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Spoilers DS9: Ascendance by David R. George III Review Thread

Rate Ascendance

  • Outstanding

    Votes: 17 25.0%
  • Above Average

    Votes: 33 48.5%
  • Average

    Votes: 15 22.1%
  • Below Average

    Votes: 1 1.5%
  • Poor

    Votes: 2 2.9%

  • Total voters
    68
Wasn't Riker an "ambitious arse" when first we met him?
And what's wrong with ambition anyway?
I quite liked Stinsons back- story and TBH it's nice to see a character with a little grit (unlike TNG,where there is weapons grade blandness on display).
Also now I'm reviewing my mental image of Blackmer...more a Dean Winters type in my mind.
 
Wasn't Riker an "ambitious arse" when first we met him?
And what's wrong with ambition anyway?
I quite liked Stinsons back- story and TBH it's nice to see a character with a little grit (unlike TNG,where there is weapons grade blandness on display).
Also now I'm reviewing my mental image of Blackmer...more a Dean Winters type in my mind.

I've like Stinson since his introduction and his scenes with Sisko in Raise the Dawn were great. Pity he isn't on Sisko's Robinson crew.
 
And what's wrong with ambition anyway?

Well, that kind of depends on how many people you screw over on your way up, whilst forgetting you might meet them again on the way down! ;)

Character should make for a good mix with the others so it'll be interesting to see what they do with him.
 
I'm surprised this is scoring predominantly above average and outstanding - I found this book very, very average. The way the story unfolded was ok, but I just found the writing slow and ponderous. And most of the new characters are just dull.

Personally, i'd like some other writers to have a shot at DS9 now.
 
Also, how you went about using those sentient "rungs on the ladder" too. Do it in the right way, and they'll do their best to cushion your landing, should you fall.
 
I like the precedent of George taking on the main DS9 storyline but having other authors write stories like The Missing and Force and Motion.
 
Haven't there been some issue with consistency though? I thought I remember reading some complaints about things not quite lining up around the time The Missing came out.
 
I think that was more about "The Missing" and "Takedown" not referencing each other despite both being centered around relatively significant events that were supposed to have happened at around the same time as one another; I don't remember anyone mentioning any issues with "The Missing" and the general DS9 line.
 
Well, there was also the fact that Altek Dans isn't mentioned once in The Missing, at least from my recollection, despite his arrival being a pretty significant deal at the end of Revelations and Dust, and then Sacraments of Fire/Ascendance don't bring up the People of the Open Sky or the Athene Donald, anything of significance from there.

Like I said before, though, I really do want to see the quote unquote main storyline of DS9 be advanced by people beyond DRG. I just really miss the days when multiple authors got a shot at telling stories. I know the publishing model has changed since the early days of the post-WYLB DS9 books first started coming out, but still, that 'ongoing storyline with rotating authors' was really engaging, where if a certain author's style disagreed with you, you weren't expecting only them to continue the story of these characters, advance these plotlines. Right now, I kinda get the impression that DRG is the only one really getting the chance to really DO things with the DS9 setting.
 
I guess I may sneakily want another Cardassia or Tzenkethi or Picard family-centred novel by Una McCormack. Or anything by her; I liked the Missing and was saddened that DRG kind of ignored it in his copious recaps :D But there is nothing by her on the far horizon - curse the demands of a UK university teaching job! :(

Anyway, in the DS9 front, 2016 has:
2 DS9 in force in motion - this seems to take place during ascendance if Nog's allusion to things with the chief refers to it - and Rules of Accusation, which sounds great.
Prey -
I hope it has some Martok and alludes back to Left Hand of Destiny and his much more recent cameos! But I didn't really enjoy JJM's first things, but am still interested in this, especially as a trilogy it has a certain sense of scale.

Finally, 2017 looks spartan at the moment - and Control might be cancelled! Although DRG has two books contracted.
 
I was thinking it odd that Starfleet don't call in Bashir or Dr. Mora to help Odo, but I guess Disavowed hasn't taken place by this time.
 
Didn't they outright say Bashir was the biggest expert but he was still off the table as an option at one point?
 
Ok i'm a broken record but if Control is not on the cards by Mack, perhaps my favourite S31 tale is definitely the Cold War spylit shenanigans of Hollow Men. Why not Una? Mind games are good, and really Control screams The Prisoner. Also Admiral Ross, whom she & Mack wrote so well in his interactions with 31! The ppl who know his treason are probably countable on one hand now. I think no one has written more about spycraft, subterfuge and political, cultural & ethical compromise in Treklit in recent years than her.

Plus in terms of recent Bashir interaction, the letter in Crimson Shadow is excellent:

Dear Garak,

Firstly, may I express my profound relief at learning that you are not, in fact, dead, but have merely been taking a short sabbatical on Federation soil? I don’t know the details, of course, but if it was a trick, Garak, it was not a kind one. We’re reeling from one loss. I couldn’t have stood another.

Leaving aside the fact that I believed for a brief period that you were beyond the reach of any letter that I might send, I’m conscious of having been a poor correspondent. I am sure you understand how difficult these recent days have been. Everything has changed, and, like everyone else, I’m afraid of what might happen next. I’m afraid of where this grief might take us and what we might become.

Which brings me to my real reason for writing. I wanted to wish you success in your latest venture. Running for castellan! Did you ever see that coming? I admit I didn’t, sitting opposite you in the Replimat listening to you slander Shakespeare. I didn’t see any of this coming. I suppose I should know better than to underestimate you. Never stop surprising me, Garak. It really will seem like the world has ended.

Because of our long friendship, I hope you’ll not be offended by what I have to say next. But I must say it. In your past letters to me, you have written eloquently of the isolation that has been such a condition of your life and how this was what permitted you to lead the life that you led and poison yourself on Cardassia’s account. You alone know what you have done for Cardassia, and I have never asked and never will. You wouldn’t tell me anyway, not the truth.

But you let me in, Garak. You let me in when you allowed me to help you recover from your addiction to your implant. When you let me stay and listen to what you had to say to Tain before he died. You let me in, and so I have a duty to you: to ask you to look out for yourself, to watch yourself, for any sign that you are becoming like him. When I met him in the Arawak Colony, before I knew who he really was, Tain said that he never had to order you to do anything, and that was what made you special.

From all I hear, you’re going to be the next castellan of the Cardassian Union. And I’m terrified for you. I must ask you—beg you—not to isolate yourself. Surround yourself with good people, Garak: people who will speak to you honestly and truthfully and who will tell you when you are doing wrong. Keep them close. Make sure they are never afraid to tell you the truth. Do not be your father’s son.

Perhaps I’m speaking out of turn. You’d be well within your rights to be angry with me, to destroy this letter and never speak to me again. I hope that won’t be the case. I hope you’ll forgive me. These are the words of someone sick at heart at all that has been happening this past week and who thought for a while that you really were dead this time. I’m afraid for myself and my own people as much as I’m afraid for you and for yours. But I want to believe that you—and Cardassia—are coming out of the shadows. It’s been a long, hard road for your people, and there’s a way to go yet. But perhaps at last it’s right for you to have your time in the sun. And while the sun shines on your new Cardassia, and for as long as it shines, and should the shadows ever fall upon you or your world again, I will remain—

Your friend,

Julian Bashir
 
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This is honestly the first I've heard about anything about Control being possibly cancelled. Is there a source for this?
 
It's not cancelled exactly, but David Mack mentioned not long ago that he was no longer contracted for it. I think it was swapped out for something else? Let me see if I can dig that post up.

So it's not so much cancelled as much as it's not guaranteed.

Edit: Here we go:

What happened was, I had a four-book deal. I assumed Control would be book four.

My editors at Pocket decided my fourth book would be my contribution to the TOS 50th anniversary trilogy, Legacies.

While that decision was being made, I signed a three-book deal for a series of original novels with Tor Books.

Consequently, after I write Legacies, Book II: Best Defense (starting sometime next week, with a deadline in early November), I will be busy writing sequels to my original novel The Midnight Front through most of 2016.

By the time I am able once again to commit to writing a new Star Trek novel, I will most likely be jockeying for a spot in the 2018 schedule.

He did also post just a few months later that there might still be news about it, though. So it sounds like "long delayed but not forgotten" would be a better description of Control right now.
 
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