give any benefits going into avatar.

The art is sketcy, in a it has sketch-like qualities, and also sketchy in that I would not recommend consuming it. It is blocky, and faces are horribly inconsistent. I can't tell who anyone is. I've had complaints about star trek comic art before, but this is a new low.

The plot is fine, a bit shaky to begin with then resolves in a standard-ish rescue of quark from a infection-spore ship. The concept of the N-vector, a virus that can infect anything, from humans to the station itself, is interesting, as well as it making a sporocyst copy of DS9, has potential, but it feels poorly executed. The virus has a sentient form and can split itself up temporarily, and all that I think raises more questions than it answers.

I would not recommend anyone else read this.

 

[JD]

I'm not sure how big of a role she has in it or them since I haven't read them yet, but I believe Tiris Jast is in one or both of the TNG: Maximum Warp books.

 

[David cgc]

I'm not sure how big of a role she has in it or them since I haven't read them yet, but I believe Tiris Jast is in one or both of the TNG: Maximum Warp books.

It's been a long time, but IIRC it was a one-page scene on the Defiant during a montage sequence showing the crisis was affecting people all across space.

 

[JD]

Oh, OK. I just knew I'd seen her in the list of characters on Memory Beta.

 

[NStephenH]

Sacraments of Fire by David R George III
In-universe date: A week or so from September 1st 2385, then a 3 month time skip (during which the rest of the fall and the missing et al. occur), then December 2385. Kira has been sent back in time to 2377ish (250 days after the Soul Key)
Published: August 27th 2013

This is the follow-up to DRGIII's Revelation and Dust, and given the first sub-book is set directly after, it feels like he wanted to just keep writing after his book ended. This feels like a hefty tome, though not being many more pages than other recent novels. I think that that's because a lot of it feels like rehashing, or realpolitik, or both. The sub-book shows how Altek Dans (The Bajoran from the past from the end of Revelation and Dust) is treated with suspicion after the assassination of Bacco, which is understandable, but is much more thematically in the fall. I feel like most of the scenes would have fit better incorporated into other books of the Fall. I could see a version of this and Revelation where everything from the first half of this replaces the Kira bits of Revelation, and then the Kira-in-the-past bits could be book 1 of this (or a separate novella or something). But this keeps a mix of the present moving along with that stuff, which might not have sold well separately.

We get a bit of Akaar being distrusting towards Ro in the first book here, but at the same time telling her to "do what is right" which again fits in with how he operates in the fall. Ro stirs a bit on this, noting her history with Akaar presiding over the military tribunal of Ro’s first court-martial on the USS Wellington. Is this something that happens in a book? or is it just worldbuilding?

There's also a lot of self-deprecation from Blackmer in this chapter, as Starfleet command is distrusting of him as well, and he's extra hard on himself. I do not think he's as incompetent as others in this thread do, I think we just only see the worst experiences of the man. Ro gives him a pep talk here, and I wondered if this was partially supposed to be a meta redemption of the character.

Aside from "Altek Dans adjusts to the present and attempts to get repatriated to Bajor", there's a small plot of Odo going to see the discovered shapeshifter from Revelation, which turns out to be something, but not revealed what in this book. We get some scenes with him and Sisko, as well as some scientists, and Odo is quite Gruff/serious, but reaches a rapport with them. I don't know entirely how I feel about his characterization, but perhaps I just prefer Odo in less serious situations.

The main plots are the Ohalavaru cult attacking a moon of Bajor, Endalla, and the Kira plot filling in the gap between "The Soul Key" and "Typhon Pact". The Endalla plot features on Ro's First Officer, the Bajoran Cenn Deska, who through multiple attacks discover that the moon is built around a falsework (or temporary structure) that was used to construct the Bajoran Wormhole (according to the Ohalavaru). This shakes the foundation of his beliefs, and our new Kai prepares for the effect of this information on the Bajoran populace as well. I admittedly forgot what the Ohalavaru were about (they are rationalist atheists, and I think all of this starts with the book first found in Avatar Book 1), but the book does a good job in describing what they are about. I'm still unclear what happened in their first attack and how it relates to the Ascendants (in the previous books, my hazy memory got the Ascendants, the Eav'oq, and this Cult confused).

The Kira plot has her appear in the Delta Quadrant 5 years (7 years?) earlier, with the Even Odds, where we meet back up with Taran'atar. Kira knows (I don't know if it's been discussed in other books) that the Even Odds and Taran'atar sacrifice themselves in the battle with the Ascendants (Which the battle itself has been alluded to multiple times). She mulls over if she will die there, if she should save Taran'atar, if she is the reason the Even Odds ends up there, and the temporal prime directive. Time travel is inconsistent in trek, but this seems like a standard "you were there all along" type, where Kira is the reason the Even Odds is there. Taran'atar does not know this but takes over the Even Odds, leaving Kira in a dropship, and heading to stop the ascendant invasion himself. She follows behind him, and this is the cliffhanger we end on.

Kira's plot feels a bit oddly placed in relation to the Soul Key and Ilana Ghemor. At the end of the Soul Key, Inana is deemed "the fire" and sent to the Ascendants, to lead their invasion. This seems to be very odd action for the prophets to take, and not necessarily in the best interest of Bajor based on descriptions of the battle previously resulting in some loss of life. Kira, meanwhile, is dubbed "the hand" and is just sent back to DS9 at the end of the Soul Key, and then has 5 years of linear time, before ending up in the wormhole again (and is in the wormhole or Bajor's past for 2 years?) and then being sent to the Delta Quadrant. Some if it makes me wonder how much was meant to happen in new books directly after the Soul Key that was dropped in favor of a time skip, and how much of this was storyboarded.

A couple of other things:

• I found one typo while reading (the eBook on Kobo), where Sisko resolves "never to waist a moment with his wife".
• Every background character here gets a name. As someone working on entering character appearances, the level of detail was almost distracting, but that could just be a "how I'm consuming" problem. It is good to have things fleshed out, like Ensign McKnight having a name in TNG, I just don't necessarily expect it with as much detail as is gone into here.
• Nog works on getting Vic connected to the new holodecks (he's apparently not compatible), which we see discussed in "The Light Fantastic". He has a bit of a minor breakthrough but then has to get going. I think there was a line about he thought someone else was working on this, but it's unclear if this scene would be pre or post The Light Fantastic.

In reading Stevil's thread, Sci replied with this about Revelation and Dust:

To me it felt like an interesting set of character studies followed by this sudden mid-narrative crisis that came out of nowhere. Which is very much what real crises like that often feel like.

I think I agree about revelation, but don't think that that extends to this book. I do think this book does a good job setting up for the next one (at least I hope) but there's a lot of extra I was annoyed having to dig through. The second half is interesting, the Kira half is interesting, but the fall stuff felt a bit out of place after reading a lot of non-fall. The Star trek reading order (Which I'm helping do appearances for and will suggest corrections to the ordering of) does put the book directly post-fall, but I don't know how well it fits there either. It's a bit hard because it does have this 3-month gap in the middle. If it could be divided I'd say to split it before poisoned chalice and after the missing.

I'm excited to dig into Ascendance next! Though my next post in this thread will probably be notes from a re-read of Avatar book 1.

It's been a long time, but IIRC it was a one-page scene on the Defiant during a montage sequence showing the crisis was affecting people all across space.

I spotted this on Memory Beta as well, and that is what I assumed. I haven't bothered to go find it, but I might at some point to enter it in.

 

[Stevil2001]

There's also a lot of self-deprecation from Blackmer in this chapter, as Starfleet command is distrusting of him as well, and he's extra hard on himself. I do not think he's as incompetent as others in this thread do, I think we just only see the worst experiences of the man. Ro gives him a pep talk here, and I wondered if this was partially supposed to be a meta redemption of the character.

From a Watsonian perspective, I'm sure Blackmer is a perfectly fine security chief, but from a Doylist perspective, we see him do two security things in all his appearances: allow a station to be destroyed and allow the president to be assassinated. There's literally no story where Blackmer actually accomplishes anything to balance out those worst experiences, which is needed from a storytelling perspective.

 

[NStephenH]

From a Watsonian perspective, I'm sure Blackmer is a perfectly fine security chief, but from a Doylist perspective, we see him do two security things in all his appearances: allow a station to be destroyed and allow the president to be assassinated. There's literally no story where Blackmer actually accomplishes anything to balance out those worst experiences, which is needed from a storytelling perspective.

The main component of Ro's argument is that Blackmer is the reason they found the bombs, so the first ds9 would have been lost with all hands without him. Not a lot, but something. I do see your point and I now have a pair of new terms added to my repertoire.

 

[NStephenH]

Avatar: Book 1 By S.D. Perry
In-universe Date: 2376 (3 months after the end of DS9)
Published: 2001

Before I begin, I'm mildly annoyed I bought the e-book of this when I already owned the "Twist of faith" omnibus digitally as well. At least I noticed before buying book 2.

This book is great, but it's only half a book. I reached the last page and my wife said "That's it?". It's not really got it's own climax like many duologies or trilogies I've read. That said, I think this great setup for book 2, and the DS9 relaunch as a whole. We get the new characters, we get interaction and dynamics with the old characters, and it really feels like we're just picking up after the end of the show. I don't really remember what the climax of book 2 is, so it'll be fresh for me (assuming there is one).

My memories of the relaunch was that I kept waiting and waiting for things to happen (namely Sisko coming back), but I also read all of gateways and I am not planning on doing that this time. I even considered skipping the DS9 one until I reread the description, and I think it's a good one and will give us more time with the new characters. Maybe not Horn and Ivory, but it's short. The rest of the first half of the relaunch isn't that much, and I enjoyed mission gamma and rising son, then we get Unity which concludes the main plot.

Of the new characters, we get a lot of time with Ro (who my wife hasn't seen on-screen yet), Shar, and Elias. Prynn is introduced, but doesn't have much here. As I mentioned earlier, we also have the death of Jast, and I think it's talked about how she's developed a working relationship with the crew (which you do not get in her comic book appearance before death), but I don't recall any characterization. I think Bowers is in this book (Memory Beta says he is), I'll have to do a search through later to confirm how many times he appears (1 scene is "other" and 2 make a character "supporting" for STRO). He doesn't really have any characterization if he does.

Shar was definitely my favorite relaunch character the first time around, and I'm excited to hear my wife's opinions and just reread it in general. The few scenes with him do a great job conveying a reserved and somewhat socially awkward character.

For our returning cast, we see a Kira who is exhausted managing the station, a Nog who's mostly alright except for Jem'Hadar PTSD/prejudice, and a Jake who really misses his dad. We also get the first Ezri-Bashir fight (which my wife prefers them not together anyway). It's interesting seeing all these things now having read a post-destiny world.

I hope there's more Shar and Prynn in the remaining post-fall DS9 books, but with more focus on Sisko I don't know that there's room. I forgot to mention in the Sacraments write-up, but Prynn does get a small scene where Ro says she knows it was her who sabotaged the Defiant, effectively letting Bashir escape in the fall. Ro effectively says Bashri wouldn't have escaped anyway, and she gets some double-shift duty as a token punishment for... not trusting Ro I guess? The scene (and the scene in the fall itself) felt like token nods to DS9 relaunch, but otherwise could have been cut. It does show us that Shar and Prynn do still have a close bond of friendship, even apart.

Perhaps I'll finish "Ascendence" this weekend, but I've got a couple TCG events so probably not.

 

[JD]

I thought Shar had left the station when we get to The Fall?

 

[Greg Cox]

And a Ray Bradbury reference. His story (and its Twilight Zone adaptation) is where I know the line from originally.

And the climatic musical number in Fame!

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[NStephenH]

I thought Shar had left the station when we get to The Fall?

He has, but he could come back. I imagine he won't, but we could very well have plot threads with Andoria again, or just remote correspondence. If not, at least I am re-reading these earlier books.

 

[NStephenH]

Ascendance by David R. George III
Published: December 2015 (Or January 2016, I know release dates are fuzzy).
In-Universe: December 2377, Feb 2378, December 2385-January 2386

Our long-awaited first fill-in-the-blank novel. Based on how this goes, I can expect the next two David R George books to be The Long Mirage to be filling in what happened with the Ohalavaru and Original Sin to be the kidnapping of Rebecca.
The book is divided into two main parts. The first picks up right after the Taran'atar chapters of Sacraments, and details the brief invasion of the ascendants and them being stopped by Taran'atar. This section also details the inner thoughts of a Dax that wants to differentiate herself from Jadzia, and not be on the station anymore, as well as a bit about why Kira steps down to become a Vedek. It also gives a little bit of a redemption arc for Raiq, the ascendant who did not kill Opaka in Rising Son. Raiq is our "redeemable" ascendant here, though I somewhat dislike that because she does admit (at least in the narration) to having purged multiple heretical civilizations. She is the only ascendant to survive the attack, as Taran'atar destroys the "Wa" (strange subspace zone in the Even Odds), which sets off the subspace weapon. This also creates a large subspace rupture which destroys the small biosphere of the Bajoran moon from the previous book, which I thought was destroyed by the Ohalavaru the first time around, but I suppose that happens after this incident (in which case they're not guilty of killing any scientists like I thought they were). Raiq is spared from this because she thinks they need to return to the wormhole to "burn in the eyes of the true", and then surrenders to the federation as she has a mental breakdown over all the other ascendants dying. We get a 3 month timeskip where the federation/Bajor lets her become a monk and she begins studying Bajoran religion and doing a comparative analysis with the religion of the Ascendants.

We then skip back to the "present" where the shape-shifting artifact that Odo interacted with escapes the research facility and makes a beeline for the wormhole. It transforms into a copy of the defiant, then into a copy of DS9 and speaks to Ro, where it's revealed that it's actually an amalgamation of most of the remaining ascendants and Taran'atar, thanks to a short scene where it's revealed that some shapeshifting-progenitor-moon-object (wonder if this is related to the changeling god that Odo has mentioned) magic dust was in the meta-weapon to help the ascendants "link" with the True.

Along the way, we get scenes with Ro beginning a relationship with Altek Dans (guy from Bajor's past or from a metaphor for the celestial temple, unclear), Nog looking into Vic's holoprogram and discovering more mob stuff is happening in there, Doctor Girani coming to help Odo after he's injured by the shape-shifting amalgamation (it didn't mean to hurt him), and some drama between who's going to be the new first officer, Ro's second officer who I can't remember, or Blackmer. The second officer seems to not have a healthy relationship with work as he talks in the narration about committing suicide if he doesn't get this promotion. Cenn Deska resigns and leaves, and I'm unsure if he'll be seen again. I didn't really remember his initial introduction and he's not a particularly memorable character, so he's not particularly missed.


I don't particularly like the reveal that the strange shape-shifter is the ascendants having successfully fulfilled their prophecy, and going to live in the wormhole and becoming the "planet in the wormhole" in the DS9 pilot. Throughout all their plot, I was confused a bit if they feared the unnameable and worshipped the true, or the other way around (I now know they are synonyms) and I was thinking that one half might have been the pah-wraiths and the other the prophets. Their fanatical tennants doesn't seem to make a ton of sense, but I suppose it doesn't need to fanatics. The two sins they punish other civilizations for seem to be worshipping gods that aren't their gods (which can sometimes be excused if they're just made up I think?), or worshipping the true incorrectly, the sin of which the Eav'oq are responsible for and which the ascendants wiped them out for.

I suppose the Ohalavaru are right that the prophets aren't really looking out for Bajor, they'll just tell anyone a prophecy, be it the Eav'oq, the Ascendants (who seem to originally have had the orbs, or maybe they stole them from the Eav'oq), or Bajor.

Only a few more DS9 books to go. Next up I'm hopping into Force and Motion.

 

[NStephenH]

A quick write up of force and motion as I'm on a plane about to take off. I was sick for a week and not feeling up for much, then was visiting family.

Force and Motion
January 2386 with lots of flashbacks to Benjamin Maxwell's life in between his episode and now.

This story is a good stand-alone story exploring Ben Maxwell, with a little bit of Nog and Miles bonding while on an adventure together. I don't think I have much to say about the plot itself, which is a scientist creating some sort of energy-sucking intelligent blob that destroys the station.

I wasn't particularly engaged while reading the book though, perhaps because of its constant jumping around to flashbacks. I thought the interactions between miles and nog were cute but not particularly deep.

Edit to say: I do think the structure of the novel is interesting, and I like most of the flashbacks themselves, it just made the pacing feel weird.

I had recently watched the Ben Maxwell episode so the source material was fresh. I enjoyed the psychoanalysis of him as well as some insight on how the new zeland penal colony works.

I also read
Friends with the Sparrows from the sky's the limit by Christopher L. Bennettt
Set several months after generations.

Speaking of psychology, I felt this story was a wonderful dive into Data with an emotion chip, and I'm glad to have read it. I'm a bit unsure about the exploration of the tamarian sense of self and it's influence on the language proposed here, but it was all window dressing for the data story. I'm glad I sook it out after watching Darmok.

Next up is the Long Mirage and the return of Kira to the present.