Re: Typhon Pact: Zero Sum Game Review thread
Deep Space Nine!
It’s a depressing place, really. No-one’s there anymore, as we’re swiftly reminded. Bashir drinks alone at
Quark’s (Quark’s still here. He’s going to die in that bar). The station feels oddly unwelcoming, which I suppose is the whole point, mirroring Bashir’s vaguely dissatisfied mood. I would have liked a more joyous return to my favourite corner of the Trek-verse, but evidently there’s a purpose to the gloominess, getting us into the right mindset for Bashir’s current character arc, so I’m okay with it.
I liked the ruminations about Bajor, now a prime vacation spot. That added a rather poignant sting to the whole emotional vibe I was getting from the station. As Bajor enjoys its time of prosperity, DS9 by contrast is feeling old and tired. It’s as if the station’s setting has outgrown it, and now it’s hanging around awkwardly, a relic leaving its days of relevance behind. Which of course is just what Bashir is doing, as he ponders his age and then reflects on his old “frontier medicine” enthusiasm and how the frontier has become just another part of the Federation.
Bashir has a beard. It’s nice when characters actually resemble real people and change their appearance now and then. (Vale doesn’t count. That was a continuity fix
). Bashir admits he’s lonely. As I said, not the most gripping or fulfilling return to DS9, but it’s so obviously tied to the character work I don’t mind.
A bit of a surprise: Vaughn’s here. Well, his comatose body is. Prynn’s here too (yay!). I know some readers got bored with their relationship after a while, but I never did. I was continuously impressed both by how they kept finding ways to twist the relationship in new directions and by how they made it complex enough to be convincing. The authors seemed to have great respect for what they were trying to portray; a parent-child bond that was in tatters but which could never be truly sundered. It was an acknowledgement that human relationships, particularly those as powerful and troubled as this, don’t have easy resolutions or simplistic progressions, and that “fixes” aren’t real fixes at all, only temporary measures. The relationship is ever changing and ever redefining itself, and the people involved keep going over the same problems and trying new means of relating to one another. There was no resolution, only change, and sometimes it was heading in one direction only to swing to something new. It was, I thought, very mature storytelling that suggested the authors truly cared about the characters they were writing - enough to make them fully realized people with real relationship dynamics. So this little hint at the latest twist in the Vaughn/Prynn saga was welcome.
Interesting also is the book Prynn’s reading him. Some very interesting thematic content, considering Vaughn apparently went down in the Borg invasion. A real echo of the emotional power of
Destiny here.
So, after finishing her reading aloud of
Destiny Book 2: Mere Mortals – sorry, of
Twilight Kingdoms Trilogy: Book 2 –
Prynn discusses her reluctance to switch off Vaughn’s life support and leaves. Very interesting to catch up with the characters like this - at the low point of an ebb - without acknowledgement of how they got there. It feels rather odd. What I’m saying I suppose is that it does genuinely feel like time has passed and there has been a gap of years since we last saw these people. And the sense that Prynn and Vaughn’s story
might be winding down to its inevitable conclusion does feed in well to the general tiredness of the chapter. (That’s not a complaint, it’s clearly supposed to feel this way).
Bashir categorizes the Federation as something almost stultifying, as something that conquers, sanitizes, homogenizes. Something tells me that homogeneity is going to be important in this novel
. A major theme or just a reoccurring idea? We’ll see, I suppose.
Jang Si Naran is still around (having been introduced in
Warpath). Totally disregarding this novel for a moment for a generalized observation, there should be more Thallonian characters in non-
New Frontier works. We have so many nods and references to the
Excalibur and
Trident, to Brikars and Hermats, etc, but the backdrop to
New Frontier is so often overlooked. We should have Thallonian refugees and ex-pats show up with greater frequency.
A reference is made to the Sindorin mission. I’m always pleased when authors directly acknowledge the earlier stories. We don’t need excessive details that might distract non-committed fans, but continuity-obsessed folks like myself appreciate these little reminders that prior events happened, and are informing character’s current decisions and outlooks. David Mack is good at this, though – he makes a lot of continuity nods without bogging the current story down in flashbacks or explanations. Very little “recapping” yet the story clearly builds on earlier works.
The main plot has now arrived. Bashir is (of course) going to go undercover and infiltrate the Breen so as to destroy the Typhon Pact’s prototype slipstream project.
Ro is rather flat-out “let’s just fight people” here. Characteristic of her command style? She was only throwing suggestions about but still, it’s interesting she went straight for planet-razing.
Bashir has a licence to kill. Inevitably, and to my lasting shame, I hear the James Bond music in my head. Exposure to mass culture has ruined us all. Anyway, despite the Intelligence officer giving it a moment to “sink in” we don’t get any immediate reaction from Bashir. I guess it would disrupt the progression of the scene too much, but is it also possible he’s avoiding reflection on it. Doctors with licence to kill...that doesn’t really work too well.
I notice that while in “Full Circle” it was insisted by Captain Eden that the Federation had no desire to claim new territories that appears to have changed. At least, Starfleet Intelligence is pretty sure that within a decade slipstream will have allowed the Federation to establish itself elsewhere. I guess the Pact situation has made them a little more pragmatic.
Building on the Sindorin reference, the “use or place of the genetically-enhanced” plot thread resurfaces. Starfleet’s good at making use of such people isn’t it?
I was amused by the opening of Chapter Four. I know some can’t stand them, but I like the Jack Pack. The Federation’s second greatest think tank, slightly less mature than Seven and the Doctor’s. Slightly. This time, they’ve apparently got necessary insights but are refusing to share them unless they get to choose a specific person to tell.
It’s sort of like telling the government that you have the cure for cancer but you’ll only tell them if they answer you these riddles three. And the government feels they have to play along. The whole thing just amuses me, and is a nice balance for the “raze planets” and “expand our reach” comments in the last chapter.
)
I’ve probably spoiled every scene of the book, so don’t read on if you haven’t read it yet.