The End of This Day's Business by Eleta_Preloc/Una McCormack
The unofficial sequel/finishing of the trilogy that is
The Crimson Shadow and
Enigma Tales.
I found TEoTDB engaging, sweet, and perhaps a bit short. Perhaps that is simply due to the pace at which I devoured it though, 2-3 chapters a day over the past 3 days. I've now checked and it's 80% the size of Enigma tales, so while smaller, it's not that much smaller and clearly shows that I was left wanting more (a good thing).
I'm not much of a reviewer, but the themes were good, and many moments were heartfelt. One part subset of the book, where Arati Mhevet visits Bajor in general, and "The Repository of Remembrance and Reconciliation" museum in particular, gave me mixed emotions that I'm struggling to articulate. My first thought was that Arati Mhevet seemed unrealistic here, but I thought deeper as to why I thought that. Arati is cautious and respectful with another culture that her culture has caused deep harm to. I can't begin to think of what I'd do in a scenario like that, but I don't know that I'd be as capable of being as level headed as is represented by Mhevet here. I like my Star Trek hopeful, and as as hopeful goes,
The main theme explored though the book is Reconciliation. One of my slight disappointments with
Enigma Tales was Garak not actually being tried for anything, and this novel fulfils on that well, though it seemingly is because Garak chooses to leak information leading to his downfall. How justice should work in a Utopian Federation/Bajor is interesting, and McCormack has clearly thought a lot about that. McCormack/Garak have clearly thought about what his reputation mean for Cardassia's reputation, and the reveal of the crime is partially for Cardassia's betterment over Garak's.
I'm a bit unsure as to the total relationship dynamic between Parmak and Bashir, and what the boundaries of their little polycule are. I do like the many scenes between them early on, where Parmak helps Bashir get out of his shell as he's still recovering post-control (aren't we all?). We sadly get less and less of that as we go, but they seem to be a well-functioning unit.
I was also heartily surprised about the Romulan refugee crisis tie-ins here, or as McCormack put it, "play[ing] fast and loose with alpha canon and beta canon and head canon". If only this could be slipped through a publisher, perhaps with some changes. I spoke to Travis, who's the head honcho at
https://startrekreadingorder.com/, and he understandably doesn't want us adding anything not officially released, to keep the order from then ballooning out of hand. I'll be making a forum post over there as an "unofficial" entry, and list out the characters and their other appearances.
With this, I sadly leave DS9 behind for a little while. Having skipped "The Never-Ending Sacrifice" I'll definitely be going back to it after I finish CODA, along with "Hollow Men" and the audiobook of "A Stitch in Time". I also have a copy of (a now rather dusty) pliable truths on my nightstand I've been meaning to get to, and it sounds like "Second Self" has some Garak as well.
Next for me will be the 4 TNG/TTN precursor to prey books, and then prometheus, prey, all the pre-CODA TNG in some order, then catch back up with VOY (I know it's out doing it's own thing, I've read up through The Eternal Tide), and then CODA.
