I’ve not felt compelled for some time to carve out a chunk in my day to put my thoughts and feelings about a book into a review. But throughout the time I was reading Plagues of Night, I found myself composing snippets, so I’m not at all surprised to be sitting here on Independence Day attempting to craft what I want to write in lieu of starting a new book.
When I first read about the Typhon Pact books back in 2010, I was very excited. Keith R. A. DeCandido’s A Singular Destiny delivered a spectacular preview that held great promise of what was to come, and the individual story premises and back-cover blurbs instilled a hefty dose of anticipation. Even the four covers, presented long before the books were published, dazzled me and added to my expectations.
However, the four novels (and later the e-only novella) that introduced the Typhon Pact didn’t live up to what I had in mind for one reason or another--different reasons from book to book and author to author. They weren’t bad by any means, yet something was lacking.
So it was with a restrained interest that I awaited the arrival of Plagues of Night by David R. George III. Any enthusiasm I felt was for the author himself: his books have been a delight to read, one of the most talented writers who has given readers of Trek fiction engaging and dramatic stories--Serpents Among The Ruins; The 34th Rule; Twilight, Mission Gamma; Olympus Descending, Worlds of Deep Space Nine, Volume Three--and wonderful prose.
The restraint that encompassed me when I started Plagues of Night withered within the first thirty or so pages. My inchoate expectations of what the formation of the Typhon Pact could mean for the inhabitants of Gene Roddenberry’s creation had been realized.
Early on the book revisits important pieces of plot from the previous books, but instead of feeling like an obligatory nod to a reader who may not have read Zero Sum Game, Seize the Fire, Rough Beasts of Empire, or Paths of Disharmony, George weaves the actions and outcomes detailed in those separate stories into a tapestry and sum, one greater than the previous parts and providing a breadth of scope and density of narrative that I had only vaguely imagined yet still believed was possible back when the Typhon Pact books were announced.
Plagues of Night delivers so much. At its core, it continues a plot strand from Zero Sum Game--a goal of the Typhon Pact member states--to obtain the technical information needed to develop a slip-stream drive but complicates that plot, and the lives of the characters, by showing that while specific citizens of states within the Pact still desire the technology and will do what it takes to obtain it, others eschew it and focus their efforts on goals that run counter to what one might expect from “enemies” of the Federation. Even among those who desire the technology, George demonstrates the multiple reasons and agendas many people might desire the same thing--Sela and Tomalak as well as the Tzenkethi Autarch desire the technology for conquest, but others, like Commander T’Jul, truly covet it as a means to protect themselves and others because of their fear of the Federation and its allies and the superiority afforded them by possessing this advanced technology.
George crafts a story that gracefully intersperses a vast cast, gracefully because the appearance and actions of Benjamin and Kassidy, Vedek Kira, Julian and Sarina, Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise - E, Spock, President Bacco, Sela, Praetor Kamemor, Tomalak, Trok, the members of the Dominion, and lastly, Deep Space Nine and its crew and residents all seem natural, not forced, within the unfolding and expansive plot.
When I read Zero Sum Game and Rough Beasts of Empire, I concluded that it would be a while before we learned what had become of the characters inhabiting DS9 in 2377 and before we learned who currently resides on the station in 2382 and beyond. George’s book reveals some of the events of the “missing years” of the Deep Space Nine narrative from where The Soul Key ends and where the Destiny trilogy begins, and I devoured every tidbit. And I was equally thrilled to be introduced to Captain Ro’s new crew and to find that the station itself, that Cardassian “monstrosity” that I and so many others love, breathes again, a character as important to the tale as the Bajorans, Cardassians, Terrans, and others that call it home.
And lastly, the novel’s plot incorporates a delightful premise to knit together what can be the far-flung reaches of the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma quadrants and does so in a way that is not only believable, and allows for the intersection of what has historically been the separate fictional “lines” of “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine,” but also rife for the creation of compelling and worthwhile stories.
Congratulations to the author on a novel that leaves us wanting much more and exemplifies how good it can be.
When I first read about the Typhon Pact books back in 2010, I was very excited. Keith R. A. DeCandido’s A Singular Destiny delivered a spectacular preview that held great promise of what was to come, and the individual story premises and back-cover blurbs instilled a hefty dose of anticipation. Even the four covers, presented long before the books were published, dazzled me and added to my expectations.
However, the four novels (and later the e-only novella) that introduced the Typhon Pact didn’t live up to what I had in mind for one reason or another--different reasons from book to book and author to author. They weren’t bad by any means, yet something was lacking.
So it was with a restrained interest that I awaited the arrival of Plagues of Night by David R. George III. Any enthusiasm I felt was for the author himself: his books have been a delight to read, one of the most talented writers who has given readers of Trek fiction engaging and dramatic stories--Serpents Among The Ruins; The 34th Rule; Twilight, Mission Gamma; Olympus Descending, Worlds of Deep Space Nine, Volume Three--and wonderful prose.
The restraint that encompassed me when I started Plagues of Night withered within the first thirty or so pages. My inchoate expectations of what the formation of the Typhon Pact could mean for the inhabitants of Gene Roddenberry’s creation had been realized.
Early on the book revisits important pieces of plot from the previous books, but instead of feeling like an obligatory nod to a reader who may not have read Zero Sum Game, Seize the Fire, Rough Beasts of Empire, or Paths of Disharmony, George weaves the actions and outcomes detailed in those separate stories into a tapestry and sum, one greater than the previous parts and providing a breadth of scope and density of narrative that I had only vaguely imagined yet still believed was possible back when the Typhon Pact books were announced.
Plagues of Night delivers so much. At its core, it continues a plot strand from Zero Sum Game--a goal of the Typhon Pact member states--to obtain the technical information needed to develop a slip-stream drive but complicates that plot, and the lives of the characters, by showing that while specific citizens of states within the Pact still desire the technology and will do what it takes to obtain it, others eschew it and focus their efforts on goals that run counter to what one might expect from “enemies” of the Federation. Even among those who desire the technology, George demonstrates the multiple reasons and agendas many people might desire the same thing--Sela and Tomalak as well as the Tzenkethi Autarch desire the technology for conquest, but others, like Commander T’Jul, truly covet it as a means to protect themselves and others because of their fear of the Federation and its allies and the superiority afforded them by possessing this advanced technology.
George crafts a story that gracefully intersperses a vast cast, gracefully because the appearance and actions of Benjamin and Kassidy, Vedek Kira, Julian and Sarina, Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise - E, Spock, President Bacco, Sela, Praetor Kamemor, Tomalak, Trok, the members of the Dominion, and lastly, Deep Space Nine and its crew and residents all seem natural, not forced, within the unfolding and expansive plot.
When I read Zero Sum Game and Rough Beasts of Empire, I concluded that it would be a while before we learned what had become of the characters inhabiting DS9 in 2377 and before we learned who currently resides on the station in 2382 and beyond. George’s book reveals some of the events of the “missing years” of the Deep Space Nine narrative from where The Soul Key ends and where the Destiny trilogy begins, and I devoured every tidbit. And I was equally thrilled to be introduced to Captain Ro’s new crew and to find that the station itself, that Cardassian “monstrosity” that I and so many others love, breathes again, a character as important to the tale as the Bajorans, Cardassians, Terrans, and others that call it home.
And lastly, the novel’s plot incorporates a delightful premise to knit together what can be the far-flung reaches of the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma quadrants and does so in a way that is not only believable, and allows for the intersection of what has historically been the separate fictional “lines” of “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine,” but also rife for the creation of compelling and worthwhile stories.
Congratulations to the author on a novel that leaves us wanting much more and exemplifies how good it can be.
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