Product Description: Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, and A Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before...in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien.
TRILL: They are a people with secrets. For centuries they kept their true nature hidden, even taking disturbing steps to protect the small population of near-immortal symbionts with whom a privileged few Trill are joined, body, mind, and soul. They are a people who hold memory to be sacred, yet deny their own past. Now amid a whirlwind of scandal, accusations, and growing civil unrest, Ezri Dax must penetrate millennia of lies and deceptions, and rediscover what should never have been forgotten, before her civilization rips itself apart.
BAJOR: The honeymoon is over. Following the euphoria of Bajor's marriage to the Federation, the real business of making that unionwork has begun. But even on a world where politics and religion are intertwined, conflicting visions of Bajor's role in the interstellar arena divide the planet's leadership. As newly minted Captain Kira Nerys sets the tone for the kind of Starfleet officer she will be, First Minister Asarem makes a bold move to define Bajor's voice in the Federation, while the returned Benjamin Sisko prepares for a futurethat only he, as yet, can see.
Bajor and Trill I recently received this book, along with the two other "Worlds of Star Trek books, this past Saturday, March 28, 2009 and finished reading it this morning. Even though this book is labeled "Volume 2", I made it a point to look at the historian's notes in all three books and decided to begin reading the trilogy with this particular book because it was the most logical starting point, chronologically, after the events that took place in the book, "Unity".
This novel, "Worlds of Deep Space Nine: Trill and Bajor" is actually divided into two separate stories: "Unjoined" and "Fragments and Omens". The first story, "Unjoined" is based on the fourth episode of the third season of Deep Space Nine, "Equilibrium". A coverup on the Trill homeworld had been discovered by Dr. Bashir and Commander Sisko but they were persuaded to not publicly disclose what they knew. Unfortunately, for Trill, this coverup has been discovered in "Unjoined" and tragic consequences follow...which ultimately impact Dr. Bashir and his lover, Ezri Dax.
The second story, "Fragments and Omens", intertwines several episodes of Deep Space Nine including "The Visitor", which I found to be absolutely delightful! The descriptions of parenting the new Sisko baby were a source of amusement...especially the description when Benjamin realized that his daughter needed to have her diaper changed! However, this story ends on a cliffhanger involving the massacre of the Bajoran village of Sidau, (first season episode, "The Storyteller"), and the kidnapping of its Sirah. Now I have to determine which of the remaining two novels pick up where "Fragments and Omens" left off.
astropolitics and intrigue The first part of this volume on Trill was average overall but had it's moments where I thought some starting revelation would reveal itself or some amazing discovery would be made. There has been so much written about the "secrets" of the Trills, but the apparent "secret" isn't all that extrodinary. The revelation which was made doesn't do much to change the direction of the series but we do learn a little more about the origin of the parasites.
I liked the second part (Bajor) much better because we learn what's going on with Sisco and his family and get back into the politics of Bajor which has always been interesting. There are two things which happen in this part which sort of changes the direction of the series. Something happens with Jake and a startling discovery is made. The startling discovery has to do with a destroyed village on Bajor and an Orb. Certain facts have led to the conclusion that there is a mole on board Deep Space Nine.
nice story the first story has to do with the planet of trill. there are riots among the people who are not joined with simbionts. they want equal standing and the truth of the history of the past that has been so well hidden. when the rioting is at it's worse, ezra embarks on a dangerous journey to find the truth. what she finds out could either help or destroy trill. i thought that this story was well thought out and a real pleasure to read.
the second story is about bajor. according to the back of the book, captain kira would play a big role in the story. she was thrown in almost as an afterthought. the story spent too much time jumping to too many unknown people to be really interesting, and they spent too much time on sisko and his everyday life. there is a nice piece on jake though. any kira fans will be sadly disappointed. the small part she has was so predictable they might as well have left it out.
I enjoyed both stories The Trill story is fantastic, although it does not start out that way. It begins with a now typical Trek story: the people of Trill are frightened, and thus angry at their government, which happens to be habitually secretive, and the extremists are turning to violence. The characterisations are good, although they seem a little lacking in depth. The descriptions are very good, although sometimes they get a bit wordy and excessive. Do they need to describe everything, even once-off things that don't impact the story? What the characters do, and their commentary on why, is very clearly written and done well. The authors have a neat trick of switching to minor characters to describe what Bashir or Dax is doing, and why, which also works very well.
I found the story to be good but not particularly exciting or unique, up to the middle where one of the characters informs Dax that she's going where no one has gone before ... on her own home planet. After that, it's incredible. It has everything: a society on the verge of total chaos, desperate combat scenes, heroic medical drama, and moral debates. Most impressive of all was the voyage of discovery made by Dax. I enjoyed this story tremendously.
The Bajor story is a love story, along with catching us up on the lives of everyone not in another Worlds story, and events on Bajor generally. The characterisations are excellent, as they need to be since they are the core of the story. The descriptions are vivid instead of specific; we are told what we need to see rather than everything (in some contrast to the first story). That worked well. The event scenes (only some qualify as `action' scenes) are clear and well written. The story starts off very low key and took some time to get going. However, the plotting of the romance was good, if perhaps with a rushed ending, and worked in well with the other parts of the story. The one major complaint I have is that the epilogue was full of vague `A Big Threat is Coming' ruminations. There is enough of a transition feel to this story that waving the fact in our faces was quite unnecessary. This story did not impress me as much as the first did, but I enjoyed it quite a lot as well.
Another solid chapter in the DS9 saga I had not expected to like the story set on Trill, being that I've developed nothing but distain for Ezri and Julian during the past few books, but I found Julian to be incredibly sympathetic during this tale, and while Ezri was still annoying, the scene were she descended into the depths of the symbiot pools was fascinating. The movement on the Julian/Ezri relationship was, I think, a long time coming, but it still hit me like a shot in the guts. I'm looking forward to see where this storyline goes. This story (and most of the relaunch for that matter) has done a nice job on taking one of the lamest TNG episodes and making something interesting and entertaining out of it.
The Bajor story was probably my favorite so far in the mini-series. The continuation of Jake's story stood out as a high point, though I would have liked to have seen a longer courtship with his new love interest. Again, I find it interesting that these stories are going back to some of the older (and in some cases hokier) episodes and adding depth and meaning to those stories. I also LOVED the references to my story, Ha'mara.
All in all, this book was pretty solid. I can't wait to see where all this is going.
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