DS9 - Where to start?
- Thread starter theblitz
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Doesn't work that way. Pocket's editors solicit authors to develop/write novels for them. They don't buy pre-written works.
^I'm not aware of any continuity connections between The Never Ending Sacrifice and Destiny. You can read them in whatever order you like. They're totally separate works that just happen to be set in the same universe.
Well, there's one:
It was Destiny: Mere Mortals that first established Garak as Cardassian Ambassador to the Federation, a status Never-Ending Sacrifice also featured.
I'm pretty certain...
Robinson's short story "The Calling" and Articles of the Federation both established Garak as the ambassador before that. (Specifically, AoF refers to a debate between Garak and Lwaxana on the senate floor.)
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Not entirely true. See spoiler:
"The Calling" does not establish Garak as ambassador, since his trip to Earth in that story never really happened - it was just part of his Vinculum vision. Articles however does count.
You're fine, go ahead and read. Lions and Sacrifice both come before Destiny chronologically, and the small connections there are will not spoil the story in the slightest.
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Articles is actually referencing a scene first established, IIRC, in The Brave and the Bold, also by KRAD. But neither source establishes that Garak is the permanent Cardassian Ambassador to the UFP; rather, they established that in the immediate aftermath of the war, he was a diplomatic envoy to the UFP without establishing any particular office, such as the permanent ambassadorship. That might seem like a minor distinction, except that Garak appears in Worlds of Deep Space Nine, set after the famous spat with Ambassador Troi, and he is not Cardassian Ambassador to the UFP in that story.
Yeah.
I am stuck with reading other sci-fi books.
I do have A Singular Destiny but can't read it now cos the omnibus of the other Destiny books is stuck in London til the start of September.
In a couple of weeks I will have a whole pile of books:
Zero Sum Game
Rough Beasts of Empire
Paths of Disharmony
Plagues of Night
Raise the Dawn
Brinksmanship
But as I said, all those are unreadable til I get my Destiny book.
So, I ordered and will get soon, some books to tide me over:
Tales From the Captain's Table
Captain's Table Omnibus
Day of the Vipers
Night of the Wolves
Dawn of the Eagles
Prophecy and Change
Probably should be enough to keep me busy for a month.
I am stuck with reading other sci-fi books.
I do have A Singular Destiny but can't read it now cos the omnibus of the other Destiny books is stuck in London til the start of September.
In a couple of weeks I will have a whole pile of books:
Zero Sum Game
Rough Beasts of Empire
Paths of Disharmony
Plagues of Night
Raise the Dawn
Brinksmanship
But as I said, all those are unreadable til I get my Destiny book.
So, I ordered and will get soon, some books to tide me over:
Tales From the Captain's Table
Captain's Table Omnibus
Day of the Vipers
Night of the Wolves
Dawn of the Eagles
Prophecy and Change
Probably should be enough to keep me busy for a month.
So, finally I can read my Destiny books.
HOWEVER, looking as the "Almighty" reading list and also here: http://shastrix.com/books/star_trek/readingorder.php
it is implied that I need to read Resistance, Q & A, Before Dishonour and Greater Than the Sum before I read Destiny.
Is it so or can I manage without them?
HOWEVER, looking as the "Almighty" reading list and also here: http://shastrix.com/books/star_trek/readingorder.php
it is implied that I need to read Resistance, Q & A, Before Dishonour and Greater Than the Sum before I read Destiny.
Is it so or can I manage without them?
Eeeehhhh.... you can mostly get away without it. It would give you a nice run-up, but they're not vitally important.
I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to say that three of those four involve the Borg. But the Borg they deal with are a subset cut off from the main collective and not really associated with them. They are conclusively dealt with by the end of Greater Than the Sum.
Whereas the Borg in Destiny are the real Borg, all of them, all at once. What they do is not especially related to what the subset Borg in Res, BD and GttS do. There's a pretty big story development in Dishonour, but that's not picked up on so much in the Destiny books so much as it is in the Voyager re-relaunch.
All you really need to know to set you up for Destiny is a sense of Picard's nightmare just keeping on coming and coming and coming, and he's getting closer and closer to breaking point over it. Everything else you'll pick up as you go.
So, final answer, it wouldn't hurt to read them, but you can manage without.
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I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to say that three of those four involve the Borg. But the Borg they deal with are a subset cut off from the main collective and not really associated with them. They are conclusively dealt with by the end of Greater Than the Sum.
Whereas the Borg in Destiny are the real Borg, all of them, all at once. What they do is not especially related to what the subset Borg in Res, BD and GttS do. There's a pretty big story development in Dishonour, but that's not picked up on so much in the Destiny books so much as it is in the Voyager re-relaunch.
All you really need to know to set you up for Destiny is a sense of Picard's nightmare just keeping on coming and coming and coming, and he's getting closer and closer to breaking point over it. Everything else you'll pick up as you go.
So, final answer, it wouldn't hurt to read them, but you can manage without.
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Nothing in that reading list is about "need." Except for installments of duologies or trilogies, every book is designed to be understandable on its own. Reading a whole sequence of interconnected books is an option to give you a larger perspective; it is not a mandate.
And while I'm clearly biased in this, I'd say that if you wanted to read something leading in to Destiny, the only one you'd need is Greater Than the Sum. That book was specifically written to be a transitional work, tying off loose threads from the previous three books and bringing them to a decisive conclusion while also setting up what lay ahead in Destiny. It's the book that introduces several characters who are significant in subsequent novels, notably Jasminder Choudhury and T'Ryssa Chen, and basically locks down the standard post-Nemesis command crew for the Enterprise-E after the shifting roster of the previous few novels (although there have been a couple of departures since). I intentionally wrote it to be a fresh start, and it brings the readers up to speed on anything they need to know from the previous three books, so it's a good jumping-on point. And its epilogue is essentially a prologue to Destiny. So it's not essential for understanding that trilogy, but it is much more of a companion piece for the trilogy than the previous three books were.
Yeah, at least read GTTS. That novel has a pretty deep summary of everything that happened in the previous three. If you're annoyed when characters are referring to stuff that happened and you didn't read it, then you might find GTTS frustrating, but it will bring you up to date on all the events that you missed rather effectively.
You probably want to read Before Dishonor if you're planning on reading Beyer's Voyager novels, though.
You probably want to read Before Dishonor if you're planning on reading Beyer's Voyager novels, though.
Now I am confused. 
I started Destiny and it seems to be ok so far.
Going back to read Greater Than the Sum would mean having to order the book and wait 3 or 4 weeks.
I tend to buy the books second-hand - which makes it much cheaper.
Buying an e-copy would start to get expensive and I will not download "bootleg" versions (maybe if I already have the had-copy version I might allow myself to do so).
Since I have started I think I will just continue and see what happens.
It already refers to things that happened in the other books but, as people have said, there is enough information to be able to follow the story anyway.
Maybe once I finish Destiny and Typhon (and by then maybe The Fall) I will go back and fill in.
Not reading anywhere near as quick as I was last year. Got through 26 books in 52 weeks last year. Way behind that now. All because of Candy Crush.
I started Destiny and it seems to be ok so far.
Going back to read Greater Than the Sum would mean having to order the book and wait 3 or 4 weeks.
I tend to buy the books second-hand - which makes it much cheaper.
Buying an e-copy would start to get expensive and I will not download "bootleg" versions (maybe if I already have the had-copy version I might allow myself to do so).
Since I have started I think I will just continue and see what happens.
It already refers to things that happened in the other books but, as people have said, there is enough information to be able to follow the story anyway.
Maybe once I finish Destiny and Typhon (and by then maybe The Fall) I will go back and fill in.
Not reading anywhere near as quick as I was last year. Got through 26 books in 52 weeks last year. Way behind that now. All because of Candy Crush.
Keep reading Destiny theblitz. Since you've started already there's no reason to stop now.
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