Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire
David R. George III
Publication Date: January 2011
Timeline: 2362; February 2381 – February 2382
Progress: Though this is the third in the Typhon Pact novel miniseries, and the second volume we’re covering as part of our DS9 relaunch re-read, it takes place before the last book we looked at. Chapters alternate between three main storylines…
Typhon Pact: Zero Sum Game
David Mack
Publication Date: November 2010
Timeline: April 2382; August 2382
Progress: Welcome to the Typhon Pact eight-book miniseries, which is set a year after David Mack’s Star Trek: Destiny trilogy and three years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. Because our focus is on the relaunch adventures of the DS9 cast, we won’t be covering all eight of these books, but instead limiting ourselves to the current title, along with Rough Beasts of Empire, Plagues of Night, and Raise the Dawn. Anyone worried that skipping over some related books, as we’re doing, may make it difficult to jump into this volume, fret not. The following two paragraphs from Chapter 3 of Zero Sum Game basically give us all the key info we need to know to dive in:
The Never-Ending Sacrifice
Una McCormack
Publication Date: September 2009
Timeline: 2370 through 2378, following the events of Cardassia: The Lotus Flower & Unity
Progress: This is a novel primarily of character rather than plot, so I’m going to keep this summary succinct. Also, the book includes a cross-listing of all the referenced episodes and other stories at the end for your convenience, so I won’t barrage you with links here.
The Soul Key
Olivia Woods
Publication Date: August 2009
Timeline: 2377, following the events of Fearful Symmetry and Warpath; also 2376
Progress: A Prologue set in the Alternate Universe (AU; also, I’ll be using “m-” to denote the mirror version of a character) aboard Terok Nor recaps the basic conflict between the Terran Rebellion and the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. We’re shown m-Eddington, m-O’Brien, m-Ezri, m-Keiko, and m-Sloan receiving the inter-dimensional call from our Bashir, Sisko, Ro, Quark, Kira, Dax and m-Iliana, as depicted in Fearful Symmetry from our side. Terok Nor is then attacked by Klingons.
Fearful Symmetry
Olivia Woods
Publication Date: June 2008
Timeline: 2377, following the events of Warpath; also, 2357, 2358, 2359, 2360, 2361 and 2375
Progress: This book has a flip format, so that it can be read from either cover, with both stories meeting roughly in the middle of the volume. Mirror, mirror, and all that. These two sections are referred to as Side One and Side Two. Here we go:
Warpath
David Mack
Publication Date: April 2006
Timeline: January 2377, immediately after Worlds of Deep Space Nine #3—The Dominion: Olympus Descending
Progress: There are five main plotlines in Warpath, all of which advance simultaneously by alternating increments, before converging at the novel’s end. I’m going to break them up into separate self-contained units here, to avoid the whiplash of going back and forth a dozen times in this summation.
Worlds of Deep Space Nine #3
The Dominion: Olympus Descending
David R. George III
Publication Date: February 2005
Timeline: December 2376, thirteen weeks after Unity
Progress: After his recent stint in the Alpha Quadrant, Odo is back in the Great Link. However, he doesn’t spend all his time in the shapeshifter sea. Sometimes he hangs out on Jem’Hadar Attack Vessel 971, buddying it up with a new Weyoun clone and a Jem’Hadar named Rotan’talag (who, like Taran’atar, is not dependent on ketracel-white).
Worlds of Deep Space Nine #3
Ferenginar: Satisfaction Is Not Guaranteed
Keith R. A. DeCandido
Publication Date: February 2005
Timeline: November 2376, seven weeks after Unity
Progress: Quark’s Bar—excuse me, Embassy—is feeling the repercussions of recent Ferengi economic reforms, like income tax, championed by Quark’s brother, Grand Nagus Rom. A Ferengi named Chek, the head of Chek Pharmaceuticals, books Quark’s embassy (“the last outpost of true Ferengi values”) for a private meeting of ten notable businessmen, which Quark attends. Chek makes the case that, as a result of Rom’s reign, Ferenginar is heading towards both a financial and a moral crisis, and that the only way to stop the decline is to oust Rom from power.
Worlds of Deep Space Nine Volume Two
Bajor: Fragments and Omens
J. Noah Kym
Publication Date: February 2005
Timeline: Three weeks after Unity; also October 2376
Progress: The core Sisko family—Kasidy, Sisko, Jake, and newborn “avatar” Rebecca—begin to find their groove on Bajor, but Jake feels like this isn’t the place he belongs. “Where would I go?” he asks. “Back to Earth to see Grandpa? He was just here and, frankly, I don’t feel like cleaning oysters. Back to the station? I’m not sure I have a life there, either.” So he sets off on an exploration of Bajor, and his travels bring him together with Azeni Korena, who goes by “Rena,” a young Bajoran artist on her way home to fulfill family obligations.
Worlds of Deep Space Nine, Volume Two
Trill: Unjoined
Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin
Publication Date: February 2005
Timeline: October 2376
Progress: This story takes place a week after Unity, but the novel itself begins a week into the story’s timeline, and it does so with a gripping set piece: Doctor Bashir is on Trill, tending to Trills wounded by some kind of “bioelectric attacks,” bombs that set off symbiont-harming radiation in addition to electromagnetic pulses. While providing this emergency relief, Bashir worries about Ezri Dax, who is at the Mak’al caves on an unspecified mission. Then we jump back a week to the events leading up to this scene.
Worlds of Deep Space Nine Volume One
Andor: Paradigm
Heather Jarman
Publication Date: June 2004
Timeline: November 2376
Progress: Jarman’s novel takes up the Shar storyline, picking up about four weeks after Unity. Shar’s zhavey Charivretha asks him to come to Andor and provide assistance with a delicate political situation, which involves Thriss’s mother, Thantis, dialing up the temperature of her party’s political antagonism to Vretha’s. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Commander Matthias is looking to attend Thriss’s funeral on Andor, so the group decides to make the trip together. Once there, instabilities due to both storms and political riots essentially force the three of them to continue their journey as a group, rather than Shar and Prynn breaking off on their own (though they do get hold of a shuttle for a bit). Matthias comes into possession of an Andorian drug known as saf, which is eventually used to drug Vretha and kidnap her.
Worlds of Deep Space Nine Volume One
Cardassia: The Lotus Flower
Una McCormack
Publication Date: June 2004
Timeline: December 2376
Unity represents a natural breaking point in the DS9 relaunch novels. Forthcoming stories in this series spin off in different directions, featuring increasingly new and diverse characters on various worlds. As a result, we’re doing away with the review sections used in the prior entries of this reread and transitioning to a looser model going forward. I’ll provide a brief plot synopsis, jump right in to my overall thoughts, single out a few memorable character beats or lines at the end, and conclude with an “orb factor” rating.
Una McCormack’s The Last Best Hope, the first novel directly related to, and in explicit continuity with, the first season of Star Trek: Picard, fills in some of the gaps between Star Trek: Nemesis and the current series. It also acts as both prequel and sequel to the Picard: Countdown comic book miniseries, itself a prequel to Picard. The novel was published in between episodes 3 and 4 (“The End is the Beginning” and “Absolute Candor” respectively) of the new show, and as such, assuming you read it in the relevant two-day window, as I did, it contained some mild spoilers for the fourth episode’s setup.
More interestingly, the book furnishes us with significant detail around Picard’s spearheading of the Romulan evacuation, from its inception and early successes to its final tragic dismantlement, and it also dramatizes a few key scenes that have been alluded to, but not explicitly shown, in the series.
Unity
S. D. Perry
Publication Date: November 2003
Timeline: September 2376, immediately following the end of Mission Gamma, Book Four and Rising Son
Progress: A tired Vaughn and crew travel through the wormhole and bring the Defiant back to DS9, while Jake catches Nog up on the events of Rising Son. When the Defiant emerges from the wormhole, they find a small fleet of Cardassian vessels blocking their path and communications. Gul Macet demands that Vaughn surrender the Defiant to him, but Vaughn comes up with a different plan.
The Left Hand of Destiny, Book Two
J.G. Hertzler and Jeffrey Lang
Publication Date: May 2003
Timeline: Immediately following The Left Hand of Destiny, Book One, in 2375
Progress: At some point in the future, Ezri finds herself on the Rotarran, still donning an EVA suit after a space walk. The ship has lost artificial gravity and is suffering from a major coolant leak in the wake of an attack. Worf and Alexander are there too. An ancient Trill rune-verse plays over and over in her mind as the Rotarran begins to plummet towards the icy surface of the planet Boreth (which, at the time this novel was published, we’d last seen here, but have since glimpsed again here).
