EMISSARY - J. M. Dillard

STAR TREK WEEK

Commander Benjamin Sisko is still struggling over the death of his wife, Jennifer, at the battle known as Wolf 359 (where the Borg nearly wiped out the entire Federation fleet), but he needs to put forth his best efforts in order to raise his young son, Jake.

Commander Sisko is assigned the position of commanding a space station, Deep Space Nine, on the far edge of the Alpha Quadrant. The station, built by the Bajorans (as slaves) and once known as Terok Nor had, until very recently, been occupied by the Cardassians. The result of negotiations has the Cardassians retreating from Bajoran space and the station.

What Sisko couldn't anticipate was discovering a stable wormhole that appears within sight of the station. He chooses to investigate (he's the ranking officer in the region and he is just getting to know his station crew after all) and has a very unusual meeting with the wormhole creators ... alien beings who live outside of normal time. Upon returning to the station, the Bajoran people see him as 'The Prophet' - someone who has come face to face with their gods. It is an unusual and highly charged beginning to his appointment.

This book, by J. M. Dillard (a familiar name to Star Trek readers), is a novelization of the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It's been a lot of years since I saw the episode, but much of it came back to me as I read this.  I thought that this novelization increased my enjoyment of the episode as we got more insight in Sisko frame of mind throughout.

It is interesting to note that Dillard wrote this adaptation based on the final draft of the script by Michael Piller and, due to the security around a new Star Trek series, had not gotten to see any of the show. She notes (elsewhere in fandom, not in the book) that writing the scene with the aliens in the wormhole was particularly challenging without seeing the scene.  Again, I haven't seen the episode in many years, but this scene in the book made so much sense to me - more-so than the episode did.

DS9 is the series I'm most interested in revisiting and since I had a copy of the book I thought I'd start here.  Turns out this was a good place to begin my DS9 journey.

Looking for a good book? J. M. Dillard brings clarity and depth of character to the first Star Trek: Deep Space Nine outing with the novelization of Emissary.

4 stars

* * * * * *

Emissary

author: J. M. Dillard, based on a teleplay by Michael Piller, story by Rick Berman & Michael Piller

series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #1

publisher: Pocket Books

ISBN: 9780671798581

paperback, 274 pages
 

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