Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Worlds of Deep Space Nine #2: Trill and Bajor

by Michael A. Martin, Andy Mangels, J Noah Kym, et al.

Book Overview

TRILL. The Trill are a combination of a symbiont and a host. The symbiont lives for hundreds of years in one host after another: each body is different, each personality is different, each life is different -- but all of them are one. The symbiont accumulates experiences, relationships, memories ...Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin have set their story on this most multi-layered and extraordinary of worlds. When Trill involvement in the assassination...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743483529
• ISBN13: 9780743483520
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Star Trek
• Length: 380 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.3" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

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.

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.

Fascinating!

The Deep Space Nine Relaunch has done a wonderful job in providing readers with a rich, detailed, and intriguing continuation of the television series: Volume Two of the Worlds of Deep Space Nine is another very strong showing. The storylines continue and advance what has come in the previous novels and allows the reader a closer look into the societies of two worlds closely associated with Deep Space Nine: Trill and Bajor. "Unjoined," penned by Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin, shows us a Trill in chaos and takes Dax on a journey to discover Trill's murky and hidden past in order to save its present and shape its future. The other characters involved in the story are equally interesting and will provide some of you with at least one welcome return. I was engrossed by this tale and found that I had to read it in one sitting. I applaud Mangels and Martin for providing us with a clever and fascinating look into Trill society; which has a real sense of cohesion with what little we've seen before regarding the planet and its people. "Fragments and Omens," penned by J. Noah Kym, deals with Bajor and the its' recent entry into the Federation. With the use of several storylines and characters, it gives us a sense of the ramifications of that entry in both a personal and political sense. Again, this story is solidly written and will, literally, leave with reader anxious for more. As with the latter seasons of the series, the reader would be well advised to read the Relaunch novels in order rather than trying to jump in with this novel. Doing so will allow you a full appreciation of how well these authors have woven their tales into the ongoing tapestry of the Relaunch, as well as not leaving you scratching your head over details in these tales that are clearly results of events in other stories.

Worlds in flux.

So far, the Worlds of Deep Space Nine books have been very good. Volume two, which contains "Unjoined" (about Trill) and "Fragments & Omens" (about Bajor) continues the strong showing from Volume 1. This time, though, both stories are extremely strong. "Unjoined" is by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin, while "Fragments & Omens" is by newcomer J. Noah Kym (though that is a pseudonym, so maybe the author isn't that new?). As with Volume 1, one of the stories is fairly quiet while the other one has huge ramifications for the planet involved. Both are excellent, with only the Bajor story leaving me slightly wanting, but in this case that can be a good thing. Both of these stories are powerful in their own way. "Unjoined" hits you in the gut and keeps doing it as you need to find out what's going on. As the violence escalates, we wonder if there will be a Trill society left for Dax to save. There's also a great deal of tension between Bashir and Ezri, and the authors handle this very deftly. All throughout the story, I was wondering if the tension was from what was going on around them or if it was internal to them. It was definitely interesting to watch. Mangels & Martin show us an intriguing look at a world under siege by terrorists, though these terrorists have a point. The government *is* hiding something from them all, part of which has been established way back in the television series, but some other information that's just in the books as well. The story is very dark and downbeat, which is unusual for them. However, dark does not mean bad in this case. When the terrorists do something truly horrifying, I felt my gut clench a little bit. The finale, which is a harbinger for massive change on Trill, leaves any long-term reader of the re-launch (or even a fan of the television series) wondering what will become of this world. The entire story is gripping, with the only real fault being that the sequence where Dax is trying to find the answers to what happened in ancient Trill history drags on a little too long (despite being interrupted by other, more interesting scenes). It's nothing major, but I do wish that Mangels & Martin had avoided using the "a character is in an environmental suit, so something has to go wrong with it" cliché. They do make good use of it, however, as in the process of being saved, she encounters the horror of what the terrorists have finally done. The story also starts in the middle of the action and then backtracks. While this can be annoying at times (and is overused in televised Trek), I think it was put to good use here. It draws us into the story and bridges what could have been a slow beginning otherwise. This story is definitely a keeper. "Fragments & Omens" has a lot of pluses and minuses, mostly pluses. It sets up a large part of what is probably going to follow in the next sequence of books, with Ben Sisko warning about the coming of the Ascendents (a race of beings that e

Just as good as the first one.

In fact, it's probably a wee bit better. When I was reviewing the first volume, I rated the Cardassia story as higher than the Andorian story because of the soap opera feel in that story, and gave that book a 4 star rating. This book is more between a 4 and 4.5 star rating. Before saying anything, i have to give kudos to all of the writers for incorporting the most random episodes from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the days of DS9 and TNG and parlaying them into important backstories for these new stories, both in this volume and in Unity and others. I'm impressed :) This version also follows the general thread of the first book, where the first story focuses more on the society than the personal characters (Trill and Cardassia) and the second one focuses on the interactions between the society and the characters (Andor and Bajor). The Trill story is the better of the two by a nose, because it wraps up completely. It focuses on the upheavals on Trill after the events of Unity, the role of Trill in the parasite evolution and the reasons for the parasite's hatred, and it has a very strong ending with very strong repercussions for all Trill, unjoined and joined, as well as for Ezri and Julian. I liked the way the story was written and the implications of what happens to the symbiotes as they grow older (much older). I look forward to the aftermath of these events, and how it affects Trill and the Federation. The Bajor story is a paradox. It is more interesting than the Trill story (to me) but is a cliff-hanger, and has about 3 or 4 different story threads, only half of which are resolved in this volume. While it plays a bit like the Andor story in the soap opera vein, Jake is a whole lot more sympathetic than Prynn Tenmei is. Call me biased :) The cliffhanger nature of the story reduced the enjoyment for me, 'cause now I have to wait for a while to find out what some of the loose ends were referring to, and it was a bit hard to follow all the threads, even interesting as each of them were. However, what was given was great, and it is a joy to see Capt. Sisko and his lovely baby girl, and family, and Jake and...read it and see. However, I think that this story should have been used as the basis of a novel a la Unity, rather than as a novella in this series. All in all, I recommend it to all fans of DS9 Relaunch, and I look forward to the Dominion and Ferengrinar stories. What's after those???