Product Description

Love and Hate. Faith and Doubt. Guilt and Innocence. Peace and War.

Few television series have embraced this symphony of contradictions on the epic scale of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. From the vastness of space to the darkest depths of the soul, from the clash of empires to the struggles of conscience, from the crossroads of a galaxy to the convergence of hearts -- that seven-year journey was both universal and personal, challenging its audience with stories and characters that redefined Star Trek's Human Adventure for all time.

PATHWAYS TRAVELED...The widowed father struggling to rebuild his shattered life, reborn as a religious icon to millions of believers.

CHALLENGES CONQUERED...The resistance fighter who aided her former oppressors in their struggle for liberation and emerged as the leader she never imagined herself becoming.

TRUTHS REVEALED...The orphaned alien whose quest for his own identity became the salvation of a quadrant.

Rediscover this extraordinary saga in a landmark collection of tales that confronts assumptions, divulges secrets, and asks as many questions as it answers.

These stories, entwined with familiar episodes, reveal the world of Deep Space Nine anew as told by

Christopher L. Bennett * Keith R.A. DeCandido * Heather Jarman * Jeffrey Lang * Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels * Una McCormack * Terri Osborne * Andrew J. Robinson * Kevin G. Summers * Geoffrey Thorne

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #212582 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-23
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

Restore your faith in STAR TREK
DEEP SPACE NINE was always the most literate corner of the STAR TREK universe. It's no surprise, then, that this tightly-edited anthology uses a clever framing story which allows us to imagine that all the stories are being told by a post-middle-aged Jake Sisko, Deep Space Nine's own resident author, reflecting on his time aboard Deep Space Nine. While this means that PROPHECY AND CHANGE isn't technically a part of the so-called "Season 8" relaunch of the series in book form, it does make it a valuable prologue to these newer adventures.

Within just a few pages, you'll quickly see that this is a different kind of STAR TREK than most people knew existed. This is a rich, messy universe, far, far beyond the scope of the other STAR TREK series. In these post-ENTERPRISE days when STAR TREK seems to be a disgraced genre, the one constant source of good new material is the DEEP SPACE NINE line. This first stop along the way back to STAR TREK will both give you new material while reminding you of the high points of each of the seven televised seasons.

Perhaps the best story of the lot is Kevin Summers' "Ha'mara", which takes us all the way back to Sisko's first journey to the Bajor that would become his home over the course of the television series. Notable for giving us our first real look at a lot of introductions that the television pilot left out, it weaves together broad political themes with the very personal struggles of Ben and Jake Sisko. DEEP SPACE NINE was always remarkable for its deft handling of the big and small pictures, but maybe there's never been quite as poignant a moment in any part of the DEEP SPACE NINE legacy--televised or literary--as Summers gives us here. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that in the midst of exploring exactly why the Bajorans were so distrustful of the new Federation presence, Summers takes the time to give us a portrait of the exact moment Jake Sisko became a writer. So simply moving was this scene that I can still remember it now, some two years after having read it.

If there had been nothing else in this book but that one moment, I would have felt my purchase price fully justified. Happily, there's so very much more in this rich collection, which leaves no major character without a truly signature moment.

Just like old times
Reading this book felt like watching the television show (that's a good thing). Each story was probably about the same length as a TV episode, and had similar formats. Overall it was entertaining. A few of the stories I could have done without, but it was still readable. I would highly recommend this to someone who is feeling nostalgic and misses those old days.

A wonderful collection of DS9 short stories
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. To mark the event, Pocket Books produced a short story collection called Prophecy & Change. Using the conceit from the episode "The Visitor," the framing story has an older Jake Sisko visited on a rainy night by a young woman, an aspiring writer. He spends the night regaling her with tales of his time on the station, which these happen to be. Despite the fact that a couple of the stories don't really fit this mold (the Garak story being the most unlikely for Jake to know), it's a nice idea that really works well. I can say that there are no bad stories in this volume, and some very good ones make this an excellent collection.

The stories take place along the timeline of the TV series, beginning with a story that takes place days after the series premiere, "The Emissary," and ending with a story set during the post-series novels. Each season is represented except the second, with most of the stories weighted toward the end of the series. While the stories seem to be leaning toward Quark and Odo, each character gets his/her time in the spotlight, which is a nice touch. Sisko and Kira are the most shortchanged, with only the first story, "Ha'Mara" (by Kevin G. Summers) concentrating on them. "Ha'Mara is an effective tale that ties together "The Emissary" and "Past Prologue" and explaining how the relationship between Sisko and Kira mellowed a little bit between the two. Kai Opaka proclaims that Sisko is the emissary from the Prophets. Kira has a lot of trouble believing that some outsider, especially somebody from the Federation could be their savior. They get a lot of time to argue, however, when they and two Bajoran children are trapped in an underground labyrinth by a cave-in. It's a very effective character story for the two of them, and the story is only marred by the heavy-handed characterization of Colonel Day, a Bajoran militia member who would also love to throw the Federation off Bajor and who hopes to use the cave-in as a way to discredit Opaka.

A few of the stories explain little continuity bits from the series that never were really explained. Thankfully, these stories move beyond that and are good stories in themselves, or else the book would have serious problems. "The Orb of Opportunity" (by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels) tells us why Nog decided to strike out on his own and eventually join Starfleet. In this story, an orb is being returned to the Bajorans by the Cardassians, but it gets hijacked by a band of Maquis (Federation citizens who are fighting the Cardassians because a treaty put their homeworlds in Cardassian territory). The orb is in a Ferengi lockbox, and only somebody with the ears of a Ferengi can open it. Rom refuses to go along after being browbeaten by his brother Quark, so Kai Winn secretly enlists Nog's help. After having an orb vision of the future, Nog even decides to forego payment in advance to help! He sees an opportunity that he feels he has to take. The story is very touching, with everybody being characterized wonderfully. Winn is the perfect balance between wily manipulator and a Bajoran religious leader who just wants what's best for her people. She's almost sympathetic, but then she does something that just makes you want to shoot her.

The book has a nice mixture of old and new writers, which is another plus. The pride and joy of the book, however, is another tale by Andrew J. Robinson, the man who played Garak on the series. The last story in the collection, it details the story of Garak and how he is helping Cardassia heal from the horrors of Dominion occupation, where millions died. Some time has passed, and the Cardassians have been through civil war and massive plague which has wiped out even more of his people. This takes place after A Stitch in Time and a stage play written by Robinson and performed at conventions when Robinson and Alexander Siddig are both there. Robinson writes Garak so well, and the story is only marred by the fact that I felt lost at times when he was referring to the events of the play. He tries to put explanations in there, but it just seemed too much. I think it was a mistake to have it be a direct sequel to something that hardly anybody (relatively speaking) is going to see. Still, Robinson shows that he is a gifted writer as well as actor, making the conflicts interesting even when the reader doesn't quite understand what's going on.

As I said earlier, there really isn't a bad story in the bunch. The weakest story is probably the Ezri Dax story, "Chiaroscuro" (by Geoffrey Thorne), which has Ezri going to Pandora station to open a puzzle that Jadzia Dax set so that only another Dax would be able to do it. The story takes place shortly after Ezri boards Deep Space Nine so she's still unsure of herself. I found that the writing didn't grab me and the puzzles that Ezri had to solve just weren't that interesting. Ezri sees a side of Jadzia Dax that she's never seen, but neither have we so we don't really identify with it. It's a young Jadzia, inexperienced and emotional, and ultimately the story just falls flat.

Overall, this is a wonderful collection. It's so great that I spent a Sunday morning plowing through it (which I never do) because I couldn't put it down. That's the seal of approval as far as I'm concerned. If you're a Deep Space Nine fan, you owe it to yourself to pick this up right away. And I'm anxiously awaiting Tales from the Dominion War as well.

David Roy