My vote goes to The Siege, because I think PAD absolutely nailed the characters, shocking for such an early book, and not just that but he actually used and developed the characters well. I recently re-read The Siege and The Escape (the first Voyager original) back to back, and was just stunned at the difference. The Escape got the characters more or less on target, too, but mostly just spent the whole book telling us about them, and the plot didn't need them at all. You could've written the exact same story about the Enterprise easily. But The Siege was fundamentally based on DS9's characters and, I think, gave some of them more depth than the first season of the show did.
But I'm a huge PAD fan in general, and I know lots of people aren't, so I can see how opinions would differ.
Fallen Heroes would've been my second choice. I liked 34th rule, but I'm not quite as much of a DRG3 fan as most people on here, I think he tends towards verbose rather than creative with his language a little too much. All else being equal, I prefer punchy and pithy. (Of course, Bennett and Mack are two of my recent favorites, and they both write at length, so maybe I'm just crazy.)
But I'm a huge PAD fan in general, and I know lots of people aren't, so I can see how opinions would differ.
Fallen Heroes would've been my second choice. I liked 34th rule, but I'm not quite as much of a DRG3 fan as most people on here, I think he tends towards verbose rather than creative with his language a little too much. All else being equal, I prefer punchy and pithy. (Of course, Bennett and Mack are two of my recent favorites, and they both write at length, so maybe I'm just crazy.)
