Customer Reviews

Siege (Star Trek Deep Space Nine)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I didn't expect this to be good, considering how early in the season it was written, but I was happy to read the kind of well-written novel that only Peter David can write. You have to hand it to him, this one is another in his long series of great ST books. Even reading this after Deep Space Nine is finished, it rings true to much of the characters at that time. So read this book!

Taking place a little less than halfway through the first season of the show, The Siege is a strong first original novel in this series. As David explains in the preface, he's going to make a few mistakes, as when he started the book the show was only five episodes old and not everything was that well developed yet.

And he was right. Most of the characters did fall a little out of character at times, but just as often they sounded just as they do in the show. There was a bunch of cool action, with shapeshifters beating the heck out of each other, as well as out of others.

This book is filled with David's usual Star Trek wit and humor. In fact, my biggest complaint is about that. While there is some good ferengi humor, the author takes a lot of liberties with the ferengi culture and lifestyle, and most of them are dead wrong. This gets to be very annoying with every few pages he talks about "tradition ferengi defensive crouch," "a stance known as the ferengi..." etc.

Still, I recommend this book to DS9 fans. This is what the episode "the adversary" should have been. Good work!

When DS9 first premiered I was skeptical. The humans are the aliens? Yeah, right. But then I picked up this book and everything sounded so great I couldn't hold myself back from the show. This is the first original Deep Space Nine books so naturally somethings are a little off (Odo shape shifts into Quark and other humanoid forms, a task which he cannot do in the series). Another reviewer gave this book four stars because of the lack of accuracy, and I almost agreed with that reviewer but one has to realize that David wrote this book with almost nothing to go on. When it was written there had only been one episode of DS9! As I write this there are only a few more weeks of DS9 left, pick this book along with Fallen Heroes to continue the saga!

The Siege was an excellent novel, especially considering it's the first original DS9 novel. All right, so characterization and some of the shapeshifting tricks might be a little off, but Peter David didn't have a lot to work with. But the novel keeps your attention, is interesting, and keeps fairly good characterization overall.

Contrary to what many previous reviewers have said, I do NOT like tons of gore. I pretty much ignored those parts. It's the way Peter David writes a story that just drew me in immediately. I absolutely loved it. Keep on 'till the end, which is hilarious

This was an incredibly entertaining read! Peter David expands his masterful Star Trek storytelling abilities to the Deep Space Nine universe, and the result is a powerful, suspenseful story with a touch of the trademark David humor. Having everyone join forces to stop a psycho killer is a nice break from the usual political tension between the Bajorans, Cardassians, etc. The ending is brilliant! In the unlikely event they ever make a Deep Space Nine movie, they should base it on this book!

Peter David explains in his introduction that in writing this book, he was working under a handicap: the characters hadn't been very well-defined by the time he was assigned the task. Given that, he did an admirable job of anticipating the characterizations that would eventually become canonical. Still, the feel was a little bit off. Also, while David does manage to maintain his usual ability to write with humor even while writing a very serious plot, the plot is a little too dark for my taste, and the violence a little too graphic. This is definitely not one of David's better efforts, in fact it's the weakest book by him that I've yet encountered. But even his worst is fair to middling.

It is quite fitting that Peter David, one of Star Trek's most popular and prolific authors was given the opportunity to write the very first original Star Trek Deep Space Nine novel. It's just too bad that he's only visited Deep Space Nine one time since this great novel.

One of the most difficult problems that an author faces when writing a novel for such a young series is the fact that they just don't have much background to work with. This is something that certainly hindered early STNG authors. Peter David addresses this in the Preface of "The Siege," stating that at the time he'd written this, he'd only seen the first five episodes so if the characterizations are off, that's why. I believe that is one of the myriad of reasons that he has been on of the best Star Trek authors; you certainly didn't see any statements like this in the early STNG novels.

Although Peter David did not have a lot of Deep Space Nine background to work with, thematically the entire tone of this novel is "dead on" perfect with the first and second seasons. As usual, his wit is in high gear with this novel, despite the "heavy" tone of the novel.

The cover art for "The Siege" is quite truly standard fare for the time in which this novel was released and not really too impressive.

The premise:

Commander Sisko is forced to cut back entry to the wormhole due to increased graviton emissions and not long thereafter the overall atmosphere of the station becomes very tense. Suddenly an Edeman religious leader is but the first to be found murdered and Commander Sisko and Constable Odo must find the killer. The killer is seemingly striking without motive and the situation soon becomes even more harrowing as the Cardassians and Edemans arrive demanding that the killer be found and given to them or else they'll destroy the station. Adding a certain level of mystique in this story, Odo finds that he must destroy this killer but the killer is also the only link to his mysterious past.

What follows from there is nothing less than a brilliant early Star Trek Deep Space Nine novel that will keep you guessing from cover to cover! I highly recommend this novel for your Star Trek collection as you will find it to be among the best of any of the series. {ssintrepid}

this is probably the funniest star trek book I've ever read. like when Kira and Odo are "Hatching nifirious plot to find out what the gossip is between starfleet personel," and O'Briens majic trick and why it worked for Quark and not him. not only is it funny though, it also has action in it like the Borg ship coming through the worm whole and the people getting killed by the other Changeling. I don't want to give away the ending but the book is fun, funny, full of action, and a great book for the family

Although this story was written before they knew about the Founders it's still fun.