DS9 Millennium

[DigificWriter]

I once again apologize for necro'ing a thread, but needed somewhere to post my thoughts on The Fall of Terok Nor.

I really liked the book's narrative structure, with Sisko basically narrating/recapping the book's events for the Prophets, although it did seem a bit strange to have a Prologue and not an Epilogue.

The story itself was really interesting and intriguing, but it felt to me more like a Mryiad Universes-type tale than one meant to fit into the primary novel continuity. That's not a bad thing by any means, though, since I really like some of the Myriad Universes tales we've gotten.

The Reese-Stevenses aren't among my favorite Trek Lit authors, but they certainly know the material and were able to consequently deliver a very engaging and satisfying story that made very good use of the familiar characters and environs of DS9 while also introducing some interesting new characters. I particularly liked Arla Rees. She sort of reminded me of a cross between Kira and Ro (which is kind of ironic given that Ro is the character who served as the basic template for Kira).

I also really liked the book's conclusion and the way that the resolution and cliffhanger sort of come up faster than you're expecting. The final line is great and is rather reminiscent of Plagues of Night.

I'd rate the book as Above Average, and am quite glad that I made the decision to purchase the trilogy from a used bookstore because the first book was definitely worth reading.

 

[JD]

It was written before the Novelverse came into existence, so it would make sense that it wouldn't fit into it.

 

[RPJOB]

I'd really like to see the Reeves-Stevens come back to the Trek-verse, this time without Shatner. Federation, Prime Directive, Millenium and other works were a lot of fun and some of my most fondly remembered works of Trek prose.

 

[Christopher]

It was written before the Novelverse came into existence, so it would make sense that it wouldn't fit into it.

I wouldn't say that. If anything, Millennium came along right at the beginning of the modern novel continuity -- simultaneous with Gemworld, immediately before A Stitch in Time, and just months before the debut of SCE (and New Earth/Challenger, which was later tied into Gateways). And of course New Frontier had come along 3 years earlier.

And I still don't see what's so hard about making it fit. There are a couple of paragraphs in the epilogue that don't perfectly mesh with what later happened in the novels. There are much bigger contradictions than that within canonical Trek, and between other books in the "novelverse." So no, it wasn't meant to fit into a continuity that was still only in an embryonic state when it was written, but given that fact, it still fits reasonably well.

 

[DigificWriter]

It was written before the Novelverse came into existence, so it would make sense that it wouldn't fit into it.

I believe that, as mentioned previously in the thread, the trilogy was retroactively "grandfathered" into the DS9-R, and it's events are, as has also been previously mentioned, referred to briefly in Watching the Clock. Having said that, though, I feel that, as I mentioned, the trilogy feels more like it belongs with the various Myriad Universes tales moreso than with and/or as part of the DS9-R. Of course, other people may feel otherwise.

As an aside, Margaret Clark is mentioned by name in the Acknowledgements of TFoTN as having been the Reeves-Stevenses editor, which I found interesting because I thought that Marco Palmieri was the primary editor of Trek Lit by that point, and was nor aware of Clark being featured as a prominent Trek Lit editor until after she took Palmieri's job in '06 or '07.

Edit: It should also be noted that the trilogy was published in 2000, with the Avatar books - which mark the official start of the DS9-R - being published in 2001, so it would've certainly been within the realm of possibility and probability for its books to have been in the minds of Palmieri and the others responsible for launching the DS9-R as they were doing so.

 

[JD]

It was written before the Novelverse came into existence, so it would make sense that it wouldn't fit into it.

I wouldn't say that. If anything, Millennium came along right at the beginning of the modern novel continuity -- simultaneous with Gemworld, immediately before A Stitch in Time, and just months before the debut of SCE (and New Earth/Challenger, which was later tied into Gateways). And of course New Frontier had come along 3 years earlier.
\

Oh, I didn't realize it was that close to the Novelverse stuff. I thought it was a lot older than that.

 

[ATimson]

As an aside, Margaret Clark is mentioned by name in the Acknowledgements of TFoTN as having been the Reeves-Stevenses editor, which I found interesting because I thought that Marco Palmieri was the primary editor of Trek Lit by that point, and was nor aware of Clark being featured as a prominent Trek Lit editor until after she took Palmieri's job in '06 or '07.

She wasn't prominent - at that point John Ordover and Marco Palmieri were the primary editors for the fiction. But she did work on some titles, including this trilogy and the Shatner books. I think she also handled most of the non-fiction.

 

[Christopher]

As an aside, Margaret Clark is mentioned by name in the Acknowledgements of TFoTN as having been the Reeves-Stevenses editor, which I found interesting because I thought that Marco Palmieri was the primary editor of Trek Lit by that point, and was nor aware of Clark being featured as a prominent Trek Lit editor until after she took Palmieri's job in '06 or '07.

On the contrary -- Margaret and Marco worked side-by-side throughout Marco's tenure, and indeed Margaret was there first, although she mostly concentrated on nonfiction up until the early 2000s. Margaret actually edited A Stitch in Time as well as Millennium before Marco took over DS9, and has been the editor of the Enterprise novels since they began. Once John Ordover left Pocket in 2003, she took over editing TNG and the Shatnerverse, while Marco handled things like DS9, TOS, Titan, The Lost Era, and eventually Voyager, Mirror Universe/Myriad Universes, and Vanguard (and Ed Schlesinger and Jennifer Heddle temporarily took over some of Ordover's other responsibilities). Marco and Margaret jointly edited Destiny and Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows.

Edit: It should also be noted that the trilogy was published in 2000, with the Avatar books - which mark the official start of the DS9-R - being published in 2001, so it would've certainly been within the realm of possibility and probability for its books to have been in the minds of Palmieri and the others responsible for launching the DS9-R as they were doing so.

My impression is that Millennium was always considered to be part of the backstory for the DS9 post-finale series. Since it was written after the series ended, there was no new screen canon to contradict it, so it, like A Stitch in Time, was seen as fair game for referencing. It just didn't happen to get referenced much, perhaps because most of it happened in alternate timelines.

 

[E-DUB]

It could be that the method of time-travel dictates if the outcome is a parallel or an overwrite or something else entirely or some combination. Use the Guardian, it's one thing. Use the "slingshot" technique, it's another. Use a DeLorean, it's something else altogether.

 

[Christopher]

It could be that the method of time-travel dictates if the outcome is a parallel or an overwrite or something else entirely or some combination.

I postulated something similar in DTI: Watching the Clock. Basically, that if the means of travel/interaction between times allows a two-way exchange of information, then the mutual entanglement causes the two timelines to merge into one (with the altered one usually winning out), whereas if the transfer of mass/energy/information is strictly one-way with no mutual exchange (say, falling through a Red Matter-created black hole), then there's no timeline collapse and the two can coexist indefinitely.

 

[Brikar99]

although it did seem a bit strange to have a Prologue and not an Epilogue.

Non-linear time. The prologue is the epilogue.

 

[DigificWriter]

I just finished The War of the Prophets and have to say that the trilogy's story as a whole definitely feels more like a Myriad Universes tale than it does anything else. TWotP in particular is very much in this vein, in particular evoking thoughts of the DS9 MyU tale Seeds of Dissent and, to a degree, the VOY MyU tale Places of Exile.

The Reeves-Stevens weave a very broad and complex narrative in TWotP, but the story never loses its clarity or impact, mainly because they are so skillfully able to interweave a large and expansive cast of characters together in such a way as to make the various twists and turns of the story - as seen through the eyes of said characters - work.

Having said that, however, I did feel that the Reeves-Stevenses did add one character whose role was already filled by another, making said character (Dukat, in case anyone was wondering) feel like an unnecessary and redundant piece of the grand tapestry that is the book's story.

I do have to single out one particular moment in the story for particular recognition: Worf and Jadzia's tryst in the planning room at Utopia Planetia. The lead-up to the moment was perfectly handled, as was the 'aftermath' as witnessed by Jake and Nog. Worf and Jadzia were always one of my favorite canonical Trek couples, and the Reeves-Stevenses handle them in both TWotP and TFoTN with an adeptness and adroitness that speaks to their superb grasp of DS9's characters.

 

[RonG]

Millennium has been and continues to be one of my all time favorite Trek stories (IMO it's pretty much a flawless Trek story, along with the Destiny trilogy, the Vanguard series, Federation, Q-Squared, Prime Directive, The Art of The Impossible, Serpents Among the Ruin, Articles of the Federation and Crucible: McCoy, to name a very select few..).

Being a precursor to the late, lamented DS9R ("season 8", up to Unity), makes it that much better, at least IMO.

 

[Sci]

Being a precursor to the late, lamented DS9R ("season 8", up to Unity), makes it that much better, at least IMO.

"The late, lamented DS9 Relaunch?"

Dude, the story of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was just advanced last month with the release of Typhon Pact: Plagues of Night. And it will continue this month with Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn!

The Relaunch LIVES. It LIVES, I tell you! It's aLIIIIIIIIIve!

 

[DS9Continuing]

I've always had the impression that it was kind of "grandfathered in" to the post-series DS9 continuity, at least implicitly.

I know that Marco had indicated as such on the boards, though I don't think any in-text connections were drawn.

I do remember Marco saying that the epilogue with Kasidy and the baby could be thought of as a "preview" (if not exactly a "prologue") of the following DS9-R books. I also remember him saying something along the lines of "There are no coincidences" when it comes to little details in the works he edited. When someone pointed out the similarity of names between the Bajoran Ascendancy of the Millenium novels and the Ascendants of the DS9-R, he replied, "except that."

Which doesn't necessarily mean he couldn't have made something out of that connection at a later date if he wanted, just that it hadn't originally been intended to be so.

.

 

[Christopher]

The Relaunch LIVES. It LIVES, I tell you! It's aLIIIIIIIIIve!

Well, except that Marco only meant the term "Relaunch" to apply not to the series itself, but to the event that launched the post-finale series -- the big initial push of several books in a row, plus the publicity campaign surrounding it. After all, a launch is a single event, the act of setting something into motion, not an ongoing state. By analogy, we saw the relaunch of the refitted Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but nobody called the ship itself "the Enterprise relaunch."

Although I suppose you could say that Rough Beasts of Empire constituted a second relaunch for the DS9 saga in prose, after several years being refitted in drydock.

 

[RonG]

Being a precursor to the late, lamented DS9R ("season 8", up to Unity), makes it that much better, at least IMO.

"The late, lamented DS9 Relaunch?"

Dude, the story of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was just advanced last month with the release of Typhon Pact: Plagues of Night. And it will continue this month with Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn!

The Relaunch LIVES. It LIVES, I tell you! It's aLIIIIIIIIIve!

c'mon, Sci, you know I meant the first arc of the DS9R - Avatar to Unity (it even says so in the quote )

But for the record, I don't consider DS9 *the series* back - being a part of a multi-series novel is nice, but that's not DS9

Also, while it had its moments, the second DS9R arc ("season 9" from WoDS9 to The Soul Key) really dropped the ball IMO as far as the DS9 part of the franchise is concerned.

Personally, I consider the original main DS9R arc, peppered with A Stitch in Time, Millennium, The Lives of Dax and The Left Hand of Destiny, is one of the greatest examples of TrekLit, certainly as a sustained, multi novel arc

 

[E-DUB]

With all the cross-pollination that's happening now (ie: Tuvok in Titan, Dax with her own ship, etc). I pretty much think of trek lit now has having two branches. TOS era and TNG era, which includes TNG, VOY, DS9, NF etc. (Well, there is ENT too, but you get the idea.)

 

[RonG]

With all the cross-pollination that's happening now (ie: Tuvok in Titan, Dax with her own ship, etc). I pretty much think of trek lit now has having two branches. TOS era and TNG era, which includes TNG, VOY, DS9, NF etc. (Well, there is ENT too, but you get the idea.)

I have to agree, and with all 24th century "series" / ships / settings running concurrently, this has never been more appropriate.

Now, we just to fill the TOS era with more series

 

[Reanok]

I really like the Ds9 Millenium series at one time there was supposed to be a video game that had charcters like the Grigari and Sisko and Kira in the game.The Reeeves Stevens were involved in creating the game.I really like the novels and read them again last year.