#26 Star Trek Deep Space Nine Rebels #3: The Liberated

[tomswift2002]

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Liberated

MajorKira and the ambitious KaiWinn have never seen eye to eye, but when Cardassian renegades invade Deep Space 9, determined to capture one of the sacred Orbs of the Prophets, the two women must work together to preserve both the Orb and the safety of everyone aboard the station.
Captain Sisko and the crew of the Defiant cannot come to Kira's aid; they are too busy teaching an entire world how to fight back against a vicious invasion—even if it means breaking the Prime Directive!

 

[tomswift2002]

I'm up to page 60 in this book so far, and I must say that the quality of the writing in this book has improved greatly since Book 2, even though ab Hugh is still working with the funky plot that feels too much like "The Laertian Gambit". And there are still things that don't make sense that ab Hugh has had to deal with, like why is Quark on the Defiant, when the bar is still open? Quark being on the Defiant has been one of those "What we're they thinking?" Plots of the whole trilogy.

 

[Kilana2]

The whole story of the rebels trilogy was alright, although I´ve never quite bought Winn´s presence aboard DS9. It was a bit far-fetched. I voted average.

I don´t know if the "title" Sister (Sister Winn) is used among the Bajoran clerics. There are Prylars, Ranjens, Vedeks and the Kai.

I have also found many errors regarding standard terms in all three of the novels.

But I liked how Winn bluffed her way through the Occupation.

 

[tomswift2002]

I just finished the trilogy, and I can think of only on word to describe the whole thing: bizarre.

This third book, while the story with the Natives felt very much like Robert Sheckley's "The Laertian Gambit" (and I still have to wonder whether the story actually started with him, and then for some reason was given to Dafyd ab Hugh who had to finish the trilogy), the Emissary's Sanctuary/Liberated plot was very reminiscent of ab Hugh's earlier DS9 story "Fallen Heroes". And when Book Three starts I could definitely see where the writing quality had vastly improved over the prior two books, and I figured that ab Hugh had reached a point in the story where he was flying solo in terms of how the stories were going.

But by Chapter 11 everything started to fall apart. All of a sudden it seemed like I was reading a completely different manuscript, since there were a huge number of spelling mistakes, even a few sentences where the period was placed two or three words before the end of the sentence, plot points and different thoughts would start but then not be finished. One plot point that was like that was after Kai Winn's bomb went off in Chapter 16. Kira stabs Winn, and then Winn and one of the Liberated is transported to the infirmary, the Bomb goes off, killing all the Liberated on the command deck and not killing Kira due to the bodies of the Liberated being on top of her, shielding her. Then Kira gets out from under the bodies, lowers the shields, calls the USS Harriman, which sends over a Starfleet officer very quickly (and there's no indication how he got on, he just appears while Kira is looking at the turbo,it which had descended, and she was afraid that more Liberated were going to come up, but it's never explained what occurred with the lift). It's never explained what happened to the Bajorans who were manning OPS. I would assume the were killed but it is never said, just like we are never told about the fate of the remaining Liberated on DS9 (apparently once their leader is killed, everyone dies).

The last few chapters felt like an early script the needed a lot of polish.

 

[Kilana2]

A question occured to me: is "Sister" an official title/rank inside the Bajoran Klerus?

I only know Prylars, Ranjens, Vedeks and the Kai.

 

[tomswift2002]

I don't recall. Maybe it's like how "Father" is used when talking to any male is the priesthood of the Catholic Church. Doesn't matter whether they are a Priest, Cardinal or Pope you address them as "Father", unless they tell you not to.