Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Impressive Start, March 8, 2000
By A Customer
I don't as a rule read Star Trek books. Too often I've felt that the slower pace of a novel takes too much action away from what is, after all, an episodic TV series. But Deep Space Nine was different in that it was a highly serialized TV show, and the experience was more like "watching" a long novel, one that took seven years to read. So, with some trepidation, I picked up the first book of the "Millenium" series, "The Fall of Terok Nor". I read the entire thing in two sittings. For the most part, the book definitely captured the characters and their relationships very well, and the plot (a basic whodunit) moves along at a good clip for a 400-page novel. And the cliffhanger ending, which I won't spoil for you here, makes me thankful that the first and second volumes of the trilogy were published simultaneously. Covering a time span reaching back before the pilot episode of the show forward to 25 years into Star Trek's future, the novel begins to set up a plot of epic proportions. From Odo's, Quark's, and Garak's "missing memories" from the Day of Withdrawal, to the mysterious Red Orbs, this trilogy begins to link together certain events that actually took place during the show's run in a satisfying way, enriching the already-deep history the TV series established. While Kira, I felt, was horribly underutilized (she *is* the second in command, after all), the characterizations drawn of Jake Sisko, and especially Dr. Julian Bashir were well done; all the rough edges and shoulder-chips the characters have also come through clearly. A final confrontation (a running joke about "waste extraction" in the TV series is taken to a gross extreme when the showdown with the bad guys takes place in DS9's sewage treatment facility) runs on a bit too long, and the cast of characters gets a bit unwieldy, but overall this first volume of "Millenium" shows promise for more interesting developments to come. I certainly was surprised I enjoyed the book as much as I did.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting start, March 17, 2000
I've read a lot of Star Trek novels over the years and while a great many of them have been enjoyable, there's been one trend, of late, that has started to worry me. Namely that a lot of good ideas for one, longer than average Trek novel are being stretched out to make series, so that readers are forced to purchase three or four books instead of one. Leave it to DS9 to defy the odds and buck the trend. This epic length storyline is just that--epic. And you certainly can't complain about the overall size of the books as the first two are longer than the last DS9 trilogy combined! But what really works is the story and how well it appears be setting up events for a three book run. It's placed firmly in DS9's sixth season and brings in a lot of players. There are appearances by Kai Winn, Garak and even Gul Dukat as well as a flashback to the time before Starfleet came to DS9. It's fascinating becasue the Reeves-Stevens are given time to set up events and give us some character development along the way, which is always appreciated. The major events involve a new series of Orbs that are rumored to open a new wormhole and Quark's gaining possession of one to sell. As always, there's a murder mystery, but it actually ties in well to the plot to set up events. The novels moves at a crisp pace and the characters are, generally, spot on. It's nice to see Jake get some development, especially as he virtually disappeared in the late goings of season seven... It will be interested to see if this momentum can keep going over the next books in the series. If it does, this set may go down as one of the best Trek novel series of all time.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Overall good, but a little slow, April 16, 2000
Fall of Terok Nor was a good, but not great, first book of the whole Millenium Saga. My main complaint is that not much happens over the course of 400 pages. While what does happen is well thought out and interesting, it takes a long time to happen. Sometimes this is good -- we get interesting views, theories, etc., but sometimes it's the opposite. At times, it seemed the authors needed to prove that they know everything about Star Trek, and have to write in unnecessary detail about things past.Fortunately, this was pretty good. It's about time that ST writers have done what they should've done long ago -- go above and beyond. It hasn't happened yet in other series, but DS9 finally is beginning to write books that aren't just episodic entries, but add to and enhance the big picture. Books are also getting longer, with more detail and better writing. Keep it up DS9. As long as it was, this book was a very quick read, and all of the characterisations were quite good. While not the best of the Star Trek books, I am sufficiently motivated to read the other books in the trilogy and play the forthcoming game based upon them, The Fallen.
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