Review: Prophecy & Change (DS9)

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

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

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

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

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

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


The Stories:

"Ha’Mara" by Kevin G. Summers - Kai Opaka announces Sisko is the
Emissary, which makes Kira very upset and makes Sisko very
uncomfortable

"The Orb of Opportunity" by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels - Kai
Winn enlists Nog’s help on a mission to save an Orb, which results in
Nog making a big decision about his life

"Broken Oaths" by Keith R.A. DeCandido - After the events of
"Hippocratic Oath," O’brien and Bashir act like they’re not friends
anymore. Their friends conspire to get them back together again. This
story fills in the "why are they friends in the next episode" question
(one I’ve often wondered about).

"...Loved I Not Honor More" by Christopher L. Bennett - Lady Grilka
(Quark’s Klingon lover from "The House of Quark") is back, and she’s
still having problems with her Klingon enemies. Quark comes to a
realization about their relationship when she pushes him to
demonstrate again how he’s truly a warrior, despite it being a sham
last time.

"Three Sides to Every Story" by Terri Osborne - Jake Sisko and Ziyal
(Dukat’s daughter) form a tight friendship during the Dominion
occupation of Deep Space Nine, with tragic consequences.

"The Devil You Know" by Heather Jarman - A story that takes place
right after "In the Pale Moonlight," Dax and Bashir are assigned to
work with the newly-allied Romulans. When a friend of Dax’s is killed
in action, will she help the Romulans take their research too far and
sacrifice all of her morals?

"Foundlings" by Jeffrey Lang - Thrax, former security chief of Terok
Nor under the Cardassians before Odo, is back, investigating the
destruction of a ship that was helping exchange war dead between the
Cardassians and the Federation. But something else is going on
underneath all of this. Odo must get to the bottom of it.

"Chiaroscuro" by Geoffrey Thorne - Ezri Dax is sent to Pandora station
to help open a box that, perhaps, should never be opened. That was
certainly the opinion of Jadzia Dax, so much so that she had it wiped
from her memory.

"Face Value" by Una McCormack - During her mission to Cardassia to
help the resistance, Kira comes to understand Damar (the Cardassian
who killed Ziyal) and Garak a lot better, as she re-learns that
sometimes you have to do harsh things in order to get the job done.

"The Calling" by Andrew J. Robinson - Garak finds out his true calling
as he’s called upon to help save a Cardassia struggling to rebuild
itself to survive before it once again falls into civil war.

David Roy