Star Trek Deep Space Nine #21: Trial By Error Book

This DS9 Tie in weaves together two seemingly unrelated at first plot strands. 1) Quark brokers a deal for some crystals - the shipment is destroyed by a rival race who claim the crystals were stolen. A third race claim that the crystals were actually theirs and to cap it all the Fergengi Quark was going to sell them too turns up demanding his merchandise. 2) A Klingon vessel is destroyed by another identical Klingon ship - a firefight ensues and Jake and his Bajoran girlfriend out for a jaunt in a runabout get sucked into the wormhole. Sisko goes after him.

The plot to this is solid, if suffering from terrible pacing - the ghost ships idea takes an age to become clear and the resolution is far too quick. Plus the tying up of the two plot strands leaves much to be desired. My main issue with the plot though is that it's simply not that interesting - the alien races are all new - OK there's a Ferengi and a Klingon but the Rylep, Aulep, Beshiel and unnamed Gamma Quadrant aliens are all original to this novel - constant bickering doesn't endear them and it's hard to envisage aliens you haven't seen before.

The crew are also woefully flat - there's little witty interaction and we don't get a sense of personal relationships - Worf and Dax flirting, Odo and Kira or indeed ANY of the crew sharing jokes and displaying character that made me like the show in the first place.

The writing is functional - the technical terms are there and the crew are all where they should be performing their roles but it just feels quite flat and uninteresting. Other than Cardassians appearing on the station when they shouldn't be there at one point, I couldn't find to many errors but it's just a lacklustre story with a poorly developed crew depiction. I've read far worse TV SF tie ins but I'm sorry, I expect more from Star Trek.