Pliable Truths

Set shortly before "The Emissary", DS9's pilot episode, this novel is a great opportunity to meet a lot of the station's crew for the very first time - kind of 😉. Being written now, 30 years after DS9 started and with a lot more onscreen Trek story to work with, I love that there are connections to the new stuff. It's always been there, even though it was never shown. Another part I loved a lot was everything with the O'Briens. Geordi acknowledges Miles' dutiful transporter room work, and we get great scenes between Keiko and Miles where they talk about their future and possible change of scenery. This book is really good at filling in some character backgrounds. Speaking of Keiko: She gets something meaningful to do with Beverly on Bajor, which I loved seeing. There are so many little things that I loved: a meta-comment on the same actors playing two different characters; a fun scene between Garak, Geordi, Data, and Dukat; Sonya Gomez; a fun scene with Beverly and a Warp Core Breach; probably most notably a scene between Garak and Odo; and more.

One part of the story is set in a Cardassian labour camp. There are some descriptions of violence against Bajoran prisoners. They are not easy to listen to/ read, but I am also glad the author did not shy away from being specific. This is what's been happening in such camps all throughout history and it needs to stay in our consciousness.

There is a good deal of focus on the fact that the Federation never came to help Bajor during its occupation by the Cardassians. This is especially topical now where we are talking about how much we should and shouldn't help countries like the Ukraine. It also adds to the long going discussion about the Prime Directive. I like how several characters acknowledge this and don't try to explain and excuse their way out of this decision, but rather accept the criticism and offer their help now.

After the main story ended there was a lot of transitioning towards even closer before "The Emissary". I found that part a bit slow and I caught myself drifting off a couple of times. But that is strictly personal taste, and did not hamper my enjoyment of the book overall.

As always I'm going to repeat my praise for the narrator, Robert Petkoff. He hits the characters' voices even more perfectly this time around. I think this might be his best work yet (of those I listened to at least).

#StarTrek #TrekLit #StarTrekBooks #StarTrekNovels

“I’ve never plummeted to my death aboard a man-made fireball before, sir,” said O’Brien. “Thanks for not letting today be that day.”


I’d forgotten I’d preorderd this, so was pleasantly surprised to finish it on a lazy Sunday morning with coffee and chocolate cake.
The idea sat well with me: seing the genesis of DS9 was potentially quite interesting, and watching events of the turbulunt time during the withdrawal of the Cardassian occupying forces of Bajor would be fascinating.

This only worked to a point. The first thing that stuck in my craw was the 6 times someone “blew out” his or her breth. This is perhaps because I’ve just finished a reread of another novel where this happens a lot too, so I was over-primed to be annoyed with it.

Secondly there were far too many times when someone went off into a daydream, far too close together to be anything other than authorial license to showboat their knowledge of canon. Picard is perhaps understandable – the book serves as a ceiling on the events of the TNG two-parter Chain of Command in the same way the episode Family did after the Best of Both Worlds – but to then follow-up with Crusher, particularly to no meaningful result, felt overdone. The Starfleet officers come across as unfocused airheads much of the time, because every new environment triggers flashbacks. Realistic if they were real people given how much got thrown at them over their televised careers, but perhaps less believable from a fictional perspective.

Next, The introduction of Madred as a character was necessary for Picard’s closure of course, but also the slapdown of Dukat didn’t really fit, nor did Madred add anything meaningful to the negotiations. In that sense he was put into the book purely for Picard, and could’ve served a better role without stealing Dukat’s thunder – but then B-stories never work as well in modern Trek as they used to.
Finally on the irritating scale, explosions and IEDs are obviously important terrorist fair, but to bomb a shop and then implicate Garak is pure folly. after all, you never tell the same lie twice. He’d be very offended if War’ds contention is that this was a test run because our innosent tailor would never be so gauche. Lastly, we had to have Ensign Ro, but we also had her in Picard S3. Jaxa might have fit better here, given RO’s defection was still to come, although I suppose Ro is more well-known to more people.


On the positives, I wont pretend I wasn’t impressed with Ward’s handling of timeline; he has a very narrow path to tread in writing characters at a point in their history that we as an audience have seen very far beyond. That took no small skill and was masterfully done. It was also, as I hoped, great to see our crew back again, whole and healthy. I enjoyed watching Picard but the characters have aged. A story with them in their prime was balm to the soul. I also took great pleasure in the nods to Lower Decks (the series, not the episode). Seeing a California Class starship and having the dialogue around second contact was great. Exactly the sort of retcon I can get behind.

So yes: a reasonably good story and some nice page-time for some of our favourites. Worth it if you, like me, have missed our heroes in days of yore.