Spoilers DS9: The Missing by Una McCormack Review Thread

[Gul Re'jal]

I finished it this afternoon and I loved it!

Spoiler: spoilery notes

I always liked Pulaski, so it was nice to "see" her again at her best: grumpy and painfully honest. It was also nice to see "a day from the life" of the station, especially since it's the brand new station, of which we didn't have much yet. I had to keep reminding myself not to place events in Cardassian architecture, but something Feddy instead.

I liked very much that someone still remembers that Garak isn't a saint and being in power is the last job he should have (yay Odo!).

And yay Odo! Good to see him. And very much in character - I heard his grumpy voice in my head each time he spoke. Quard-Odo interactions were just like the ol' good times.

Some separate plots started coming together, there were some touching moments, and a few that made me chuckle.

 

[Ronald Held]

I was not expecting much from this story. I am about a third through. I did not expect any appearance from Picard. Although the current staff of DS9 is not appealing, the guests such as Odo, Cory, and Pulaski are so due to their contributes to subplots. Even with insufficient evidence the People are a concern.

 

[Markonian]

The Athene Donald was only gone from the station a day or so before the black ship appeared, right?

So, why didn't Ro launch the Defiant to intercept them during the standoff with the Chain?

 

[DEWLine]

Drydocked?

 

[DS9forever]

The Defiant is never mentioned in the novel.

 

[DEWLine]

Odd.

 

[Thrawn]

This was great. I wish Una McCormack wrote more than she did; each of her novels is a real treat. Loved Pulaski in this, and who would've expected to say that? And Odo, Quark, Garak, and Ro were absolutely perfect in every scene; what a great cast of characters. I'm thrilled to see Deep Space Nine back at the top of a novel's cover, too.

My only real irritation is that a bunch of stuff that DRG3 dropped in the first Fall book isn't even mentioned, which is fine I guess since we know he'll pick up on those threads in his book later this year, but back when Marco was running things there was a little more cohesion than that. It's weird to have big cliffhangers not be addressed at all in now three novels set on DS9 in a row (The Fall 3, Lust's Latinum, The Missing) before finally coming back around.

 

[JD]

I was wondering about that. Didn't the same thing happen in some of the last post-Return of the Jedi Legends SW novels?

 

[2of1million]

Finished!! Great book, would love to see more of the Athene Donald sometime. Very interesting ship and great to see Pulaski again.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Just finished Chapter 3. Loved the scene between Odo and Corazame. Really rings true to the "kinder, gentler Odo" who'd come to terms with who and what he was, and who'd found love. Also loved the scene between Odo and Garak.

(But I still see problems with phrasing that a more assertive copy editor could have fixed, and even after the "trust" bit in Cory's internal monologue was explained to me, I still say it could have been phrased better. Then again, if my own novel ever sees the light of day, it's undoubtedly going to need the touch of a good copy editor.)

 

[Jedi Ben]

I was wondering about that. Didn't the same thing happen in some of the last post-Return of the Jedi Legends SW novels?

Oh no, that's one box you don't want to open!

 

[Jarvisimo]

This was great. I wish Una McCormack wrote more than she did; each of her novels is a real treat. Loved Pulaski in this, and who would've expected to say that? And Odo, Quark, Garak, and Ro were absolutely perfect in every scene; what a great cast of characters. I'm thrilled to see Deep Space Nine back at the top of a novel's cover, too.

My only real irritation is that a bunch of stuff that DRG3 dropped in the first Fall book isn't even mentioned, which is fine I guess since we know he'll pick up on those threads in his book later this year, but back when Marco was running things there was a little more cohesion than that. It's weird to have big cliffhangers not be addressed at all in now three novels set on DS9 in a row (The Fall 3, Lust's Latinum, The Missing) before finally coming back around.

Yeah this slightly irked me - but then, it is now a huge station. It's like Babylon 5 or something of that scale, perhaps - many things can happen at once, and not everyone know? (Ok, maybe not 'quarter of a million people in one tin can' big)

It did bother me that no one ever mentioned 'Odo, the Founder who used to run a vast interstellar empire...' rather than 'Constable Odo, former security chief'. This felt very much his concern and framing in the Fall book, in his Bacco meeting, but here was lacking. Still he was great here - but where was the last decade of his life...

 

[Elias Vaughn]

Below average. Seems I'm the one outlier who didn't enjoy the book. :/

 

[JoeZhang]

I enjoyed this greatly, I think UM is maybe the best writer in terms of style currently working on the line - few minor things which are observations rather than a critique:

* Is that a minor meta-criticism of how overbearing Star-fleet is in this fictional universe? - in that the mission is set up as civilian but that is walked further and further back over the course of the novel
* Are The Chain near neighbours given how quickly they are encountered to the ship? I also like how we still no virtually nothing about about them by the end of the book
* That Odo constable thing - I'd agree that the fact that he was the former leader of an interstellar empire was oddly overlooked here - if he's moved back into the constable position I would find that very strange.

 

[starri]

I had a big grin on my face from the moment I saw UM's repurposing of TS Eliot for the title of the first section.

I also really appreciated that almost all of the principle players in the story were women. That's a first (except, I suppose for Dark Passions, and the less said about that, the better).

While I know Beverly's place is on the Enterprise, I don't think I would have minded if she'd stuck around for another story or two. It added an interesting dynamic, especially in her role as the mouthpiece for the fans' initial reactions to Pulaski.

 

[Jarvisimo]

Did anyone else really appreciate the chapter introductions by Picard? They were fascinating - a rare chance for reflective prose in these novels.

 

[Gul Re'jal]

I did. Not only reflective, but also sometimes I wasn't sure who the "captain" actually was. Ro? Tanj? Sounded like Picard, be he wasn't in the story, so... I had doubts. But the farther it went, the more Picardish it was, and mentioning Rene just confirmed it.

 

[Corran Horn]

* Are The Chain near neighbours given how quickly they are encountered to the ship? I also like how we still no virtually nothing about about them by the end of the book.

I wasn't even sure where the ship was considering how quickly everything happened. Were they going to the Gamma Quadrant? They did have ready-access to comms with the station. It was odd that the Defiant was not mentioned.

Seemed like a lot of quick transitions and we're told about subsequent conversations between characters instead of being shown them. I didn't have a problem with that it was just different than the norm.

 

[DS9forever]

^ Let's not forget that DS9 was on the frontier in "Emissary" before the wormhole was discovered.

I liked the reference to transwarp beaming, but could the Dominion transporter from "Covenant" not have served the same purpose?

 

[Markonian]

Based on what we learned in the novel, the Chain is from an unexplored corner of the Beta Quadrant. The Chain ship was encountered so easily because they were already on the trail of the long-distance traveling People.

On the Picard monologues, I found them interesting and always imagined the Enterprise doing actual exploration during those scenes, i.e. picturing busy scanning scenes on the bridge, or the ship against the backdrop of vast, colorful nebulae. Plus, the "Geophysical Sortie" and "Call the Ball" pictures from the SOTL calendars fit in there neatly.

The lack of references to Odo's rulership of the Dominion was strange, too.