Well.
Before I begin, I want to emphasize that I did like the book, would probably rate it in the Above Average range. Unfortunately, given the delays that have struck the DS9 line since the components of the Ascendants story were first brought together in 2005, I think the hype and expectation hurt the way that their conclusion played out for me as a reader, making it feel less impressive than it actually was. When you have to wait for about ten years for the full story to play out, it builds up expectations and hopes in your mind that the inevitable work will never be able to fully meet. Hopefully, when I reread it later, when I am further away from the desire to see this story play out for the better part of a decade, I'll be able to get away from that feeling, but for right now, because there was all of this build up in my mind, I can't help but feel a sense of disappointment.
That acknowledged, I think my biggest problem here is that this definitely feels like two books put into one. I know that there have been multiple books that have been outlined as two and had to be compacted into one since the novel line stopped coming out with two books a month, but this is the first time I've felt that it's actively hurt the story being told, that the story unfolding NEEDED the split, that having them combined like this was an actual impediment for the overall narrative.
Because the first half is moving entirely at the speed of plot, with Kira as the central focus. And, while I love Kira, and I do agree that this should be primarily her story, DS9's strength has always been in its ensemble nature. I enjoyed getting to revisit Dax in that period where she started getting restless on DS9, but both of these characters had an issue that bothered me, in that their doubts and questions for their current path didn't feel natural and organic, just retroactively placed, because of the time it's been since these characters have had focused on them in this time period. As an audience, we know that Kira left Starfleet after this and Dax eventually leaves DS9, but I don't feel like I've witnessed the start of their path, just been told that they're on already on it.
I also would have liked to have seen more of the other characters on DS9 at this time - Vaughan gets a segment or two, while Ro doesn't appear at all until near the end of this half. Bashir is mentioned but goes entirely unseenGiven that Ro is pretty much the connecting character between the two time periods, I think seeing some focus on her in the 2375 period would have been helpful. Her and Cenn, actually, who I'll get to further in a minute. While this half is definitely Kira's story, Bajor is their home as well, and I would have liked to see their reactions to this existential threat to their world. Like I said, I feel like this should have been its own, separate book, allowing a greater look at the scale of this half of the story. It has a mission to accomplish, to tell the tale of the Ascendants attack on Bajor, but I don't feel that it really has a chance to breathe and allow the characters to react as they should.
But, on the other hand, at long last we have resolved this loose thread, and, given the events in the greater Star Trek universe within the novels, we also know that life on DS9 was relatively peaceful in the time that followed this up until Destiny. DS9 is, for the most part, caught up with the main timeline in the novels and can now continue and advance at a reasonable pace with the rest of them. We can see more DS9 novels in the future (and, maybe please open up the authorship - no slight on DRG, but I miss the days when multiple authors got to put a unique stamp on the series, so I'd like to see some other people get a crack at the whole crew, rather than splitting them up and spreading them around).
Moving on to the second half, I am actually interested in the development for Ro, of her beginning to see the Prophets as maybe being gods. I've long said that there are events that can make one person drop to their knees in prayer and send another person to the bar for a drink, and I like seeing the juxtaposition of Ro and Cenn moving in opposing paths in the wake of the discovery of the falsehood. I think Ro has enough uniquenes to her character that her taking a few steps in favor of believing in the Prophets won't make her indistinguishable from Kira or anything. I'm also sorry to see Cenn go, but I have a feeling he'll be back at some point - his departure did not feel like a definitive end for his character.
I was also pleased to see a character not named Blackmer in the new senior staff get some focus. Wheeler Stinson finally has an identity. Now, if some of the other senior staff could get that (which, going back to the start, would have been an advantage in this being two books), I'd be able to keep the names straight. Like I've been saying for a while in regards to both TNG and DS9, the staff turnover rate has made it impossible for me to grow attached to these people because they're no more than names. While it hasn't exactly been a turnover at DS9, it also has been a long time since we had a solid grasp of who the major players on the station are.
The biggest flaw is that it felt that there wasn't a lot of forward momentum. There was a more tangible feeling of things and characters advancing than in Sacraments of Fire, but not as much as I was hoping for - Altek Dans remains a significant mystery in why he has been brought forward in time, nothing new has happened with the reveal of the falsehood other than Kai Pralon revealing it to Bajor, which didn't get a lot of focus as the story shifted to pay attention to the issue of the shapeshifter, and these both feel like what the next DS9 novel DRG will focus on, but for the time being, not a lot has been progressed with them, which, given their focus, make it feel almost like they're spinning their wheels rather than moving forward. There's at least a sense that there's some progression being made, but it's still feeling like the story is stuck in molasses, so I hope the next novel gives these real, solid focus and advancement.
Also, a personal request, PLEASE resolve the Vic and Morn subplots or move on from them. These both feel like they're a way for Quark and Nog to get focus while not being focused on at all, because they're both so removed and isolated from the rest of the characters. Either do something with them or move them on, but these subplots are dragging.
All in all, although I had a lot of criticism to offer, I did enjoy this book. I just recognize that I was hoping for more than I ended up getting, largely because of the time I've had to wait for the conclusion to this storyline. I think I'd really gotten my hopes set on an 'Ascendants anthology' of some kind, in the vein of Prophecy and Change or Distant Shores that would have come out back in 2013, for DS9's twentieth, or in 2018, for the twenty-fifth, rather than half a novel. For what it is, it's a good, solid story that I enjoyed reading. It's just given all the delays and bumps in the road, I'd built up something more than what I got, so that feeling of disappointment is still lingering.
(And this is nitpicking-in-order-to-have-an-excuse-to-share-a-neat-factoid, but the first recorded reference to saying Italy was shaped like a boot was in the 1560s, that long ago it probably wouldn't have been used as a description since boots didn't look like Italy until around that same time. 
