Customer Reviews

Fallen Heroes (Star Trek Deep Space Nine)

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was great! It was the first Deep Space Nine novel I ever read and convinced me to buy more. The interaction between Quark and Odo as they try to save the station is both clever and hilarious, and brought comedy to a book that is otherwise rather morbid and frightening in tone.

I really liked the style of writing the author uses, and the way he skips back and forth between past and future, allowing us to see the results of the invasion, as well as how they came about.

Another good thing about the book is that it does not focus on one particular character, and, although Quark and Odo are at the centre of the story, each individual character has at least one big moment in which to shine.

The portrail of the enemies was brilliant, making them actually seem frightening, instead of cliched and ridiculous, and the writer brings a lot of dramatic tension to the book as the heroes are killed off one by one.

I recommend this book to all Star Trek fans, especially fans of Odo and Quark. Even people who have never seen an episode of Star Trek will enjoy this book. In my opinion it is one of the best DS9 novels, if not of any of the Star Trek series. My advice is: BUY THIS BOOK!

Usually I wouldn't accept blatant wholesale slaughter of major characters under the blanket excuse of "it all happened in an alternate universe", however, Daffyd ab Hugh has carried this device through artfully and with care. The slaughter portrayed IS horrific and the invaders are thoroughly convincing. I enjoyed Daffyd ab Hugh's choice of Quark and Odo as the primary investigators of his mystery, he characterised their interaction well, adding to, and not detracting from what we have been shown on the television show. The plot itself was cleverly thought out and executed. Although I would hesitate to call it the best Star Trek novel I have ever read, it was certainly one of the best I have read lately.

For those of you out there who are familiar with Trek novels, you have probably realized (if you are honest with yourself, that is) that most of them are sub-standard even for licensed genre literature and only enjoyable because they feature characters we have fallen in love with on television.

However, even naysayers should stop to give "Fallen Heroes" a second glance. Sure, it's one of the novels, and so has no true bearing on the mythology of the shows. Sure, no matter what happens to the main characters everything will turn out all right in the end. But the adventure Dafydd takes us through in the course of the novel really packs a wallop.

Fans of Quark and Odo will really get their money's worth, as these are the main protagonists of the novel. Their relationship is beautifully captured on the page. Also, although I'll attempt not to spoil anything, there is a wonderful scene in which Dafydd explores the nature of the Dax symbiont/host relationship from a very original perspective sadly never explored on the series.

This book has everything that makes Trek great: great action, a great plot, and great characterization. Here's the real shocker, though: it's well written! Top that off with the fact that it revolves around the DS9 crew (the best of them all in my book) and you have a surprisingly good read. Thanks, Dafydd. Trekkers, if you haven't read this one, you owe it to yourselves.

Fallen Heroes is easily the best DS9 book up through #16 in the series, quite possibly the best out of all of them.

Mr. ab Hugh has a pretty good grasp of the characters, a good sense of humor, and some great action. This is a time-travel story, but it is carried of with skill. The Odo/Quark interactions are frequently excellent, and we get to see how the characters act when pushed past the limit. We see our heroes killed off, one by one, and it doesn't once seem stupid or corny.

The action is awesome, the bad guys menacing, the emotions convincing, the humor fun, and a tip of the hat to the author for acknowledging other DS9 novels as well as episodes.

If you are going to choose one DS9 book to read, make it this one.

When I sat down to read this book I already knew what would happen - I had heard the CD version but this tale appealed to me in just the same way. It was still gripping and tense and the story line was perfectly crafted. There are classic death scenes which are good fun to read (although they were more tense when I heard them). This book shatters the normal peaceful story that you would expect from a novel where everything turns out okay after 100 pages - don't expect that. This book is filled with violent endings for almost all the characters. This IS _THE_ book which Paramount should dramatise. It would make a brilliant episode if it were adapted for the latest series or maybe even a film. The villains are violent and they are also cold - like the Borg they appear to be killing for no good reason. Finally I must quickly say that this is the BEST Star Trek book available currently and it's ending is unparrelled - you can quote me on that!

This book combines deadly alien shock troops, an almost invincible foe, and the classic "lost cause" plot. The crew fight (fruitlessly) against a superior foe. The emotional attachment to the story is extreme...I've read it 3 times and it still gives me chills...GREAT!!!

Fallen Heroes is a fast-paced and very well written action-packed story of the battle to save Deep Space Nine from an invasion. It features all of the usual characters , but centers on Odo and Quark, admirably describing the idiosyncrasies of their relationship. It has humor, but is also filled with death. Its only fault may be the way that Odo and Quark discover each body, and then we have to read through how it happened. But since it is interesting and often compelling, this task is never really tedious. In Fallen Heroes, as in The Siege by Peter David, Odo is late for his sleep period but the action won't allow him a moment's rest. Therefore, we find Odo constantly waxing heroic while trying desperately not to melt. It seems that if Odo is your main character, make him late for bed and you've got instant suspense. His final act of heroism will have you grinning at Hugh's originality and imagination. Definitely a good read.

I have read this book at least 10 times, and every single time, I have enjoyed it immensely. If you like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine books with serious action, thought-provoking concepts and ideas, and a LOT of good detail, characterization, and emotion, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU! GET IT!

"Fallen Heroes" is quite often praised as the best "pre relaunch" Star Trek Deep Space Nine novel, and it quite well deserves that reputation. This particular novel even rated a video game being designed and named after it.

As with the departure from the norm that Star Trek Deep Space Nine is, so is this novel that is so much more different than any other novel written in any of the series. In one of the darkest and bloodiest "hours" of Star Trek, the author explores the idea of almost every main character in the series, being brutally murdered and how heroically they "met their maker," yet the author, Dafydd ab Hugh, deftly handles closing up this novel in which there is no change whatsoever to the series.

"Fallen Heroes" is author Dafydd ab Hugh's first Star Trek novel and I found his writing style to be quite fluidic and the pacing of the novel to be non stop, which in the light of other Star Trek novels, is a great skill to possess. The cover art for this novel is standard fare for the time and doesn't lend much to the story.

The premise:

Set sometime early during the second season of the series, "Fallen Heroes" tells the tale of alien warriors coming to the station and demanding the return of an imprisoned comrade, someone of which nobody on the station knows anything about. Being set so early in the series, prior to the fourth season in which Deep Space Nine's defense were seriously "beefed" up, the aliens easily invade the station and Commander Sisko and crew have a losing battle to fight. Meanwhile, an odd device from the Gamma Quadrant has shifted Odo and Quark to three days in the future on the station. They arrive there and nobody is left alive, leaving them the task of finding a way back to the time they left and saving the station.

What follows from there, as stated above, is one of the most intriguing and fast paced early Star Trek Deep Space Nine novels set prior to the relaunch series. I highly recommend this novel to any and all fans of the series as you will most certainly not be disappointed! {ssintrepid}

As in the comic books that I used to read, that periodically used those words as a teaser on the cover, this story does not, in fact, mean exactly what it says. But like in those stories, it comes close enough that one can't really accuse the teaser of lying, either.

As with the character in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" who claims to have been turned into a newt, "It got better."

It was obvious early on where this story was going, and basically, what was going to happen. Clearly, we had an author with an interesting thought: how heroically would our heroes face death? And he found a way to explore that question without making any irrevocable changes; not an easy thing to do. I've never been a fan of stories in which nothing that happens matters, because it's all undone eventually. But in this case, the plot device was handled well enough that I have to accept it; a book this well-written has to be rated at five stars, regardless of whether I approve of the concept. The plot device was actually well enough thought out to be made plausible, the characterizations were spot-on, and the action was intense.

Not for the faint of heart, but a superb story for those who read Star Trek for the action.