Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Warped Book

At first I really didn't like it. From Jake's Tom Sawyer-esque holodeck world to yet another murder for Odo to ferret out this book actually started to grow on me. I understand that this was the first Deep Space Nine Hardcover, and I believe last as the general community regards it as a flop. While the characterization is a bit off and a few of the characters just fall a bit flat. Not to mention a small amount of canon is ignored. Such as Jadzia deliberately communicating with her symbiont and, at a later point in the book, Jadzia and the symbiont receding from one another. From the holosuites affecting people psychologically to the coup on Bajor, I found myself really enjoying this book about half way in. Mind you I still do not understand the CI technology or how holodecks can be beamed directly into your brain. I do wish the coup on Bajor was a bit more of a slow burn, or if we'd been there and interacted with the situation directly. Within the last thirty to forty pages the story became a bit of a gnarled mess and I had trouble following the story directly.

"Maybe his father would step across the water-smoothed rocks turning back to grey metal, reach down and take his hand as the stream thinned and disappeared, and pull him back into the narrow spaces and skyless ceiling of the real world." I almost get the feeling that Jake, like Guinevere from The Mists of Avalon, is afraid of wide open spaces. Or maybe it's just his murderous companion.

"Automatically, as she had done sever times already on the journey from Bajor, she reached out an tugged at the chains wrapped around the crate. The ancient, rust-specked padlocks were sealed with not only the insignia of the Bajoran provisional government, but a simpler cursive signature as well, drawn in candle wax by the fingertip of one of the senior Vedeks of the dominant Bajoran religious order." I get the feeling that Kira would have been part of one of the orders if the Occupation hadn't happened. I wish the author had named the order instead of just calling it the "dominant Bajoran religious order."

" 'Major, at one time I thought that this was just a personal trait of yours, one that I would just have to get accustomed to.' Sisko's voice turned coldly formal. 'But upon reflection I find that Kai Opaka was unique in more than one way. She was the only Bajoran I ever met who had cultivated the virtue of patience.'" Sisko, kindly fuck off. I mean, they've dealt with fifty years of oppression. Would you be patient once you were free of the yoke of slavery?

"A fire that can light worlds is contained in a single spark." This line just spoke to me, I would say it's the best line in the entire book.

"The man behind the wooden desk was one of those, she knew, who had never had power in his life'until now. A little taste of it had turned him into a petty bureaucratic tyrant; he had the power to make life difficult for others, to say yes or no to anyone who had business with the truly powerful ones above him. That savoring of that much authority had intoxicated him; the pleasurable effect could be seen in his glittering eyes." I'm sure we've all met a toady like that. Rip his throat out Kira, that might wipe the smirk from his face.

" 'With the manpower available to me, it would take weeks to conduct an exhaustive search of the station'the structure is riddled with hiding places. And if we didn't find this McHogue person, we still couldn't be sure weather he's aboard or not; he could evade detection by simply moving from place to place ahead of the search teams.' " Yeah, like the Cardassian from four books ago. Mind you Berat didn't move around much before Nog found him, then again he didn't have the time. I'm sure this McHogue is easier to track than a Cardassian engineer on a Cardassian station.