About a quarter in. I did not expected this to be as interesting, but maybe it is after the First trilogy.
Spoilers DS9: Revenant by Alex White - review thread
- Thread starter mastadge
- Start date
I’m really enjoying the audiobook, at about halfway. Well done!
I love this book. I'm hoping for more, DS9 series set novels. There are lots of stories left to tell from the edge of the final frontier.
Just picked up my copy at B&N. Along with Python for Dummies, and a TOS calendar. Looks like I have to order my SOTL calendar (and a couple of the others) online.
Likewise I am a few chapters in and it is a fantastic episode of DS9. Right at the very start, Dax and Jake are observing the world on the promenade and I honestly heard the opening whimsy music of many episodes, the setup, and then they might as well have written “break for comet”. I hope we get a lot more of this.
I was never the biggest DS9 fan back in the late 90s. But all the positive talk of this novel won me over in picking it up.
I wasn’t planning to buy this, but the author interview was intriguing, and then I got a Kindle coupon that cut the price in half, so I took the plunge. Very glad I did. I voted Outstanding.
I’m always puzzled when people say novels set during the series aren’t worth reading because they have to leave everything the way it was. So do 90% of Star Trek episodes; are those not worth watching? Do you only tune in during sweeps? Anyway, this was a sharply-characterized story that builds on established continuity rather than simply name-dropping for the sake of it as a lot of novels do. The nods to Bashir’s genetic engineering were a favorite little touch. Worf’s voice is less well-captured than the other regulars, and the world-building is a touch too light, but these are minor flaws in a story that does exactly what a within-the-series novel should.
I’m always puzzled when people say novels set during the series aren’t worth reading because they have to leave everything the way it was. So do 90% of Star Trek episodes; are those not worth watching? Do you only tune in during sweeps? Anyway, this was a sharply-characterized story that builds on established continuity rather than simply name-dropping for the sake of it as a lot of novels do. The nods to Bashir’s genetic engineering were a favorite little touch. Worf’s voice is less well-captured than the other regulars, and the world-building is a touch too light, but these are minor flaws in a story that does exactly what a within-the-series novel should.
I loved this book, but one thing I will say: we watched "Field of Fire" the other night -- an episode I don't much care for in the first place -- and it's pretty hard to square that depiction of Joran (and Ezri's relationship with him) with the events of this book. To be clear I far prefer the take in the book but while this novel really fleshes out the Jadzia/Trill episodes I'm not sure it's quite consistent with the Ezri/Trill episode.
First half was Outstanding. Next quarter was Average. Last quarter was, like, “Why isn’t this done? the plot ended already!” That was Poor for me.
Overall, average. Which was disappointing, because it started out so strongly.
Overall, average. Which was disappointing, because it started out so strongly.
No, but episodes don't cost $12 a pop, even on streaming.
Between on-screen Trek's story arcs, and non-Trek book series, I'm getting everything I used to get from the Marcokradiverse books. I kept buying the litverse books mostly out of inertia. Going forward, I'll still pick up stuff I find interesting in the monthly sales; but I don't see any need to get everything at release like I did in the old days.
So a story is objectively worth more if it could (in theory if almost certainly not in actuality) kill somebody off or blow up the station or something? I just don’t get the theory of entertainment behind that. If all you want from things is plot, wait for Wikipedia summaries and you’ll save even more.
Yeah, it feels like White was so incensed by the “ableist” portrayal of Joran on TV that they didn’t put a lot of effort into aligning their version of the character with canon. I also felt like they were pretty heavy-handedly putting forth their own perspective on Curzon’s character in the final scene, to a point where it seemed like they felt the serial killer was not actually the worst Dax.
It seemed more to me that they thought the power dynamics at play with Curzon, as Jadzia’s instructor, being so infatuated with her that he torpedoed her shot at Joining the first time around, weren’t properly addressed in the show and needed to resolve them more firmly. It was something that was played for sympathy for Curzon in Facets, and effectively let him off the hook for damaging her. We spend a decent chunk of time exploring what pushed Jadzia into reapplying, so that damage is something that has been deeply stirred up by these events, and, while in Facets, Jadzia had to reaccept Curzon into the whole of Dax, here, this is her addressing that he hurt Jadzia, to the point that he could have destroyed her if she hadn’t had the support of Nemi. Without that, Jadzia would have been broken... because of an old man who did something for himself at her expense.
Joran was a killer, but there’s distance between Jadzia and Joran’s actions. Curzon’s directly impacted Jadzia, and it is emotionally true to give more weight to the things that impact us individually.
Joran was a killer, but there’s distance between Jadzia and Joran’s actions. Curzon’s directly impacted Jadzia, and it is emotionally true to give more weight to the things that impact us individually.
Yeah, I get all that, but the relative positioning and weight of the material creates implications that I don’t think were intended. Part of the issue is that I think it’s risible to suggest that portraying a serial killer as mentally ill is ableism. I’m sympathetic to White’s larger point, but this was not a good example for it.
I don't know the specific argument in this case, but I suspect the point is probably the other way around, that the media tend to default to portraying mentally ill people as killers, when in reality the mentally ill are more often the victims of violence than the perpetrators.
I think it's objectively worth more if I get a view of characters and cultures over time. (Doesn't really matter whether they're preexisting ones from canon, or new creations. Obviously original works are going to be entirely the latter!) I like seeing them change in response to events and interactions, rather than remaining substantially static.
I will give Revenant credit: it tries to give me the emotional depth that I'm looking for. But it has to operate within the context of a character whose future appearances are already set in stone, which limits what it can do.
I just finished. It was interesting enough, but nothing extraordinary.
I liked it but it did raise a few questions.
Maybe I missed something, but why would they implant a cloned symbiont into a human, Colin Hart, when there were apparently so many initiate washouts to choose from? Just to get somebody close so they could attack Dax? Being in Starfleet doesn't seem to have aided Hart in that. And why was it apparently unfinished as he had an open wound from the procedure? They never say it was a Vess but I imagine it had to be.
It's weird Worf did not mention that Riker had been joined briefly since he was standing right there when Dax and Bashir derived that Hart had been joined. This just happened the other day on Discovery too, where Adira mentioned they'd been the first human bonded to a symbiont or some such. Maybe they meant permanently.
It's also odd that it ends with Dax banned from Trill for five years. It's of course never mentioned in the series but I guess she never went back there anyway.
Maybe I missed something, but why would they implant a cloned symbiont into a human, Colin Hart, when there were apparently so many initiate washouts to choose from? Just to get somebody close so they could attack Dax? Being in Starfleet doesn't seem to have aided Hart in that. And why was it apparently unfinished as he had an open wound from the procedure? They never say it was a Vess but I imagine it had to be.
It's weird Worf did not mention that Riker had been joined briefly since he was standing right there when Dax and Bashir derived that Hart had been joined. This just happened the other day on Discovery too, where Adira mentioned they'd been the first human bonded to a symbiont or some such. Maybe they meant permanently.
It's also odd that it ends with Dax banned from Trill for five years. It's of course never mentioned in the series but I guess she never went back there anyway.
Last edited:
I'd have to give it an "average" as well. I found the idea of a conspiracy of symbionts where the "passengers" were driving the bus to be interesting, if somewhat reminiscent of the TNG ep with the gill creatures, but was taken by surprise by the fact that the rebellious symbionts were all one.
I liked the story for the most part, and it was a clever and dark twist. But I have to say, having all the evil symbionts be clones controlled by a single primary symbiont felt kind of like the cliched copout of having all the weapons/invading aliens/monsters be slaved to a single control, so you can take them all out just by defeating one. (There was a DS9 episode that did that with a grid of Cardassian or Dominion defense satellites, and The Avengers did it with the Chitauri.)
