Spoilers DS9: Enigma Tales by Una McCormack Review Thread

[jaime]

I like Bashir, I really do. He was one of the few characters in the novels I felt had a true understanding of just how horrible this universe can be, and yet he still didn't give up. But yes, I also feel he should remain comatose. Like hbquickcomjamesl said, it trivializes everything. And Star Trek has a bad trackrecord with that. EIther the hero survives the sacrifice play ALL THE TIME, or they die. But give it a good few months, sometimes a year or two, and hey presto, they're back. Data and Janeway being some good examples of that. Spock ofcourse. And if it isn't about sacrifice. Characters who commit crimes, have done bad things. Even if it was for the sake of the greater good. It's a small tap on the wrist. 'You won't ever make admiral now Picard'. The guy already didn't want to be.

No, I think it would make sense that Julian doesn't come back.

True...but...two things.
Firstly, fiction doesn't necessarily have to be 'realistic' or in this case, if it dies, it has to be realistic in terms of Trek. As you have said..in Trek, people come back. It's part of it.
Secondly, with Bashir gone, the number of Deep Space Nine characters actually anywhere remotely near Deep Space Nine is again reduced. I think we are down to what...three on the station now? One of whom was supporting cast (Nog). This entire book (which was, as I have said, very very good.) features only three characters from the show. One supporting cast, one guest cast, and one main...who is in a coma. This ain't to say I want less books like this, far from it, it's an excellent book, and the Trek Lit can go off and focus on these characters more than the series did. But as an overall picture, Ds9 is shattered and split all over the place. Bashir is a big character, and if his arc ends here, too much is let unsatisfactory. For a start, I do t remember the last time he interacted with his best friend O'Brien, and I think his relationship with Ezri was handled badly way back when.
Maybe it's time to get those familiar voices around him, as well as Garak.
None of which is a criticism on this book, Una has made the Cardassian Union a much richer tapestry over the years.

 

[Mage]

True...but...two things.
Firstly, fiction doesn't necessarily have to be 'realistic' or in this case, if it dies, it has to be realistic in terms of Trek. As you have said..in Trek, people come back. It's part of it.
Secondly, with Bashir gone, the number of Deep Space Nine characters actually anywhere remotely near Deep Space Nine is again reduced. I think we are down to what...three on the station now? One of whom was supporting cast (Nog). This entire book (which was, as I have said, very very good.) features only three characters from the show. One supporting cast, one guest cast, and one main...who is in a coma. This ain't to say I want less books like this, far from it, it's an excellent book, and the Trek Lit can go off and focus on these characters more than the series did. But as an overall picture, Ds9 is shattered and split all over the place. Bashir is a big character, and if his arc ends here, too much is let unsatisfactory. For a start, I do t remember the last time he interacted with his best friend O'Brien, and I think his relationship with Ezri was handled badly way back when.
Maybe it's time to get those familiar voices around him, as well as Garak.
None of which is a criticism on this book, Una has made the Cardassian Union a much richer tapestry over the years.

You make some good points, certainly. And I suppose the idea of DS9 being filled less with the original characters is a problem for some people, I do get that. I don't really have a problem with, but I do see how some people don't like it.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

I agree it would make sense for his story to be finished. In fact, it would be completely fitting with his character arc and I wouldn't oppose it one bit. But for me, it's a foregone conclusion that at some point he will return. This is Treklit which is not far off from superhero comics at this point (I'm looking at you, Admiral Janeway). With that in mind, I'm hoping that when it does happen, it will at least be a somewhat meaningful return (for what it is). That when he returns, he is at least awesome in some new way that can expand his character.

 

[DS9forever]

Isn't it a good thing for the DS9 characters to become more prominent within the Trek universe? I know people would like Sisko, Kira, Ezri, Bashir, Odo (perhaps even Worf?) to be back on DS9 but they have all moved on.

 

[Christopher]

I agree that it makes sense for the events of Control to have lasting consequences on Bashir, but his death is hardly the only way to achieve that. He could recover but be forever changed in some way. Heck, that's already happened a couple of times now with Bashir, first when the show retconned him as genetically augmented, then when the books made him a Section 31 agent/infiltrator. Not to mention similar transitions that have affected other characters in the books, e.g. Data and Trip Tucker. Both were returned from the dead, but neither was simply reset to his previous status quo.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

I'm just patiently waiting for the one DS9 book that comes out that brings the original and relaunch cast (well, the ones we care about, anyway) together for some great, expansive story that hits all the right spots character-wise. Just one. I just want one, dammit.

Or would it be too much to hope for a trilogy?

 

[SoullessMinion]

Isn't it a good thing for the DS9 characters to become more prominent within the Trek universe? I know people would like Sisko, Kira, Ezri, Bashir, Odo (perhaps even Worf?) to be back on DS9 but they have all moved on.

I'm not sure what you mean by "more prominent," in this context, but, for me, the problem isn't that these characters have moved on - though I wouldn't object to a little more interaction - but that the characters who have replaced them on the station are, well, less than dynamic. The first wave of relaunch characters - Ro (yes, I know she was on TNG first), Vaughn, Prynn, Shar - were vividly drawn, but, with the exception of Ro, are gone or barely there. The new crop, well. Blacker is always trying to resign, Wheeler is ambitious, and Desca had a spiritual crisis...and that's about as deep as the characterization goes. I couldn't even tell you who the doctor is without looking it up.

I will say I have no problem with what's happened with Bashir. It's very sad, but I think it's well-justified; not in the sense that he deserved his fate, but his obsession with Section 31 has long had Not Gonna End Well written all over it. I have some quibbles with how he got there, but the character arc holds up.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Hmm. I will say that of the five ST series to have appeared on broadcast television (and I refuse to regard any episode of DSC as canonical until such time as it appears on either conventional broadcast television, or on a non-premium cable/satellite channel), my favorite would be a tie between TOS and TNG; followed by VOY, then the non-Xindi-war seasons of ENT, then the early seasons of DS9, then the Xindi War season of ENT and the late seasons of DS9 tied for last place.

I find it ironic that DS9 and B5 debuted about the same time, both about life aboard a space station, and in their efforts to differentiate themselves from each other, they ended up converging in many ways, their efforts at divergence backfiring.

That said, I find that I like the more recent DS9 relaunch books (case in point, the present opus) better than I like much of the series itself, or the pre-relaunch and early-relaunch books. At the same time, I find that when novel arcs run several years, with months between installments, it becomes very difficult to keep things straight, whether it's the DS9 relaunch, or the VOY relaunch.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

I'm waiting for Blackmer, Stinson, and Candlewood to be interesting. I really want to like them but they never get anything but the surface level characterizations. And when their stories are a little more in depth, they're largely boring and plot driven.

Meanwhile Slaine has yet to do anything of note other than be Cardassian. Then there's poor counselor Matthias, someone with an actual personality and quite enjoyable on the page, who as far as I remember hasn't been seen in years!

Titan and Aventine got all the interesting book-only characters I guess. They can even afford to kill them off!

 

[Christopher]

Hmm. I will say that of the five ST series to have appeared on broadcast television

Six. Unless you count TAS as a continuation of TOS.

(and I refuse to regard any episode of DSC as canonical until such time as it appears on either conventional broadcast television, or on a non-premium cable/satellite channel)

I wonder if there were people who refused to count TNG and DS9 as canonical until they aired on conventional network television instead of first-run syndication.

 

[Paris]

...Titan and Aventine got all the interesting book-only characters I guess. They can even afford to kill them off!

Have you not read the Voyager relaunch? There is plethora of fantastic book-only characters hanging out in the DQ.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Thanks. I did indeed forget about TAS, and would put it about even with VOY.

As to TNG and DS9, well, if you counted first-run syndication as "not broadcast television," you may as well count UPN, Fox, and all the other minor networks as "not broadcast television." If you can pick it up with nothing more out of the ordinary than rabbit ears or a Yagi array, it's broadcast. And if you can get it on basic cable or basic satellite without paying more than the basic connect charge, then it's non-premium.

Indeed, I would put print novels (and yes, maybe even e-novellas, although I still find tablet computing "hard to swallow" [pun intended]) ahead of something that requires a broadband Internet connection, the iron to take advantage of it, and a premium fee above and beyond what you're paying your ISP.

 

[SoullessMinion]

Hmm. Am I the only one who doesn't give an airborne rodent's backside about what is canonical and what is not?

 

[Christopher]

As to TNG and DS9, well, if you counted first-run syndication as "not broadcast television," you may as well count UPN, Fox, and all the other minor networks as "not broadcast television."

The details are beside the point. People always see the things they're used to as more acceptable than the things they're not used to. But Star Trek has long been used to pioneer new broadcasting outlets. Phase II was going to launch a fourth TV network for Paramount. TNG pioneered first-run syndicated drama. VGR anchored UPN. Now DSC was meant to be CBS's anchor for a new streaming service, although the delays mean that The Good Fight beat it to the punch. It's just the same thing in a different way.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Have you not read the Voyager relaunch? There is plethora of fantastic book-only characters hanging out in the DQ.

Oh my goodness, that isn't what I meant at all. I hold the Voyager relaunch as an entirely different class because there is literally no contest between characterization there. I should have said that in the previous post, my bad!

I would happily read a book just about Farkas and Sal in a heartbeat.

 

[Idran]

(and yes, maybe even e-novellas, although I still find tablet computing "hard to swallow" [pun intended])

The quote marks made me suspicious that you may have intended a pun with your use of an idiom which brought to mind a an alternate definition of the word "tablet", but I thought perhaps it was happenstance and you were simply not wishing anyone to think inappropriately that this clever metaphor was your own personal coinage

Then I saw your parenthetical, which removed even the slightest doubt and eased my mind of worry

Thank you

 

[VDCNI]

Isn't it a good thing for the DS9 characters to become more prominent within the Trek universe? I know people would like Sisko, Kira, Ezri, Bashir, Odo (perhaps even Worf?) to be back on DS9 but they have all moved on.

Are any of these more prominent than they previously were? Ezri I guess, Bashir briefly though presumably not now and that's about all.

Sisko is now just another Starship Captain, Kira is a minor part of the religious hierarchy on Bajor, one of the best parts of the relaunch was Kira becoming more prominent in Starfleet and how the likes of Vaughn related to her but that's all gone, and Odo is just kind of there at the moment.

Even so I don't have a massive issue with these characters moving on if they are going to be replaced with interesting new characters as with the first relaunch but that really hasn't happened and the likes of Stinson, Blackmer and Candlewood are just hanging around. Even Ro is blandly written at the moment, she's not standing out at all.

 

[Tuskin38]

(and I refuse to regard any episode of DSC as canonical until such time as it appears on either conventional broadcast television, or on a non-premium cable/satellite channel)

What kind of nonsense is that?

Canon is canon, it doesn't matter how it is broadcast.

Were the movies not canon because you had to pay for them?

 

[Christopher]

Were the movies not canon because you had to pay for them?

Good point. CBS All Access is $5.99 per month. With DSC airing 8 episodes in the fall and the remaining 7 episodes starting in January, that's basically 4 months worth of content, or about $24 for 15 episodes of "flexible" length -- at a guess, maybe 12-13 hours of content, so that's less than $2 per hour. A movie ticket can be anywhere from $8-15 for only 2 to 2.5 hours of content, anywhere from $3-7/hr, not even counting the cost of gas and exorbitantly priced concessions. Not to mention that that $5.99/mo gives you access to dozens of CBS shows, not just one. So you'd be getting far more content for your dollar than you would at the movies.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Shame on all of you for being so reasonable.