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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Rising Son
A prophecy leads Jake Sisko on a desperate search for his missing father. Instead, what he finds at his journey's end is totally unexpected...In the climactic closing episode of the final season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Captain Benjamin Sisko, his destiny inextricably linked to that of the alien entities known as The Prophets, was last seen plunging into the depths of the Bajoran Fire Caves, locked in combat with Gul Dukat. Although he appeared to his new wife Kasady Yates and promised her that he would one day return, his son Jake has not seen him since. In Deep Space Nine: Avatar, a mysterious prophecy sent Jake on an impossible quest to trace his missing father. However, instead of finding his heart's desire, Jake is thrown across the galaxy and saved by the unexpected intervention of a strange ship with an even stranger crew. Sharing their travels and their dangers, he learns important lessons about dealing with his father's loss, and about the truth of the prophecy that sent him here. In the process, he discovers much more than he anticipated; a revelation that will change the world forever for Jake, for Bajor and for Deep Space Nine.
308 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
S.D. Perry
84 books769 followersSD Perry (Stephani Danelle, by the way, though she prefers SD or Danelle) has been writing novelizations and tie-ins for most of her adult life. Best known for her work in the shared multiverses of Resident Evil, Star Trek, and Aliens, SD is a horror nerd and an introvert. Her father is acclaimed science fiction author Steve Perry. SD lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
May 6, 2022
Okay. So. I liked the Jake bits, which was good because my mind refused to take in literally anything else -- there were so many new characters and I have no idea how I was expected to keep track (let alone care about) any of them. So much stuff, so few fucks. Slogging between the Jake bits literally took me months, but part of that has to do with finishing up my dissertation maybe...
February 28, 2016
Awesome story of Jake in the Gamma Quadrant.
September 14, 2015
Despite some flaws this was a really page turner, as evidenced by the fact that I burned through it in 3 hours when I should have been asleep. Oops. Could have used less of the almost bizarrely out of character first person memoirs (Jakes supposed to be a good writer and uh, well,) and some of the characters were criminally underutilized (Glessin could have been SO interesting but got all of five pages) but whatever. Still enjoyed it.
November 19, 2017
An enjoyable read which finally picks up the long-abandoned story of Jake Sisko.
After suffering a ship-wide systems failure, Jake is rescued by a group of scavengers led by Captain Dez on the mysterious ship Even Odds. Jake gradually starts to enjoy his newfound life on the ship, even participating in a daring mission to loot a storage depot on a hostile alien planet. Little does he know he's on a collision cause with the results of a bizarre prophecy involving Kai Opaka and a deadly religious war.
Ever since the opening Avatar duology, I've lamented how Jake's story was seemingly abandoned by the authors and the character forgotten about. Thankfully, original author S.D. Perry returns to the relaunch series with "Rising Son", a novel given over in its entirety to filling in the missing gaps.
Despite an initial reluctance, I quickly became attached to the rag tag crew of the Even Odds, a home to everything from a sentient multipart fungus to a sentient computer program. An argument could perhaps be made for overegging the pudding here, but after the frenzied series of introductions to such a diverse collection of beings, I really enjoyed the dynamic that the author establishes. Dez is a scoundrel with a heart, and his relationship with Jake quickly takes center stage. Jake's role in the series is often minimised so much that you'd think Cirroc Lofton was more of an infrequent guest star, so I was thrilled to see Rising Son thrust his character so firmly under the spotlight. There's a lot of development going on here, and I love the intimate examination of Jake's feelings about his father, the Prophets and living under the shadow of both.
The mission to Drang was quite a highlight, but also marks a pivot point in the book. After investing so much time getting to know the crew of the Even Odds, I was somewhat disappointed how quickly they were dropped after they arrived at their next destination: the trading outpost Ee. At this stage, the author virtually drops Dez and crew completely, instead picking Jake up and thrusting him into the second part of the narrative: a reunion with long-lost Kai Opaka. This is all well and good, however such a sudden change made me question the point of spending over half the book getting to know new characters which were destined to disappear.
Opaka's story post-"Battle Lines" was well told, and I enjoyed the whirlwind recap of 7 years of history for the character. Her encounter with the Ascendant Raiq was especially chilling, and undoubtedly paves the way for a much more sweeping storyline to come.
As Jake, Opaka, Wex and a wayward Tosk follow their instinct to the Eav'oq planet, the story takes a turn for the mystical, as the characters become mired in a pagh-hunt which has shades of Indiana Jones at times. This section felt rather loosely thrown together, a means to an end rather than a concise effort to resolve plotlines. The revelation that the Eav'oq share the same gods as Bajor ("Siblings" instead of Prophets) is sure to create a stir when the novel line returns to the Alpha Quadrant (especially with all the political turmoil which currently plagues the planet, and the newly discovered Conspiracy alien invasion).
Some unresolved plot strands:
* Just what was the Wa subdeck? At one point I felt that this was going to be a serious plot point that was developed into something else, but now it feels like it was just there for "coolness" factor.
* Tosk/Hunters: Why was the language on the Eav'oq planet written only so the Tosk could decipher it?
Rising Son provides a welcome reintroduction to Jake Sisko's story, even though the handling of the substitution of the Even Odds tales for Opaka's reapparance was somewhat choppy and abrupt.
Four stars.
After suffering a ship-wide systems failure, Jake is rescued by a group of scavengers led by Captain Dez on the mysterious ship Even Odds. Jake gradually starts to enjoy his newfound life on the ship, even participating in a daring mission to loot a storage depot on a hostile alien planet. Little does he know he's on a collision cause with the results of a bizarre prophecy involving Kai Opaka and a deadly religious war.
Ever since the opening Avatar duology, I've lamented how Jake's story was seemingly abandoned by the authors and the character forgotten about. Thankfully, original author S.D. Perry returns to the relaunch series with "Rising Son", a novel given over in its entirety to filling in the missing gaps.
Despite an initial reluctance, I quickly became attached to the rag tag crew of the Even Odds, a home to everything from a sentient multipart fungus to a sentient computer program. An argument could perhaps be made for overegging the pudding here, but after the frenzied series of introductions to such a diverse collection of beings, I really enjoyed the dynamic that the author establishes. Dez is a scoundrel with a heart, and his relationship with Jake quickly takes center stage. Jake's role in the series is often minimised so much that you'd think Cirroc Lofton was more of an infrequent guest star, so I was thrilled to see Rising Son thrust his character so firmly under the spotlight. There's a lot of development going on here, and I love the intimate examination of Jake's feelings about his father, the Prophets and living under the shadow of both.
The mission to Drang was quite a highlight, but also marks a pivot point in the book. After investing so much time getting to know the crew of the Even Odds, I was somewhat disappointed how quickly they were dropped after they arrived at their next destination: the trading outpost Ee. At this stage, the author virtually drops Dez and crew completely, instead picking Jake up and thrusting him into the second part of the narrative: a reunion with long-lost Kai Opaka. This is all well and good, however such a sudden change made me question the point of spending over half the book getting to know new characters which were destined to disappear.
Opaka's story post-"Battle Lines" was well told, and I enjoyed the whirlwind recap of 7 years of history for the character. Her encounter with the Ascendant Raiq was especially chilling, and undoubtedly paves the way for a much more sweeping storyline to come.
As Jake, Opaka, Wex and a wayward Tosk follow their instinct to the Eav'oq planet, the story takes a turn for the mystical, as the characters become mired in a pagh-hunt which has shades of Indiana Jones at times. This section felt rather loosely thrown together, a means to an end rather than a concise effort to resolve plotlines. The revelation that the Eav'oq share the same gods as Bajor ("Siblings" instead of Prophets) is sure to create a stir when the novel line returns to the Alpha Quadrant (especially with all the political turmoil which currently plagues the planet, and the newly discovered Conspiracy alien invasion).
Some unresolved plot strands:
* Just what was the Wa subdeck? At one point I felt that this was going to be a serious plot point that was developed into something else, but now it feels like it was just there for "coolness" factor.
* Tosk/Hunters: Why was the language on the Eav'oq planet written only so the Tosk could decipher it?
Rising Son provides a welcome reintroduction to Jake Sisko's story, even though the handling of the substitution of the Even Odds tales for Opaka's reapparance was somewhat choppy and abrupt.
Four stars.
September 14, 2018
It feels quite a long time ago, in this sequence of novels about Deep Space 9, that Jake Sisko took the space craft equivalent of an old banger into the wormhole and disappeared. In this book we learn that he didn't find the Prophets, but was rescued from a near fatal accident in the gamma quadrant by the crew of a ship called the Even Odds. This ship runs a legal salvaging business, and a somewhat less legal venture recovering lost treasures. The crew is a bunch of very likeable aliens who take a shine to Jake and want him to join them. He has a few months to think about this as their route won't take them back to the wormhole immediately. He makes friends with the crew and has some adventures with them which cause him to think a lot about the values he grew up with as the child of Starfleet officers. He's a little disturbed to find that nice people, people he likes very much, can still be quite mercenary. He's torn between wishing to stay with his new friends and being troubled by their morality.
While he is still debating all this, he meets someone from his past, an encounter which changes everything and propels him back towards home.
While he is still debating all this, he meets someone from his past, an encounter which changes everything and propels him back towards home.
May 12, 2017
Considering that this is a book about one of the least vivid characters on DS9 (that's not really a slam, because the show is so packed with vivid characters - the comparison is just such a weird one to make), albeit one with a small history of making me cry (should we just watch "Nor the Battle to the Strong" again real quick? [it won't be quick because the DS9 credits are eight hours long]), and, oh, also, (practically) nobody you know is in this book . . . Well, actually, it was pretty entertaining. Also, it did a nice job following up on the promise in the title - this is a book about ~*feelings*~ as much as it is about a couple of space heists and a prophecy, particularly Jake's feelings about his dad. And that relationship has always been a vivid and persuasive one, and I'm happy to see it explored further. But, yeah, every time Jake was pondering his decisions I was like, "but how will that affect Nog????"
Anyway, yes, still feeling pretty good about my decision to read published Star Trek fanfic, thank for asking.
Anyway, yes, still feeling pretty good about my decision to read published Star Trek fanfic, thank for asking.
May 2, 2024
2024 reads, #25. It occurred to me the other day that it’s been almost a year since I last read one of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “Relaunch” novels (see this page for the full list of books I’ve already reviewed), so I threw the latest in the series on my Kindle and just finished it up today. To remind you, this is a series of around a hundred novels that were published between 2000 and 2020 which, unlike is usual with non-canon franchise novels, actually follows its own persistent storyline that is basically supposed to start the day after the final episode of the TV show, which allows the books to make major decisions that then have repercussions in later books, introduce new characters who keep showing up over and over, growing and changing like the characters from the original television iteration, and basically provide all the serialized goodness that made us DS9 fans such admirers of the original show to begin with.
When last we left this Relaunch series, Ben Sisko’s son Jake had stolen a shuttlecraft and plunged himself into the wormhole, in an attempt to track down his messiah-like father, who famously ended the TV series by saving humanity and then getting sucked into the wormhole by the “Prophets,” a mysterious alien race who live outside of normal 3D time and space, and who the nearby citizens of Bajor worship like gods; and page one of this latest book opens with Jake getting spit out the other side of the wormhole by said Prophets without achieving his goal, his spaceship now non-functioning and with it looking pretty clear that he’s going to die. Lucky for him, then, that a ragtag group of salvagers in the Gamma Quadrant just happen to come across his craft right when he’s about to run out of oxygen, and end up taking him in and recruiting him as the newest member of their team.
This was an extremely clever thing for author SD Perry (an admired Star Trek novelization veteran) to do, because it gives us an excuse to step away from the usual characters and plot developments of this series altogether, to instead spend an enjoyable 300 pages with this entirely new group of people and other sentient creatures, as they traipse across their area of space in pursuit of a Glowy McGuffin that basically serves as an excuse for character development and a lot of casual hanging out. That’s essentially a bit of a breath of fresh air for this series, which like the TV show usually hews closely to an ever-expanding mythos which requires more and more background knowledge with each new title in order to adequately follow, which as fans of serialized franchises can tell you can be both a blessing and a curse sometimes, especially those times when all you want to do is go through a fun little adventure without having to keep track of 50 different characters and the latest developments with all of them.
That said, this book does provide a pretty major new development to the main mythos, as Jake and company stumble across a character who literally hasn’t been seen since season 1 of the original TV series and had never shown up in the novels before now; I’ll let the details remain a surprise, but she essentially plays a major role in bringing an end to the “avatar” prediction that’s been a running theme since the very start of these Relaunch books (but for more, see the literal book Avatar that kicked off this entire series, again written by Perry). I found this enjoyable, because as fans of heavily serialized fiction know, there’s nothing quite as frustrating as having a major new development introduced and then have it just linger on and on in the background while everyone slowly forgets about it, so it looks like from what we’re seeing at the end of this book that the ancient prophecy about Ben Sisko’s child becoming a fabled “chosen one” is finally going to be resolved in the next several books (or at least we’ll see). Meanwhile, though, Perry does her usual excellent world-building here, giving us such fun new Gamma Quadrant species as an artificially intelligent creature who lives inside the circuit boards of spaceships, five rocks that can join together into a creature through a hive-mind network (and that happens to be psychic when it does), and what can best be described as a sentient puppy, which is exactly as adorable as that description makes it sound.
That said, also as usual, Perry’s prose is just a bit too tedious for me to give a full five stars; in particular I found myself really frustrated with Jake’s endless journal entries in this novel, which seem to serve no other purpose than to recap developments we had just read only a chapter or two previous. All in all, though, I found this to be a really satisfying read, just like all the rest of the Relaunch novels I’ve now gotten through, and I’m looking forward to tackling the next soon, the Klingon-focused The Left Hand of Destiny. I’ll be reading that right away, so to avoid the long delay that happened last time, so I hope you’ll have a chance to join me again soon for that.
When last we left this Relaunch series, Ben Sisko’s son Jake had stolen a shuttlecraft and plunged himself into the wormhole, in an attempt to track down his messiah-like father, who famously ended the TV series by saving humanity and then getting sucked into the wormhole by the “Prophets,” a mysterious alien race who live outside of normal 3D time and space, and who the nearby citizens of Bajor worship like gods; and page one of this latest book opens with Jake getting spit out the other side of the wormhole by said Prophets without achieving his goal, his spaceship now non-functioning and with it looking pretty clear that he’s going to die. Lucky for him, then, that a ragtag group of salvagers in the Gamma Quadrant just happen to come across his craft right when he’s about to run out of oxygen, and end up taking him in and recruiting him as the newest member of their team.
This was an extremely clever thing for author SD Perry (an admired Star Trek novelization veteran) to do, because it gives us an excuse to step away from the usual characters and plot developments of this series altogether, to instead spend an enjoyable 300 pages with this entirely new group of people and other sentient creatures, as they traipse across their area of space in pursuit of a Glowy McGuffin that basically serves as an excuse for character development and a lot of casual hanging out. That’s essentially a bit of a breath of fresh air for this series, which like the TV show usually hews closely to an ever-expanding mythos which requires more and more background knowledge with each new title in order to adequately follow, which as fans of serialized franchises can tell you can be both a blessing and a curse sometimes, especially those times when all you want to do is go through a fun little adventure without having to keep track of 50 different characters and the latest developments with all of them.
That said, this book does provide a pretty major new development to the main mythos, as Jake and company stumble across a character who literally hasn’t been seen since season 1 of the original TV series and had never shown up in the novels before now; I’ll let the details remain a surprise, but she essentially plays a major role in bringing an end to the “avatar” prediction that’s been a running theme since the very start of these Relaunch books (but for more, see the literal book Avatar that kicked off this entire series, again written by Perry). I found this enjoyable, because as fans of heavily serialized fiction know, there’s nothing quite as frustrating as having a major new development introduced and then have it just linger on and on in the background while everyone slowly forgets about it, so it looks like from what we’re seeing at the end of this book that the ancient prophecy about Ben Sisko’s child becoming a fabled “chosen one” is finally going to be resolved in the next several books (or at least we’ll see). Meanwhile, though, Perry does her usual excellent world-building here, giving us such fun new Gamma Quadrant species as an artificially intelligent creature who lives inside the circuit boards of spaceships, five rocks that can join together into a creature through a hive-mind network (and that happens to be psychic when it does), and what can best be described as a sentient puppy, which is exactly as adorable as that description makes it sound.
That said, also as usual, Perry’s prose is just a bit too tedious for me to give a full five stars; in particular I found myself really frustrated with Jake’s endless journal entries in this novel, which seem to serve no other purpose than to recap developments we had just read only a chapter or two previous. All in all, though, I found this to be a really satisfying read, just like all the rest of the Relaunch novels I’ve now gotten through, and I’m looking forward to tackling the next soon, the Klingon-focused The Left Hand of Destiny. I’ll be reading that right away, so to avoid the long delay that happened last time, so I hope you’ll have a chance to join me again soon for that.
October 18, 2023
Summary:
Prologue: A Tosk on the run from some Hunters makes a forced landing on an inhospitable planet. When he lands, he notices a shiny red crystal by his ship. When he touches it, suddenly the empty landscape is replaced by numerous structures, though they disappear immediately. The Tosk returns to his ship and leaves immediately, but is disturbed that he's now thinking about something other than the Hunt.
Jake goes into the wormhole to find his father, but his ship is caught in some sort of electrical storm. His ship, the Venture, loses all power and eventually Jake succumbs up hypothermia, but is rescued just in time.
Jake is awakened by an Aarruris--a green, dog-like alien species--named Pifko (Pif), a crew member of the seemingly cobbled together freighter Even Odds. Pif tells Jake that Captain Dezavrim (Dez) saved him. Pif takes him to the bridge and introduces him to Dez, a Cardassian medic named Allo Glessin, and a Wadi named Facity Sleedow, the ship's first officer.
Dez says there are 16 crew aboard, though the ship's capacity is 60. He tells Jake privately that he read his logs. He says he recognized his dad for his role in the Quadrant War, and he says they are freelance "retrievers", fortune hunters--and they're also wanted by the Dominion, amongst others. He says Jake's shuttle is beyond repair, and that they're at least 3 months travel from the Anomaly, though they are heading that way. He says they'll be at the Ee market in 4-5 months, and Jake should be able to buy transport there.
Dez takes him to the shuttle bay, where Stessie--a Friagloim, a species that is a somewhat empathic, meter tall, armless cluster of purplish fungal growths atop a trio of low, stocky legs. Stess is the talking part of the 1/5 of Arislelemakinstess, a quinteth Friagloim called Stessie. Lema is physically identical to Stess, and is working with Atterace Prees, a Karemman engineer, on Jake's shuttle. Srral--a Himh, an engineered species that is a fluid, silvery living machine that lives inside other machines--is doing diagnostics inside the shuttle's computer. They tell him that every system in the shuttle has liquefied; the only think still working are the lights. Over dinner, Dez also tells them there are also a pair of Ferengi named Feg and Triv aboard, who handle the finances.
After make-up sex for cutting her off in front of Jake earlier, Dez reluctantly tells Facity that he told Jake about their profession; she's furious, since last time he told someone who looked innocent, a young woman named Vash made off with some expensive cargo. He says if he's wrong again, she gets to be captain.
In the morning, Pif gives Jake a full tour, and introduces him to the 2 Ferengi--who knew Quark and Rom from a brief trip to DS9--and Brad-ahk’la, a female gemologist and the ship's security.
Pif then takes him to the Wa, a part of the ship that migrates in an erratic pattern. The ship is over 200 years old, originally built by an extremely advanced species, but it has been added to by a dozen more. The Wa is a shifting, white corridor/room that seems to stay the same size no matter how far they walk; Pif says if he ever gets lost, to look for the colored X and head for that. They appear in a room with a hissing sphere that shoot black lights all over; Pif says he has no idea what it's for, and that there are many strange rooms like it. He says never to go into the gray ones, and never to touch anything, since it could potentially blow up the ship.
Dez calls a meeting to talk about Drang, their next destination. He says the Dominion had a strong military presence there during the war, upsetting the balance of power. The Drang people are territorial and very aggressive, and have been staging lots of raids due to the resulting power vaccuum--the result of which is the Even Odds' next objective: to retrieve the Yaron Oracle.
8 days later, Facity quizzes Jake about the run on the Drang underground vault, and he has it memorized perfectly. She agrees (as do the rest of the crew) with Dez that Jake will make a fine addition to the team, and Dez tells Jake he wants him on the tunnel team.
Before the mission, Glessin ruminates about how he was one of the few survivors of the joint mission by the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order to attack the Founders' planet. When the Jem'Hadar attacked his ship, his escape pod was picked up by a salvage ship a few days later, his hands permanently scarred from trying to fix the air filter without tools. He was later recruited by Dez during a trade, saying he needed a medic.
As their dropship hits the Drang atmosphere, they detect an unexpected energy source. Dez says it's likely just mining equipment and that is not running; the mission is still on. Jake can feel the tension increase amongst the crew, and he can tell there are some trust issues between them and Dez.
Arislelemakinstess beams down first and incapacitates the 3 guards at the entrance to the 3 tunnels; however, there is also an unaccounted for 4th tunnel. They team beams down, and Pif quickly rushes in, tags the Yaron Oracle, and they beam it out. Facity contacts them immediately and says the beam out triggered a scrambler; she can't get them out. She warns then that there are 25 Drang converging on their position, likely from the 4th tunnel.
Dez and Jake hide in some crates; Dez incapacitate one of the Drang guards when it gets too close to Jake's crate. Dez tells Pif to howl and run around to make a distraction so he and Jake can take out the scrambler. It works like a charm, and most of the Drang chase Pif in a blood lust. Dez and Jake manage to destroy the scrambler, though Jake has to shoot a Drang in the process. Facity beams them out. All crew are accounted for, as well as the Oracle--but little else. Jake shows them a small souvenir he grabbed: they're shocked to see it's one of Giani'aga's living boxes, a priceless work of art.
When the Yaron come to pick up the Oracle--a religious artifact, the absence of which has caused great suffering web it was stolen--Jake can't help but feel it's wrong to take money for it so unceremoniously.
Randomly one day, all the rooms in the Way turn gray, the kind no one can enter. At the same time, random gateways seem to pop up throughout the GQ. The crew takes bets on if it's Q or the Iconians. A few days later, the gates close, and there are rumors that a group claiming to be the Iconians were trying to sell their gate technology.
They go to an unnamed planet to salvage a Dominion camp, and Jake recognizes it as New Bajor. They find an incinerator where Bajoran bodies were disposed, and Jake really starts longing for home. Dez notices that Jake seems to be having some moral qualms about their Dominion salvages, so he calls them off. He also announces they have a buyer at Ee who will pay $7500 paegs for Jake's find.
The next mission is to planet Hw17 to retrieve some valuables jettisoned by a rival retrievers team. They land on the icy planet and barely start searching when Lema and Kin are killed by a mine left by Horgin authorities; with 2 of her parts killed, the rest of Stess has only a few hours before they are dead too.
After the crew says their goodbyes, Glessin readies a hypo to ease Stessie into death, but before he can administer it, she pushes feelings of kindness and absolution towards him; she says he needs to forgive himself. Tears stream down his cheeks as he empties the hypo.
Later, Jake visits Dez (who's a few Saurian brandies deep) in his quarters to let him know that Stessie's death wasn't his fault. Dez leverages his tears--and his backstory about how his dad abandoned him and he had to go search for him at Jake's age too--to try and convince Jake to stay with them. Jake says he'll think about it, but 3 weeks later, he tells Dez he's decided to stay.
They finally make it to Ee. After Jake takes in all the sights and sounds, he notices a homeless community and is noticeably distraught about it; Facity can tell that sooner or later, his philosophies are going to clash with the rest of the crew's.
Jake, Pif, and a couple others go pub crawling. Jake is shocked to see the Tosk from DS9, or at least a Tosk, and drunkenly follows him out of the bar. Tosk pulls him into an alley and asks Jake if he knows his new, Other purpose, but Jake has no idea. Tosk says when he set his ship down on another planet, he'd been zapped by a crystal, and then felt the need to find some unnamed thing. A short, grayish, young Trelian woman named Wex finds them in the alley and after hearing Tosk's story, asks them to come with her to see a sage/healer named Sulan, the leader of Sen Ennis, outside the main gate; they agree. As soon as they step into her dilapidated building, Tosk feels whole again.
Opaka Sulan knew as soon as she saw Jake that the Prophets had sent him and his companions to take her off of Ee and return her to Bajor after 7 years away. Jake immediately recognizes her as Kai Opaka, and asks how she got off the moon she was stuck on, where she had died and been brought back by environment-specific artificial microbes.
It took years, but Opaka united the warring factions of the moon into the united Sen Ennis tribe. An alien named Raiq crash-lands on the moon. It seems that Raiq destroyed many of the defense satellites orbiting the moon, though she and her ship were damaged on another world. When she finally wakes, she speaks of her all-seeing Gods with burning eyes, and calls herself an Ascendant. She says she is on a Quest to find the Fortress, hidden home of the True, to be judged and found worthy. The Ascendants seek to purge all heretics from the universe, but says Opaka's people don't shame the True and have nothing to fear; in fact, she wants to reward them for healing her.
A few weeks later, Raiq decides to leave and says she'll destroy the remaining satellites around the moon as the reward. She says this will render the microbes keeping them on the moon dormant, and they'll be free to leave--and procreate again. They salvage some parts to make a transmitter, and with the help of a passing survey ship, they got their original ships working again. Most stayed behind on the moon, while Opaka and 30 or so others traveled to other planets helping people in need.
Jake realizes that Opaka is the Herald from the prophecy that he must return with. He asks why she didn't return to Bajor and she said she knew the Prophets would send someone for her when it was time. Tosk says she is the Other, and that he must take her to the crystal, and then he will take her back home--but he doesn't have a ship big enough for all of them. Jake reluctantly says he'll talk to Dez about bringing them all aboard, ashamed for not immediately wanting to help her.
Back on the Even, Dez agrees to take them along, though he says Wex can find her own ride; she says her family is quite wealthy and will pay, so Dez acquiesces. Facity thinks he's insane, but he thinks the crystal Trosk touched was an Eav-oq vanishing crystal--which imparts record info on the long-dead race into the mind of whoever touches it, then disappears--and that it may be the Eav-oq planet. They decide to keep that aspect of it from the rest of the crew, just telling them that Wex is financing a secret mission. They don't even bother to cash in on Jake's Giani'aga.
They eventually land on the planet, and Opaka senses an inordinately strong pagh, that they follow to seemingly empty a cave. Tosk notices some writing that only he understands; it says something about "touch from now to the beginning", and about the Hunters.
A quad of Hunters have followed the Even, having tracked Tosk from Ee. They follow their scans to the cave; when the Even's crew spots them and warns Tosk, it runs out of the cave and is killed in short order.
Dez says they might as well check out the cave before they leave, and Jake is disgusted by his attitude. They find some rocks embedded in the walls, and Jake realizes that they're the same materials from B'hala--and that the message meant to touch the stones in reverse chronological order of the Ages. When Jake touches the last stone, the cave is washed over with an intense white light, and they find themselves in a great chamber with thousands of strange beings all singing. One of the tall, pink beings reaches out to embrace Opaka.
Back on the ship, the Wa has leaked out of the subdeck, and all sorts of strange occurrences are happening around the ship. They are still orbiting the planet, but somehow both, and the Idran system, had moved 3 lightyears closer to the Anomaly.
Itu thanks them for bringing the Eav'oq back into the living time; they had been waiting for the Siblings' (Prophets) Chosen to tell them that the persecution is no more. They had been hiding in folded space from a race of fanatical beings who believed their devotion to the Siblings was blasphemous; they could not wake from it on their own.
Jake starts thinking about Dez and realizes he's been hiding his true intentions from him, and decides they need to have a talk. Back at the ship, he sees Pif carrying Eav'oq souvenirs, and Jake knows his assumptions were correct. He tells Dez that he's going with Wex and Opaka back to the AQ, that he's never going to fit in with Dez's lifestyle. Dez is angry at first, telling Jake he needs to face the realities of the world; then he moves on to bargaining, saying they'll give Itu his things back; to acceptance. Jake takes a few minutes more to say goodbye to the rest of the crew, and promises to keep in touch, and then he's gone.
Opaka realizes that Raiq's people, the Ascendants, were the persecutors of Itu's people, the Eyes of Fire the Tears of the Prophets. The 3 of them squeeze into the Tosk ship, but just as they break atmo, the ship starts juddering violently. Right as it's about to explode, they're beamed aboard a Jem'Hadar ship where they're greeted by Weyoun. He says they had been pursuing some terrorists who have been a pain in the Jem'Hadar's neck when they noticed a Bajoran and human aboard. He also says they just detected the Defiant in range.
Epilogue: Jake realizes that he lost everything he'd been carrying with him, including the journal of his time in the Gamma Quadrant, when the Tosk ship exploded. But he can't wait to tell his new brother or sister the stories some day.
Review: 3 stars. Eh, it was a quick read, more interesting than I thought it would be, but still a big divergence away from the main DS9 story, so I really didn't care much about it. I liked the Stessie lifeform anyway; too bad they died. The ending was the most interesting part, and it felt really rushed.
Prologue: A Tosk on the run from some Hunters makes a forced landing on an inhospitable planet. When he lands, he notices a shiny red crystal by his ship. When he touches it, suddenly the empty landscape is replaced by numerous structures, though they disappear immediately. The Tosk returns to his ship and leaves immediately, but is disturbed that he's now thinking about something other than the Hunt.
Jake goes into the wormhole to find his father, but his ship is caught in some sort of electrical storm. His ship, the Venture, loses all power and eventually Jake succumbs up hypothermia, but is rescued just in time.
Jake is awakened by an Aarruris--a green, dog-like alien species--named Pifko (Pif), a crew member of the seemingly cobbled together freighter Even Odds. Pif tells Jake that Captain Dezavrim (Dez) saved him. Pif takes him to the bridge and introduces him to Dez, a Cardassian medic named Allo Glessin, and a Wadi named Facity Sleedow, the ship's first officer.
Dez says there are 16 crew aboard, though the ship's capacity is 60. He tells Jake privately that he read his logs. He says he recognized his dad for his role in the Quadrant War, and he says they are freelance "retrievers", fortune hunters--and they're also wanted by the Dominion, amongst others. He says Jake's shuttle is beyond repair, and that they're at least 3 months travel from the Anomaly, though they are heading that way. He says they'll be at the Ee market in 4-5 months, and Jake should be able to buy transport there.
Dez takes him to the shuttle bay, where Stessie--a Friagloim, a species that is a somewhat empathic, meter tall, armless cluster of purplish fungal growths atop a trio of low, stocky legs. Stess is the talking part of the 1/5 of Arislelemakinstess, a quinteth Friagloim called Stessie. Lema is physically identical to Stess, and is working with Atterace Prees, a Karemman engineer, on Jake's shuttle. Srral--a Himh, an engineered species that is a fluid, silvery living machine that lives inside other machines--is doing diagnostics inside the shuttle's computer. They tell him that every system in the shuttle has liquefied; the only think still working are the lights. Over dinner, Dez also tells them there are also a pair of Ferengi named Feg and Triv aboard, who handle the finances.
After make-up sex for cutting her off in front of Jake earlier, Dez reluctantly tells Facity that he told Jake about their profession; she's furious, since last time he told someone who looked innocent, a young woman named Vash made off with some expensive cargo. He says if he's wrong again, she gets to be captain.
In the morning, Pif gives Jake a full tour, and introduces him to the 2 Ferengi--who knew Quark and Rom from a brief trip to DS9--and Brad-ahk’la, a female gemologist and the ship's security.
Pif then takes him to the Wa, a part of the ship that migrates in an erratic pattern. The ship is over 200 years old, originally built by an extremely advanced species, but it has been added to by a dozen more. The Wa is a shifting, white corridor/room that seems to stay the same size no matter how far they walk; Pif says if he ever gets lost, to look for the colored X and head for that. They appear in a room with a hissing sphere that shoot black lights all over; Pif says he has no idea what it's for, and that there are many strange rooms like it. He says never to go into the gray ones, and never to touch anything, since it could potentially blow up the ship.
Dez calls a meeting to talk about Drang, their next destination. He says the Dominion had a strong military presence there during the war, upsetting the balance of power. The Drang people are territorial and very aggressive, and have been staging lots of raids due to the resulting power vaccuum--the result of which is the Even Odds' next objective: to retrieve the Yaron Oracle.
8 days later, Facity quizzes Jake about the run on the Drang underground vault, and he has it memorized perfectly. She agrees (as do the rest of the crew) with Dez that Jake will make a fine addition to the team, and Dez tells Jake he wants him on the tunnel team.
Before the mission, Glessin ruminates about how he was one of the few survivors of the joint mission by the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order to attack the Founders' planet. When the Jem'Hadar attacked his ship, his escape pod was picked up by a salvage ship a few days later, his hands permanently scarred from trying to fix the air filter without tools. He was later recruited by Dez during a trade, saying he needed a medic.
As their dropship hits the Drang atmosphere, they detect an unexpected energy source. Dez says it's likely just mining equipment and that is not running; the mission is still on. Jake can feel the tension increase amongst the crew, and he can tell there are some trust issues between them and Dez.
Arislelemakinstess beams down first and incapacitates the 3 guards at the entrance to the 3 tunnels; however, there is also an unaccounted for 4th tunnel. They team beams down, and Pif quickly rushes in, tags the Yaron Oracle, and they beam it out. Facity contacts them immediately and says the beam out triggered a scrambler; she can't get them out. She warns then that there are 25 Drang converging on their position, likely from the 4th tunnel.
Dez and Jake hide in some crates; Dez incapacitate one of the Drang guards when it gets too close to Jake's crate. Dez tells Pif to howl and run around to make a distraction so he and Jake can take out the scrambler. It works like a charm, and most of the Drang chase Pif in a blood lust. Dez and Jake manage to destroy the scrambler, though Jake has to shoot a Drang in the process. Facity beams them out. All crew are accounted for, as well as the Oracle--but little else. Jake shows them a small souvenir he grabbed: they're shocked to see it's one of Giani'aga's living boxes, a priceless work of art.
When the Yaron come to pick up the Oracle--a religious artifact, the absence of which has caused great suffering web it was stolen--Jake can't help but feel it's wrong to take money for it so unceremoniously.
Randomly one day, all the rooms in the Way turn gray, the kind no one can enter. At the same time, random gateways seem to pop up throughout the GQ. The crew takes bets on if it's Q or the Iconians. A few days later, the gates close, and there are rumors that a group claiming to be the Iconians were trying to sell their gate technology.
They go to an unnamed planet to salvage a Dominion camp, and Jake recognizes it as New Bajor. They find an incinerator where Bajoran bodies were disposed, and Jake really starts longing for home. Dez notices that Jake seems to be having some moral qualms about their Dominion salvages, so he calls them off. He also announces they have a buyer at Ee who will pay $7500 paegs for Jake's find.
The next mission is to planet Hw17 to retrieve some valuables jettisoned by a rival retrievers team. They land on the icy planet and barely start searching when Lema and Kin are killed by a mine left by Horgin authorities; with 2 of her parts killed, the rest of Stess has only a few hours before they are dead too.
After the crew says their goodbyes, Glessin readies a hypo to ease Stessie into death, but before he can administer it, she pushes feelings of kindness and absolution towards him; she says he needs to forgive himself. Tears stream down his cheeks as he empties the hypo.
Later, Jake visits Dez (who's a few Saurian brandies deep) in his quarters to let him know that Stessie's death wasn't his fault. Dez leverages his tears--and his backstory about how his dad abandoned him and he had to go search for him at Jake's age too--to try and convince Jake to stay with them. Jake says he'll think about it, but 3 weeks later, he tells Dez he's decided to stay.
They finally make it to Ee. After Jake takes in all the sights and sounds, he notices a homeless community and is noticeably distraught about it; Facity can tell that sooner or later, his philosophies are going to clash with the rest of the crew's.
Jake, Pif, and a couple others go pub crawling. Jake is shocked to see the Tosk from DS9, or at least a Tosk, and drunkenly follows him out of the bar. Tosk pulls him into an alley and asks Jake if he knows his new, Other purpose, but Jake has no idea. Tosk says when he set his ship down on another planet, he'd been zapped by a crystal, and then felt the need to find some unnamed thing. A short, grayish, young Trelian woman named Wex finds them in the alley and after hearing Tosk's story, asks them to come with her to see a sage/healer named Sulan, the leader of Sen Ennis, outside the main gate; they agree. As soon as they step into her dilapidated building, Tosk feels whole again.
Opaka Sulan knew as soon as she saw Jake that the Prophets had sent him and his companions to take her off of Ee and return her to Bajor after 7 years away. Jake immediately recognizes her as Kai Opaka, and asks how she got off the moon she was stuck on, where she had died and been brought back by environment-specific artificial microbes.
It took years, but Opaka united the warring factions of the moon into the united Sen Ennis tribe. An alien named Raiq crash-lands on the moon. It seems that Raiq destroyed many of the defense satellites orbiting the moon, though she and her ship were damaged on another world. When she finally wakes, she speaks of her all-seeing Gods with burning eyes, and calls herself an Ascendant. She says she is on a Quest to find the Fortress, hidden home of the True, to be judged and found worthy. The Ascendants seek to purge all heretics from the universe, but says Opaka's people don't shame the True and have nothing to fear; in fact, she wants to reward them for healing her.
A few weeks later, Raiq decides to leave and says she'll destroy the remaining satellites around the moon as the reward. She says this will render the microbes keeping them on the moon dormant, and they'll be free to leave--and procreate again. They salvage some parts to make a transmitter, and with the help of a passing survey ship, they got their original ships working again. Most stayed behind on the moon, while Opaka and 30 or so others traveled to other planets helping people in need.
Jake realizes that Opaka is the Herald from the prophecy that he must return with. He asks why she didn't return to Bajor and she said she knew the Prophets would send someone for her when it was time. Tosk says she is the Other, and that he must take her to the crystal, and then he will take her back home--but he doesn't have a ship big enough for all of them. Jake reluctantly says he'll talk to Dez about bringing them all aboard, ashamed for not immediately wanting to help her.
Back on the Even, Dez agrees to take them along, though he says Wex can find her own ride; she says her family is quite wealthy and will pay, so Dez acquiesces. Facity thinks he's insane, but he thinks the crystal Trosk touched was an Eav-oq vanishing crystal--which imparts record info on the long-dead race into the mind of whoever touches it, then disappears--and that it may be the Eav-oq planet. They decide to keep that aspect of it from the rest of the crew, just telling them that Wex is financing a secret mission. They don't even bother to cash in on Jake's Giani'aga.
They eventually land on the planet, and Opaka senses an inordinately strong pagh, that they follow to seemingly empty a cave. Tosk notices some writing that only he understands; it says something about "touch from now to the beginning", and about the Hunters.
A quad of Hunters have followed the Even, having tracked Tosk from Ee. They follow their scans to the cave; when the Even's crew spots them and warns Tosk, it runs out of the cave and is killed in short order.
Dez says they might as well check out the cave before they leave, and Jake is disgusted by his attitude. They find some rocks embedded in the walls, and Jake realizes that they're the same materials from B'hala--and that the message meant to touch the stones in reverse chronological order of the Ages. When Jake touches the last stone, the cave is washed over with an intense white light, and they find themselves in a great chamber with thousands of strange beings all singing. One of the tall, pink beings reaches out to embrace Opaka.
Back on the ship, the Wa has leaked out of the subdeck, and all sorts of strange occurrences are happening around the ship. They are still orbiting the planet, but somehow both, and the Idran system, had moved 3 lightyears closer to the Anomaly.
Itu thanks them for bringing the Eav'oq back into the living time; they had been waiting for the Siblings' (Prophets) Chosen to tell them that the persecution is no more. They had been hiding in folded space from a race of fanatical beings who believed their devotion to the Siblings was blasphemous; they could not wake from it on their own.
Jake starts thinking about Dez and realizes he's been hiding his true intentions from him, and decides they need to have a talk. Back at the ship, he sees Pif carrying Eav'oq souvenirs, and Jake knows his assumptions were correct. He tells Dez that he's going with Wex and Opaka back to the AQ, that he's never going to fit in with Dez's lifestyle. Dez is angry at first, telling Jake he needs to face the realities of the world; then he moves on to bargaining, saying they'll give Itu his things back; to acceptance. Jake takes a few minutes more to say goodbye to the rest of the crew, and promises to keep in touch, and then he's gone.
Opaka realizes that Raiq's people, the Ascendants, were the persecutors of Itu's people, the Eyes of Fire the Tears of the Prophets. The 3 of them squeeze into the Tosk ship, but just as they break atmo, the ship starts juddering violently. Right as it's about to explode, they're beamed aboard a Jem'Hadar ship where they're greeted by Weyoun. He says they had been pursuing some terrorists who have been a pain in the Jem'Hadar's neck when they noticed a Bajoran and human aboard. He also says they just detected the Defiant in range.
Epilogue: Jake realizes that he lost everything he'd been carrying with him, including the journal of his time in the Gamma Quadrant, when the Tosk ship exploded. But he can't wait to tell his new brother or sister the stories some day.
Review: 3 stars. Eh, it was a quick read, more interesting than I thought it would be, but still a big divergence away from the main DS9 story, so I really didn't care much about it. I liked the Stessie lifeform anyway; too bad they died. The ending was the most interesting part, and it felt really rushed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 11, 2020
My detailed review is here: https://www.tor.com/2020/01/08/star-t...
July 10, 2018
Essentially two stories.
Rising Son starts as an intolerable romp with Jake Sisko as the gormless idiot on a ship full of Star Wars characters, making friends with lovable rogues. This half of the book sucks, in part because it has nothing to do with why I care about Star Trek.
The second half is about the return of Kai Opaka and how she got off of the planet she was trapped on and her pursuit of something calling to her tied to the Prophets. This half of the book? Really solid. It's actually more like the last 20% but this redeems the rest of it and makes this book a firm okay. I'd read many books about Opaka and her journeys and self-discoveries, she's a great character. Bajorans are just better than Jake Sisko.
Rising Son starts as an intolerable romp with Jake Sisko as the gormless idiot on a ship full of Star Wars characters, making friends with lovable rogues. This half of the book sucks, in part because it has nothing to do with why I care about Star Trek.
The second half is about the return of Kai Opaka and how she got off of the planet she was trapped on and her pursuit of something calling to her tied to the Prophets. This half of the book? Really solid. It's actually more like the last 20% but this redeems the rest of it and makes this book a firm okay. I'd read many books about Opaka and her journeys and self-discoveries, she's a great character. Bajorans are just better than Jake Sisko.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2018
I just have to say, it was about time to have a story focused on the adventures of Jake Sisko, one of the most likable, endearing TV kids of all time! When Jake disappeared through the wormhole at the beginning on the relaunch, I was wondering with each book when we would find out what happened. I love that he ended up on an alien treasure hunting ship, filled with likable characters, some of whom are very unique alien species that I had fun trying to picture in my mind as I read. The story itself was very good, but I especially enjoyed Jake's relationship with the crew. The twist at the end was great and had me excited to find out what happens next.
October 9, 2014
Rising Son does an amazing job of tying up the threads from the Avatar duology, while at the same time introducing new directions for the Deep Space Nine story to take. This was one of the most enjoyable reads of the Deep Space Nine "relaunch" so far, and I'm eager to continue following the story as it progresses. This re-read of the DS9 post-finale novels has been incredibly rewarding, and I look forward to revisiting later chapters in this story!
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2014/10/R...
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2014/10/R...
August 9, 2020
A good story
Jake Sisko was never really instrumental in the tv series. But this is a good book with an interesting arc in Opaka. It also gives a nice glimpse at species outside the scope of the shoe.
Jake Sisko was never really instrumental in the tv series. But this is a good book with an interesting arc in Opaka. It also gives a nice glimpse at species outside the scope of the shoe.
July 15, 2018
can't fucking believe they made "jake sisko goes to firefly and also there's a prophecy" a good book but they did
September 9, 2020
In order to fully appreciate this book and it’s story, you may wish to refresh your memory of the events in the following TV Episodes-
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 1:
Episode 5 - Captive Pursuit (Tosk)
Episode 9 - Move Along Home (The Wadi/Facity)
Episode 12 - Battle Lines (Kai Opaka)
Season 2:
Episode 26 - The Jem’Hadar (The Dominion/Jake)
Season 3:
Episode 20 - Improbable Cause (Glessin)
Episode 22 - The Die Is Cast (Glessin)
Season 4:
Episode 16 - Accession (Kai Opaka)
Season 5:
Episode 4 - Nor The Battle Strong (Jake)
Season 7:
Episode 25 - What You Leave Behind
There are many other references made throughout including the Karemma and Rom’s new role as Grand Nagus among others, but you don’t need them to understand the story. However you will need to have read the following books to understand how Jake got to where he is in the first place, but otherwise it is a stand alone book.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Avatar (Books 1 & 2)
I would suggest that you also read Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Section 31) - Abyss. It doesn’t have any real bearing on this book, but if you wish to continue the timeline it does include activity that may be relevant later on.
In this book we find out what happened to Kai Opaka after she was left on the planet in “Battle Lines”, which is great, because I really liked her and was gutted when she was replaced by that evil Kai Winn. I am hoping to see more of her as the next novels progress. Once she arrives, this story really gets going, but that is unfortunately over half way through.
It seems that they were trying to give Jake something to do and to make him interesting, but for me, he never has been. I would have liked the central character to be Nog or at least for him to have tagged along to add some tone to the story, because he brings Jake more in to focus.
It starts off with Jake meeting a new crew of people and deciding to enjoy the adventure while he’s there and trying to get home. There are snippets of information gleaned from this, but overall it’s not necessary to the tale, it is just to give him something to do, so he can finally get that book written! And then the Kai arrives and we can enjoy it.
There are way too many characters, species and unusual names on this ship alone and I think it gets a bit like a quagmire trying to navigate who’s who. I didn’t even try to say the names as written, because they slowed everything down. They were trying to make it fun by having lots of new and exciting people, but without a pictorial guide to show all of them in their glory, I just thought of them as everyday. The most annoying of these new aliens was a dog like chap named Pif and despite my best efforts, all I could think of when I read about him was John Candy in Spaceballs as Barf or the Dog counterpart of The Cat on Red Dwarf, because actually, to start with this book seemed very comical and I struggled to take it seriously. It’s a real mix of what’s gone before, including Farscape, Firefly and Guardians Of The Galaxy, there’s even a life form that actually has 5 bodies and one that’s a part of the ship. I almost thought that they were going to try and make this in to a spin off series.
Throughout, we have to deal with Jake‘s continuing Daddy issues and actually from someone who suffers, there are some quite therapeutic ways of looking at things, but we also still have to put up with Jake himself, who suddenly becomes capable of being in a fight, having completely freaked out not so long before.
Overall, I think they were trying too hard with this one, the lead character doesn’t hold enough weight and the Opaka story is far more appealing. I liked how they explained her last 7 years, but think she should have been in the story sooner to lead the way. I’m also not sure that it needed a Tosk to get involved as there were already so many other new people to deal with, perhaps Mrs Perry was just trying to explore the Gamma Quadrant in a way that has sadly been missed from the series before, they never really stayed long enough, but Jake just wasn’t the one to take us there.
It’s well written, but missing all the good characters. If you’re a DS9 fan don’t read it, as nothing happens on the station, but if you like Jake and want to explore the Gamma Quadrant, give it a go.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 1:
Episode 5 - Captive Pursuit (Tosk)
Episode 9 - Move Along Home (The Wadi/Facity)
Episode 12 - Battle Lines (Kai Opaka)
Season 2:
Episode 26 - The Jem’Hadar (The Dominion/Jake)
Season 3:
Episode 20 - Improbable Cause (Glessin)
Episode 22 - The Die Is Cast (Glessin)
Season 4:
Episode 16 - Accession (Kai Opaka)
Season 5:
Episode 4 - Nor The Battle Strong (Jake)
Season 7:
Episode 25 - What You Leave Behind
There are many other references made throughout including the Karemma and Rom’s new role as Grand Nagus among others, but you don’t need them to understand the story. However you will need to have read the following books to understand how Jake got to where he is in the first place, but otherwise it is a stand alone book.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Avatar (Books 1 & 2)
I would suggest that you also read Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Section 31) - Abyss. It doesn’t have any real bearing on this book, but if you wish to continue the timeline it does include activity that may be relevant later on.
In this book we find out what happened to Kai Opaka after she was left on the planet in “Battle Lines”, which is great, because I really liked her and was gutted when she was replaced by that evil Kai Winn. I am hoping to see more of her as the next novels progress. Once she arrives, this story really gets going, but that is unfortunately over half way through.
It seems that they were trying to give Jake something to do and to make him interesting, but for me, he never has been. I would have liked the central character to be Nog or at least for him to have tagged along to add some tone to the story, because he brings Jake more in to focus.
It starts off with Jake meeting a new crew of people and deciding to enjoy the adventure while he’s there and trying to get home. There are snippets of information gleaned from this, but overall it’s not necessary to the tale, it is just to give him something to do, so he can finally get that book written! And then the Kai arrives and we can enjoy it.
There are way too many characters, species and unusual names on this ship alone and I think it gets a bit like a quagmire trying to navigate who’s who. I didn’t even try to say the names as written, because they slowed everything down. They were trying to make it fun by having lots of new and exciting people, but without a pictorial guide to show all of them in their glory, I just thought of them as everyday. The most annoying of these new aliens was a dog like chap named Pif and despite my best efforts, all I could think of when I read about him was John Candy in Spaceballs as Barf or the Dog counterpart of The Cat on Red Dwarf, because actually, to start with this book seemed very comical and I struggled to take it seriously. It’s a real mix of what’s gone before, including Farscape, Firefly and Guardians Of The Galaxy, there’s even a life form that actually has 5 bodies and one that’s a part of the ship. I almost thought that they were going to try and make this in to a spin off series.
Throughout, we have to deal with Jake‘s continuing Daddy issues and actually from someone who suffers, there are some quite therapeutic ways of looking at things, but we also still have to put up with Jake himself, who suddenly becomes capable of being in a fight, having completely freaked out not so long before.
Overall, I think they were trying too hard with this one, the lead character doesn’t hold enough weight and the Opaka story is far more appealing. I liked how they explained her last 7 years, but think she should have been in the story sooner to lead the way. I’m also not sure that it needed a Tosk to get involved as there were already so many other new people to deal with, perhaps Mrs Perry was just trying to explore the Gamma Quadrant in a way that has sadly been missed from the series before, they never really stayed long enough, but Jake just wasn’t the one to take us there.
It’s well written, but missing all the good characters. If you’re a DS9 fan don’t read it, as nothing happens on the station, but if you like Jake and want to explore the Gamma Quadrant, give it a go.
March 4, 2021
At the end of the final book in the Mission Gamma series, the Defiant picked up Jake Sisko, who had been missing for months. He was with an alien female named Wex and to everyone's surprise, Opaka Sulan, former kai of Bajor. This book details how all this came to pass.
Jake's shuttle broke down completely, including life support. Before he could succumb to hypothermia, a ship rescued him. He woke up to a doglike humanoid, Pifko, wh0 told him he was on a salvage ship, the Even Odds. The crew was multispecies and eclectic, ranging from a Cardassian medic, two Ferenghi accountants, a half Wadi archaeologist and several species Jake had never met before, including Arislemakinstess, a five-part empathic plant-like being consisting of Aris, Le, Lema, Kin and Stess and collectively known as Stessie.
Captain Dez identified strongly with Jake's quest to find his father, having been spurned by his own, and did his best to convince Jake to become a permanent member of the Even Odds crew. When Jake found a priceless artifact on his first salvage run with them, Dez tried even harder to get him to stay on.
Jake felt kinship with the crew, but still wanted to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. His opportunity arose when they reached Ee, where they had business. He first met a Tosk, who was being Hunted, and then ran into Wex shortly after. Tosk wanted answers as to why he felt like doing anything but being Hunted, and there was a wise woman on the planet who he thought could help him. Jake and Wex helped him find the wise woman, who turned out to be Opaka Sulan. She escaped the planet where she had been trapped when an Ascendant named Raiq crashed there. Opaka nursed her back to health, and Raiq destroyed the nanotechnology keeping her and others trapped there in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. With their fertility restored, some of the Ennis remained to have children and raise them there, while Opaka and others left for the stars. She found her way to Ee, where she waited for the next step the Prophets lined up for her. Jake found out that she, not his father, was the Herald the Bajoran prophecy said he would bring home.
Their quest led everyone to the answers they wanted: Tosk found out why his single minded focus on being Hunted dissolved, Opaka found a connection to a race who, like hers, worshipped the Prophets, the Eav-oq. They had been absent from this plane of existence for millennia, but when Jake figured out a sequence of stones, they returned to this reality. The Ascendants had tried their best to wipe the Eav-oq out, which is why they chose to abandon this dimension for a subspace existence.
Jake, Opaka and Wex took the deceased Tosk's ship and headed for the wormhole, only to be intercepted by a Domini0n ship. Weyoun 9 or 10 or whatever greeted them warmly, informed them that their ship had been on the edge of explosion when he rescued them and that their ship was headed for a rendezvous with the Defiant.
Knowing how the story would end didn't ruin things for me. I LOVED meeting the crew of the Even Odds and seeing Jake's interactions with each of them as he sought to find his way back home.
Jake's shuttle broke down completely, including life support. Before he could succumb to hypothermia, a ship rescued him. He woke up to a doglike humanoid, Pifko, wh0 told him he was on a salvage ship, the Even Odds. The crew was multispecies and eclectic, ranging from a Cardassian medic, two Ferenghi accountants, a half Wadi archaeologist and several species Jake had never met before, including Arislemakinstess, a five-part empathic plant-like being consisting of Aris, Le, Lema, Kin and Stess and collectively known as Stessie.
Captain Dez identified strongly with Jake's quest to find his father, having been spurned by his own, and did his best to convince Jake to become a permanent member of the Even Odds crew. When Jake found a priceless artifact on his first salvage run with them, Dez tried even harder to get him to stay on.
Jake felt kinship with the crew, but still wanted to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. His opportunity arose when they reached Ee, where they had business. He first met a Tosk, who was being Hunted, and then ran into Wex shortly after. Tosk wanted answers as to why he felt like doing anything but being Hunted, and there was a wise woman on the planet who he thought could help him. Jake and Wex helped him find the wise woman, who turned out to be Opaka Sulan. She escaped the planet where she had been trapped when an Ascendant named Raiq crashed there. Opaka nursed her back to health, and Raiq destroyed the nanotechnology keeping her and others trapped there in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. With their fertility restored, some of the Ennis remained to have children and raise them there, while Opaka and others left for the stars. She found her way to Ee, where she waited for the next step the Prophets lined up for her. Jake found out that she, not his father, was the Herald the Bajoran prophecy said he would bring home.
Their quest led everyone to the answers they wanted: Tosk found out why his single minded focus on being Hunted dissolved, Opaka found a connection to a race who, like hers, worshipped the Prophets, the Eav-oq. They had been absent from this plane of existence for millennia, but when Jake figured out a sequence of stones, they returned to this reality. The Ascendants had tried their best to wipe the Eav-oq out, which is why they chose to abandon this dimension for a subspace existence.
Jake, Opaka and Wex took the deceased Tosk's ship and headed for the wormhole, only to be intercepted by a Domini0n ship. Weyoun 9 or 10 or whatever greeted them warmly, informed them that their ship had been on the edge of explosion when he rescued them and that their ship was headed for a rendezvous with the Defiant.
Knowing how the story would end didn't ruin things for me. I LOVED meeting the crew of the Even Odds and seeing Jake's interactions with each of them as he sought to find his way back home.
January 12, 2019
We finally found out what Jake has been up to all this time! The story told here takes place across the months that the past several DS9 relaunch books have covered, from 'Abyss' through to the final 'Mission Gamma' novel.
Jake is something of an abandoned character in Star Trek. The TV show certainly gave him his own path, but he was always in his father's shadow (as he is very aware of in this book). To most people, he was always just "the son of the Emissary", rather than his own person. I always enjoyed him as a character, though, especially once he began to follow writing as his passion.
In that regard, it's something of a shame that 'Rising Son' doesn't touch on his writing, and instead turns him into a fortune hunter who falls in with a band of likeable scavengers. Not the most obvious fit, but the story is very aware of that and makes his integration gradual. There's also a huge amount of new characters to suddenly become familiar with, and the early sections are a bit overwhelming.
Perry's capable writing is able to handle this, though. The array of characters are all quite unique and alien, with distinct characteristics that let them stay memorable. I particularly became a fan of Pif (who I couldn't imagine anything but Chase from Paw Patrol) and Stessie - a VERY unique alien design. But having so many characters meant that many didn't really get a look in, and I was very interested in knowing more about Glessin, Srral and Brad who teased some really interesting things.
The psuedo-father/son relationship between Dez and Jake was also very well written, and often touching. A few parts of the book became surprisingly emotional.
The mid-to-late parts of the novel are all quite exciting. and eventually resolve some big mysteries that were left hanging from the TV show. It begins to move very fast towards the end and maybe crams too much in, but a longer book may have just been padding things out. Still, I would like to have known more about the Wa, as it seemed to serve no purpose other than to create a mystery that was never addressed. Maybe it will appear again in a later book.
Anyway, the timelines and the characters of all the books and stories so far have now aligned together in the same place, so the next book should be thrilling.
Jake is something of an abandoned character in Star Trek. The TV show certainly gave him his own path, but he was always in his father's shadow (as he is very aware of in this book). To most people, he was always just "the son of the Emissary", rather than his own person. I always enjoyed him as a character, though, especially once he began to follow writing as his passion.
In that regard, it's something of a shame that 'Rising Son' doesn't touch on his writing, and instead turns him into a fortune hunter who falls in with a band of likeable scavengers. Not the most obvious fit, but the story is very aware of that and makes his integration gradual. There's also a huge amount of new characters to suddenly become familiar with, and the early sections are a bit overwhelming.
Perry's capable writing is able to handle this, though. The array of characters are all quite unique and alien, with distinct characteristics that let them stay memorable. I particularly became a fan of Pif (who I couldn't imagine anything but Chase from Paw Patrol) and Stessie - a VERY unique alien design. But having so many characters meant that many didn't really get a look in, and I was very interested in knowing more about Glessin, Srral and Brad who teased some really interesting things.
The psuedo-father/son relationship between Dez and Jake was also very well written, and often touching. A few parts of the book became surprisingly emotional.
The mid-to-late parts of the novel are all quite exciting. and eventually resolve some big mysteries that were left hanging from the TV show. It begins to move very fast towards the end and maybe crams too much in, but a longer book may have just been padding things out. Still, I would like to have known more about the Wa, as it seemed to serve no purpose other than to create a mystery that was never addressed. Maybe it will appear again in a later book.
Anyway, the timelines and the characters of all the books and stories so far have now aligned together in the same place, so the next book should be thrilling.
July 9, 2024
Star Trek: DS9/Post-Nemesis story - Rising Son: Star Trek Deep Space Nine by S.D. Perry
Adventurous, challenging, hopeful, inspiring, reflective, sad, and tense.
Medium-paced
Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0 Stars
I wanted to love this book, more. There is the naivete to Jake...that is endearing (at least I believe so), but I'm not sure that the author did him any service in this book.
I felt that the book was rudderless. That, in a sense, was a point. Jake was NOT in control of his life. He was at the whims of Dez and the crew of the Even Odds.
I felt that the story was plotless. Just going from one job to another job, to a port, to another job, to another port, etc. Hamster wheel feeling as the reader. When will it stop?
I really DID feel that the struggles that he had in the Gamma Quadrant felt real and dangerous. Though, I'm not sure I understood the relationship with Dez. Even up to the end, it continued to feel weird. Did Dez feel like he was a Lost Boy, from Hook?
Dez's crew was a mish/mash of oddities, and even the ship was cobbled together, but I wasn't sure what the reader was supposed to get from Jake's time there. The time on the ship seemed interesting at first, when I thought there was a plot to this story, but it quickly became obvious...that it was just one experience after another, without reason (for Jake and for the reader).
Kai Opka, that they gathered with Dez's crew, was a surprise (to a degree), for she IS on the cover of the book. Ha! But, I've always liked her, as a character...so it was good to FINALLY have someone to "ground" Jake to the Alpha Quadrant. Phew.
I am glad that this book was written, for in the other series (Mission Gamma), it seemed like he dropped of the face of Bajor...but now knowing what happened...that would be the perfect response and doubt...to what actually happened.
In the end, I feel that Jake grew up, a bit. He's still VERY naive, but earnest in what he DOES believe.
On to the next book, Unity by S.D. Perry.
Adventurous, challenging, hopeful, inspiring, reflective, sad, and tense.
Medium-paced
Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0 Stars
I wanted to love this book, more. There is the naivete to Jake...that is endearing (at least I believe so), but I'm not sure that the author did him any service in this book.
I felt that the book was rudderless. That, in a sense, was a point. Jake was NOT in control of his life. He was at the whims of Dez and the crew of the Even Odds.
I felt that the story was plotless. Just going from one job to another job, to a port, to another job, to another port, etc. Hamster wheel feeling as the reader. When will it stop?
I really DID feel that the struggles that he had in the Gamma Quadrant felt real and dangerous. Though, I'm not sure I understood the relationship with Dez. Even up to the end, it continued to feel weird. Did Dez feel like he was a Lost Boy, from Hook?
Dez's crew was a mish/mash of oddities, and even the ship was cobbled together, but I wasn't sure what the reader was supposed to get from Jake's time there. The time on the ship seemed interesting at first, when I thought there was a plot to this story, but it quickly became obvious...that it was just one experience after another, without reason (for Jake and for the reader).
Kai Opka, that they gathered with Dez's crew, was a surprise (to a degree), for she IS on the cover of the book. Ha! But, I've always liked her, as a character...so it was good to FINALLY have someone to "ground" Jake to the Alpha Quadrant. Phew.
I am glad that this book was written, for in the other series (Mission Gamma), it seemed like he dropped of the face of Bajor...but now knowing what happened...that would be the perfect response and doubt...to what actually happened.
In the end, I feel that Jake grew up, a bit. He's still VERY naive, but earnest in what he DOES believe.
On to the next book, Unity by S.D. Perry.
March 15, 2024
DS9: Rising Son by S.D Perry
This is probably my favourite DS9 book I’ve read so far this year. My biggest criticism of the Mission Gamma books is that there isn’t much exploring. The Gamma Quadrant was explored a fair bit in DS9 but not the extent of the Delta Quadrant in Voyager. I know the Dominon was the major player there but there’s more to the Quadrant than them.
I also know it’s a book series and it’s hard to focus on so much and you don’t have the budget of a TV show, but come on. Show more than one world at once.
This book, I’m officially counting as the fifth Mission Gamma book. This was a really good book and it’s great to see such an exploration of Jake as a character and who he is outside the shadow of his father. Being the Emissary’s son is something he didn’t ask for and dealing with prophecies is a pain because it makes you feel like you have no free will. But this book felt adventurous and gave me what I wanted in exploring more of the Gamma Quadrant. Also the crew of the Even Odds were great, although I did lose track of the various characters aboard. They also felt the Guardians of Galaxy and I was half expecting Dez to say “We’re the freaking Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Just the feeling of fun and light hearteness was missing from the other books imo. The relationship between Dez and Jake was great as he tried to be a surrogate father for Jake and saw him as a son. It really got me in the feels. Also it was great to get some follow up with Opaka and seeing what’s she been doing all these years.
8/10
This is probably my favourite DS9 book I’ve read so far this year. My biggest criticism of the Mission Gamma books is that there isn’t much exploring. The Gamma Quadrant was explored a fair bit in DS9 but not the extent of the Delta Quadrant in Voyager. I know the Dominon was the major player there but there’s more to the Quadrant than them.
I also know it’s a book series and it’s hard to focus on so much and you don’t have the budget of a TV show, but come on. Show more than one world at once.
This book, I’m officially counting as the fifth Mission Gamma book. This was a really good book and it’s great to see such an exploration of Jake as a character and who he is outside the shadow of his father. Being the Emissary’s son is something he didn’t ask for and dealing with prophecies is a pain because it makes you feel like you have no free will. But this book felt adventurous and gave me what I wanted in exploring more of the Gamma Quadrant. Also the crew of the Even Odds were great, although I did lose track of the various characters aboard. They also felt the Guardians of Galaxy and I was half expecting Dez to say “We’re the freaking Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Just the feeling of fun and light hearteness was missing from the other books imo. The relationship between Dez and Jake was great as he tried to be a surrogate father for Jake and saw him as a son. It really got me in the feels. Also it was great to get some follow up with Opaka and seeing what’s she been doing all these years.
8/10
October 2, 2021
Surprisingly, this has probably been one of my favorite DS9 Relaunch novels thus far.
I began it thinking, “Really? An entire book about Jake Sisko?” Not that I have anything against the character. Cirroc Lofton is a great actor and did a great job. He’s just not my favorite character. But after having finished Perry’s novel, I am decidedly impressed by what she gave us.
This book follows Jake way after his disappearance near the beginning of the Relaunch. He’s ended up in the Gamma Quadrant and joins a crew of scavengers. The crew is a collection of misfits and are all portrayed well. Particularly, Jake develops a kinship with the captain that is so expertly written, it’s probably some of the best substance that has come out of the Relaunch. There’s also some interesting narrative driving the story forward, though there did seem to be some missed opportunities. For example, what exactly is the “Wa” that inhabits the ship? That’s a big cliffhanger.
But overall, it’s not only an enjoyable read - it’s a necessary one. I think what really won me over was the fact that Jake, a writer, spends time giving “reports” throughout the chapters that chronicle his journey, similar to what he did when he was on DS9 during the Occupation. It’s a true characterization of what we have learned him to be, and I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.
I began it thinking, “Really? An entire book about Jake Sisko?” Not that I have anything against the character. Cirroc Lofton is a great actor and did a great job. He’s just not my favorite character. But after having finished Perry’s novel, I am decidedly impressed by what she gave us.
This book follows Jake way after his disappearance near the beginning of the Relaunch. He’s ended up in the Gamma Quadrant and joins a crew of scavengers. The crew is a collection of misfits and are all portrayed well. Particularly, Jake develops a kinship with the captain that is so expertly written, it’s probably some of the best substance that has come out of the Relaunch. There’s also some interesting narrative driving the story forward, though there did seem to be some missed opportunities. For example, what exactly is the “Wa” that inhabits the ship? That’s a big cliffhanger.
But overall, it’s not only an enjoyable read - it’s a necessary one. I think what really won me over was the fact that Jake, a writer, spends time giving “reports” throughout the chapters that chronicle his journey, similar to what he did when he was on DS9 during the Occupation. It’s a true characterization of what we have learned him to be, and I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.
June 5, 2024
Probably more of a 3.5 or 3.75 but it committed an act that I don't usually care for which is making a non-Star Trek story fit into the Star Trek world. Now, this is a bit forgivable as this a post Dominion War Gamma quadrant story and that side of the wormhole needs to be sorted out and we have Jake here to take us on this journey. There are almost two different books here where you have Jake's journey of self discovery as he is ripped completely from the world he knows and has to figure things out and then you have a short story with Tosk and Opaka at the end that tags on and gives a plot to wrap things up. That's probably my biggest gripe along with the huge character dump of the crew that I wished had a roster list at the start or end of the book because I was consistently getting their characters messed up.
I did like the characters when I was able to keep them straight and their adventures where nothing goes right had that Firefly-esque charm to them. If these characters on the Even Odds never return that would be a shame and I am also not quite certain I know what the Wa on board the ship is...
I like the return of Opaka and I don't think that's a spoiler since she's on the cover and also the use of the one-and-done Gamma Quadrant aliens we do see. Just wish the story flowed a little better and had more cohesion with Jake's story and Opaka's.
I did like the characters when I was able to keep them straight and their adventures where nothing goes right had that Firefly-esque charm to them. If these characters on the Even Odds never return that would be a shame and I am also not quite certain I know what the Wa on board the ship is...
I like the return of Opaka and I don't think that's a spoiler since she's on the cover and also the use of the one-and-done Gamma Quadrant aliens we do see. Just wish the story flowed a little better and had more cohesion with Jake's story and Opaka's.
June 19, 2022
This book was difficult for me to get hold of due to it being out of print. It was well worth the wait.
I loved this story right from the get-go. Some of the characters I already know and love. The established names from the TV show fitted in well with the guest characters. The author took great care to weave her own story in with the main story arc of DS9.
I was especially pleased that several Wadi characters had been included. I wanted to meet more of this fascinating species and this book provides a good opportunity.
All the guest characters were well-developed with their own back-stories and motivations. The non-humanoid species made a refreshing change.
I found the plot compelling. I particularly like the fact that it happened over a period of months instead of being crammed into a few days. It gave a chance for the characters to develop and the story to unfold.
A great read. Now I have to try to get hold of a copy of the sequel!
I loved this story right from the get-go. Some of the characters I already know and love. The established names from the TV show fitted in well with the guest characters. The author took great care to weave her own story in with the main story arc of DS9.
I was especially pleased that several Wadi characters had been included. I wanted to meet more of this fascinating species and this book provides a good opportunity.
All the guest characters were well-developed with their own back-stories and motivations. The non-humanoid species made a refreshing change.
I found the plot compelling. I particularly like the fact that it happened over a period of months instead of being crammed into a few days. It gave a chance for the characters to develop and the story to unfold.
A great read. Now I have to try to get hold of a copy of the sequel!
April 28, 2024
The reviews on this book seem to be a bit mixed. Some love it and others hate it. Thankfully for me I am in the latter. Taking a break from the excellent Mission Gamma saga I decided to read this before reading the last in that series. Jake finds himself in the Gamma Quadrant after going to find his dad many books ago in Relaunch Series order. To be honest I had almost forgotten about young Jake it had been so long. When his ship is terminally damaged he is rescued by the crew of the Even Odds. Much of your appreciation of this book rides on if you enjoy this eclectic crew he goes on adventures with. I absolutely loved them. They are all in it for profit, but are all so interesting you can't help but fall in love with them. Well at least I did. This might be my favorite Trek novel in this Relaunch series so far. I couldn't put it down!
May 29, 2021
This picks up the Jake Sisko thread from the end of Avatar. Unfortunately, it doesn’t connect him with his father like I expected. The people he encounters make for an interesting adventure, but it still feels like two steps forward and one step back. I’m also not sure if the appearance of a certain someone at the end is a very creative decision. I just really want closure with Jake and Benjamin, and I’m honestly not sure if that ever happens in these books.
July 16, 2023
I was going to keep this at a 3 to 3.5 star rating: solid writing but not exactly a story that blew me away, with almost too many elements to play with. However, once Kai Opaka shows up it becomes a vastly different tale, and that is what raises this book to a 4 star rating. From that point onwards, it feels much more epic and special.
April 25, 2024
This book took me longer to finish than it should have. Life circumstances got in the way. However, it was a really fun read. It felt almost like an episode of Farscape, wherein Jake Sisko played the role of the main character who is flung to a different part of the universe and joins up with a strange ship and crew. Highly recommended!
January 11, 2020
It was slow going at first, and I had to restart because of changing POVs, but once I got more into that's what really drew me in and made me get really into it. The Even Odds crew was really a joy, and I want more. Bringing back Opaka and having her POV made her seem more normal and less holy.
March 13, 2021
Enjoyable continuation of the DS9 story.
A fun story with some interesting Star Trek that might be difficult to translate to screen. Jake's character rings true. Excited to see where the story goes next.
A fun story with some interesting Star Trek that might be difficult to translate to screen. Jake's character rings true. Excited to see where the story goes next.
January 9, 2023
It was a fun one!
I truly enjoy these paperbacks as a way of still consuming my favorite Franchise. The story was well written in my opinion. The switch between characters is tame and relatively easy to follow and if you like Jake Sisko, this one is for you.
I truly enjoy these paperbacks as a way of still consuming my favorite Franchise. The story was well written in my opinion. The switch between characters is tame and relatively easy to follow and if you like Jake Sisko, this one is for you.
July 10, 2017
I liked this book & the return of Kai Opaka. I never liked Her being written off the show so early.
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