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athersgeoSo. A few months back, I had a bit of a rant about "Day of the Vipers", a DS9 novel that filled in some of the details on the Cardassian occupation.
My basic point was that the timeline was...screwed up. People weren't where they were supposed to be, or were there too early.
I've now read the other books in the trio ("Night of the Wolves" and "Dawn of the Eagles") and while both were much, MUCH better books (witness that I managed to read both of them inside two weeks as opposed to the several months that "...Vipers" took!), the same issues persist.
Partly, of course, it's because they had to jump off from where "...Vipers" finishes, but partly...it's because the writers were (I suspect) trying to be a little too clever.
In "Dawn of the Eagles", which deals with the last ten years, Odo comes to the fore (having played a bit-part in the previous book) and eventually see his decision to leave the Bajoran Science institute. So far, this is pretty much exactly as outlined on DS9 - I'd perhaps quibble about how long it took for him to get to that point (because DS9 sort of comes across that Odo's been out in the "real" world for much longer than the six or so years this book allows), but it doesn't directly contradict anything.
Horay.
Except that the first thing (give or take) that he does is meet a 12 year old girl called Sito Jaxa and, ultimately, rescues her from an untimely death at the hands of some fairly nasty Bajoran wildlife.
It *sounds* fair enough, but there is one slight, slight niggle.
This meeting takes place in roughly 2365. In 2368, Sito Jaxa is one of the cadets who (along with Wesley "Boy Wonder" Crusher) ends up being courts martialed over the death of a friend of theirs (TNG episode "The First Duty").
1) How did Sito Jaxa get off Bajor? (It's clear from the book that casual travel off-world is not permitted to Bajorans, the Cardassians have rigged a spy-net to prevent the few ships belonging to Bajorans from moving around and ANYWAY, none of those ships is warp capable!)
2) Assuming problem one can be overcome, Wesley Crusher is either in his second or third year at the academy (seeing as the punishment was being "sent back to repeat their sophmore year", it could either be they were at the end of their second year, OR in the middle of their third and were busted down a year, which sounds much more likely). So...Sito Jaxa managed to join the academy when she was aged 14? Really?
Granted, I have no way of knowing how widespread Bajoran names are, but given the sheer weight of names that crop up through the books where the person concerned DOES later appear, I can't quite buy that this is just a coincidence which means this is a bit of a goof and it's a little bit symptomatic of the whole trio of books.
Another issue I've got with the books is that there are just too.damn.many.characters. You'd think that would be a bit of a no brainer. After all, you're talking about three books that cover sixty years of a planet's history. You'd expect a lot of characters. But.
But. The three books are bloated. Granted, "...Vipers" took me a long time to read, but "...Wolves" didn't and "...Eagles" took me basically two days and even then, I was having difficulty keeping straight who some of the characters were. I knew who Ro Laren, Kira, Odo and Dukat were. Shakaar, Tanah Los, Kai Opaka, Jaro Essa and a few others are familiar to me because they've played significant roles in DS9. One or two characters were really well developed and I got to know them, too. But the rest?
And then there's the people who were missing. The biggie here is Li Nalas. Given the song, dance and hoopla that goes on in the Circle trilogy at the start of s2 of DS9, you would THINK he'd get a bit more screen time than "Oh whoops, I've just been captured by the Cardassians; that'll be 10 years in a labour camp for me, then!", which is what he's reduced to. Another one who's almost reduced to a cypher is Bariel Antos - given how prominent he is in the early stages of DS9, a bit more background for him would have been expected. So too is Winn Adami (and while I didn't MIND her absence, exactly, given that by the end of DS9 she's a pretty repulsive character, more substance would have been good). I've already noted that Garak was absent from the books - but I've since discovered that's not an omission, it's more that his story's already been told elsewhere, so all that's really left is the occasional oblique reference to him and never by name. (Oddly appropriate, given the character!)
And, for that matter, the missing events. "...Wolves" did have the decency to cover the Gallitep breakout, but there are several raids and misadventures that the Shakaar resistance cell experienced that Kira refers to without any detail (such as how Furrel lost his arm) which really ought to have been fleshed out. Then there's the massacre that Legate Ghemor took part in (which, I think, is said to be at Kendra Valley - which must be about the worst place to have lived on Bajor during the occupation as there were, in fact, TWO massacres there!), which doesn't even rate a flicker.
I think, what I'm getting at here is that doing the WHOLE occupation is much, much, MUCH to all-encompassing to cover in three books. A better approach might well have been to have narrowed the scope and followed one family through the whole occupation (which did appear to be what they were going to do in "...Vipers") or some how else scaling it down. I mean, as interesting as the Oralian Way subplots are, were they REALLY necessary? (I am aware that they're probably back story for some of the stuff that comes post DS9, in which case, I can sympathise a little for wanting to get it in there, but...)
Overall, then, the books were good, but they could have been so much better.
My basic point was that the timeline was...screwed up. People weren't where they were supposed to be, or were there too early.
I've now read the other books in the trio ("Night of the Wolves" and "Dawn of the Eagles") and while both were much, MUCH better books (witness that I managed to read both of them inside two weeks as opposed to the several months that "...Vipers" took!), the same issues persist.
Partly, of course, it's because they had to jump off from where "...Vipers" finishes, but partly...it's because the writers were (I suspect) trying to be a little too clever.
In "Dawn of the Eagles", which deals with the last ten years, Odo comes to the fore (having played a bit-part in the previous book) and eventually see his decision to leave the Bajoran Science institute. So far, this is pretty much exactly as outlined on DS9 - I'd perhaps quibble about how long it took for him to get to that point (because DS9 sort of comes across that Odo's been out in the "real" world for much longer than the six or so years this book allows), but it doesn't directly contradict anything.
Horay.
Except that the first thing (give or take) that he does is meet a 12 year old girl called Sito Jaxa and, ultimately, rescues her from an untimely death at the hands of some fairly nasty Bajoran wildlife.
It *sounds* fair enough, but there is one slight, slight niggle.
This meeting takes place in roughly 2365. In 2368, Sito Jaxa is one of the cadets who (along with Wesley "Boy Wonder" Crusher) ends up being courts martialed over the death of a friend of theirs (TNG episode "The First Duty").
1) How did Sito Jaxa get off Bajor? (It's clear from the book that casual travel off-world is not permitted to Bajorans, the Cardassians have rigged a spy-net to prevent the few ships belonging to Bajorans from moving around and ANYWAY, none of those ships is warp capable!)
2) Assuming problem one can be overcome, Wesley Crusher is either in his second or third year at the academy (seeing as the punishment was being "sent back to repeat their sophmore year", it could either be they were at the end of their second year, OR in the middle of their third and were busted down a year, which sounds much more likely). So...Sito Jaxa managed to join the academy when she was aged 14? Really?
Granted, I have no way of knowing how widespread Bajoran names are, but given the sheer weight of names that crop up through the books where the person concerned DOES later appear, I can't quite buy that this is just a coincidence which means this is a bit of a goof and it's a little bit symptomatic of the whole trio of books.
Another issue I've got with the books is that there are just too.damn.many.characters. You'd think that would be a bit of a no brainer. After all, you're talking about three books that cover sixty years of a planet's history. You'd expect a lot of characters. But.
But. The three books are bloated. Granted, "...Vipers" took me a long time to read, but "...Wolves" didn't and "...Eagles" took me basically two days and even then, I was having difficulty keeping straight who some of the characters were. I knew who Ro Laren, Kira, Odo and Dukat were. Shakaar, Tanah Los, Kai Opaka, Jaro Essa and a few others are familiar to me because they've played significant roles in DS9. One or two characters were really well developed and I got to know them, too. But the rest?
And then there's the people who were missing. The biggie here is Li Nalas. Given the song, dance and hoopla that goes on in the Circle trilogy at the start of s2 of DS9, you would THINK he'd get a bit more screen time than "Oh whoops, I've just been captured by the Cardassians; that'll be 10 years in a labour camp for me, then!", which is what he's reduced to. Another one who's almost reduced to a cypher is Bariel Antos - given how prominent he is in the early stages of DS9, a bit more background for him would have been expected. So too is Winn Adami (and while I didn't MIND her absence, exactly, given that by the end of DS9 she's a pretty repulsive character, more substance would have been good). I've already noted that Garak was absent from the books - but I've since discovered that's not an omission, it's more that his story's already been told elsewhere, so all that's really left is the occasional oblique reference to him and never by name. (Oddly appropriate, given the character!)
And, for that matter, the missing events. "...Wolves" did have the decency to cover the Gallitep breakout, but there are several raids and misadventures that the Shakaar resistance cell experienced that Kira refers to without any detail (such as how Furrel lost his arm) which really ought to have been fleshed out. Then there's the massacre that Legate Ghemor took part in (which, I think, is said to be at Kendra Valley - which must be about the worst place to have lived on Bajor during the occupation as there were, in fact, TWO massacres there!), which doesn't even rate a flicker.
I think, what I'm getting at here is that doing the WHOLE occupation is much, much, MUCH to all-encompassing to cover in three books. A better approach might well have been to have narrowed the scope and followed one family through the whole occupation (which did appear to be what they were going to do in "...Vipers") or some how else scaling it down. I mean, as interesting as the Oralian Way subplots are, were they REALLY necessary? (I am aware that they're probably back story for some of the stuff that comes post DS9, in which case, I can sympathise a little for wanting to get it in there, but...)
Overall, then, the books were good, but they could have been so much better.