Rising Son (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

Rating:
Summary: ST-DS9: Rising Son
Review: Star Trek - Deep Space Nine: Rising Son written by S.D. Perry is a well-written book about Jake Sisko and his adventures in the Gamma Quadrant as he makes his way back home.

This book is richly written and carries the character of Jake Sisko right along. Even though Jake wasn't one of the best characters in the Deep Space Nine series, by that I mean he wasn't one of the primary driving force characters as he was young and the son of Captain Benjamin Sisko which in and of itself made him more of an adjunct than anything else.

Perry does the character of Jake well and gets the character's personallity and especially the mindset right... along with the journal enteries makes Jake come alive. As the story goes Jake is found in the Gamma Quadrant by a rag-tag bunch of space faring salvagers and favor runners... all in it for the profit. As they make stop after stop and exchange cargo they get leads on other "jobs." After joing them, Jake learns that his voyage is a search for the truth and that the truth will lead him to find the last thing he ever expected.

The book eludes to great things coming for Jake, but only time will tell. I found the book to be interesting reading as the story moves right along and towards the ending the book's pace really kicks into gear. So from the ruins of B'hala, to the far reaches of the Gamma Quadrant, and finally back to the wormhole Jake grows up and we get a better picture of the true character of one Jake Sisko.

The ending to this book is a mild suprise, but it will carry us into the next installment well. This is a solid 4 star book that is well-written with mild action-adventure, but mainly it is a book that shows us a young man growing up... maturing into a personallity all of his own. This is a good book for the fleshing out of the character known as Jake Sisko.

Rating:
Summary: The DS9 relaunch shines on Jake
Review: The latest - and somewhat weakest - in the relaunch of DS9 since the show ended, "Rising Son," suffers mostly in that the only "on-screen" character from the series that we follow is Jake, and the rest of the book is mostly voiced by the crew of a ship who rescues him when the Prophets dump him off somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant.

These characters, who are made up of some interesting races from the Gamma Quadrant, and some cast-offs of the Alpha Quadrant, are good, but it's hard to get as interested in them as it is in the characters we know and love from the series. Still, the attempt was well done.

They're just not all that rich a bunch of characters, so it gets a little stale, and rather quickly. What does save the tale is Jake's 1st-person journal entries, Jake's moral confusion over a group of people "doing good for profit," and Jake's surety that he is where he is specifically to find and restore his father back to the universe.

The surprise re-emergence of a character I, for one, had written off from ever appearing in DS9 again was nicely done, but what really got me going was the actual ending of the book, which promises big changes for the upcoming books in the series. If that part of the tale had happened a bit earlier, and been written a bit longer, this probably would have earned 4 stars from me.

'Nathan

Rating:
Summary: Here it is
Review: The long awaited "Jake" novel is finally here. We finally get to learn to what happened to Jake's ill-fated journey into the wormhole all the way back in "Avatar, Book 2".

This book is full of likeable new characters, the re-emergance of the long missing Kai Opaka, and answers to previously unanswered questions that have dominated this latest "season" of DS9. When it's not answering questions about prophecies, there is enough action and suprises to keep you wanting more.

The best part of "Rising Son", however, is that Jake finally gets some real character development. In the show, his development was usually second to that of his dad, which considering the nature of his destiny is understandable. However, Jake is now given an opportunity for some serious sef-evaluation and growth.

All in all, "Rising Son" is a worthy addition to the series, and leaves me excited for the new hardcover, "Unity".

Rating:
Summary: Here it is
Review: The long awaited "Jake" novel is finally here. We finally get to learn to what happened to Jake's ill-fated journey into the wormhole all the way back in "Avatar, Book 2".

This book is full of likeable new characters, the re-emergance of the long missing Kai Opaka, and answers to previously unanswered questions that have dominated this latest "season" of DS9. When it's not answering questions about prophecies, there is enough action and suprises to keep you wanting more.

The best part of "Rising Son", however, is that Jake finally gets some real character development. In the show, his development was usually second to that of his dad, which considering the nature of his destiny is understandable. However, Jake is now given an opportunity for some serious sef-evaluation and growth.

All in all, "Rising Son" is a worthy addition to the series, and leaves me excited for the new hardcover, "Unity".

Rating:
Summary: Great Jake Sisko Book
Review: This book pick up where Jake Sisko disappears. Jake is lost in the Gamma Quad. and he is pick up by interesting assortments of Gamma aliens. S.D. Perry uses several aliens that we meet in the first season of DS9, such as Tosk and the Wadi. The book also deals with Jake's need to find his father. Also, Perry tells us about Kia Opaka and her life after being left on the moon in Gamma Quad from the first season. The best part is that Perry created a dog-like alien name Pif, who will make you laugh.

Rating:
Summary: Jake's Coming of Age Story.....
Review: This was the best DS9 book that I've read in some time. The story was engaging and the reader gets a chance to spend some quality time with Jake as he starts his transition into manhood. What really makes this story stand out is Perry's ability to create interesting characters along the way. She did a really good job of breathing life into the other characters in the story. This book does a good job of allowing the reader to really get into Jake's head. You get the chance to see what it is like being the son of the Emissary. Jake desperately wants to step out of his father's shadow - while not wanting to truly abandon his father to his fate. This dilemma is central to the story and Perry does a really great job of allowing the reader to share in Jake's frustrations as he thinks about what he should do with his life. The book has a really nice twist at the end when Jake come to grips with the real meaning of the prophesy and his role in its fulfillment. A nice set up for the next book in the series...Unity and it also sets the stage future adventures involving Jake's character. A very good read and I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Jake's Coming of Age Story.....
Review: This was the best DS9 book that I've read in some time. The story was engaging and the reader gets a chance to spend some quality time with Jake as he starts his transition into manhood. What really makes this story stand out is Perry's ability to create interesting characters along the way. She did a really good job of breathing life into the other characters in the story. This book does a good job of allowing the reader to really get into Jake's head. You get the chance to see what it is like being the son of the Emissary. Jake desperately wants to step out of his father's shadow - while not wanting to truly abandon his father to his fate. This dilemma is central to the story and Perry does a really great job of allowing the reader to share in Jake's frustrations as he thinks about what he should do with his life. The book has a really nice twist at the end when Jake come to grips with the real meaning of the prophesy and his role in its fulfillment. A nice set up for the next book in the series...Unity and it also sets the stage future adventures involving Jake's character. A very good read and I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A good contribution to post-series DS9
Review: To me, the deep story of DS9 was always about fathers and sons, one father and son in particular -- Benjamin and Jake Sisko. S.D. Perry has basically resituated Jake in the post-series DS9 universe, giving him the role he lacked when shorn of his father. His character arc in Rising Son is believeable and his dilemmas compelling. The reappearance of a long-long character from DS9 past, and the strong hints at some future conflicts, are promising additions. The book itself is strained at points; by depicting the viewpoints of several characters, only some of whom are actually interesting, she dilutes the focus of the novel. At times, Rising Son reads like a pilot for a new series, "Even Odds" I guess; but ultimately nothing happens that matters except in the context of DS9.

Rating:
Summary: Perry didn't fill in the gaps very well.
Review: We knew from previous novels that Jake enters the wormhole and is next spotted months later with Opaka and a strange alien on a Dominian ship. What do we get from Perry?

Jake's seemingly pointless travels on a ship filled with characters we'll probably never see or hear from again on a ship with a weird sub-deck that is never explained. It's like the whole 200 pages on the Even Odds was just so much filler because Perry couldn't come up with enough interesting stuff for Jake and Opaka.

Speaking of Opaka, even Perry writes that her story is short. Basically, some advanced alien rescues her with some magically advanced technology. What she did after leaving the moon really could have taken an entire book to fill . . . and should have.

And Wex, the strange alien . . . a five year old with an eraser could have cut her out of the book and noone would have noticed. She did almost nothing and said even less.

I was hoping to read more about Opaka's adventures (her spiritual path -- imagine the Jem'Hadar meditating with their new guru) and less of Jake's awakening.

The Star Trek universe does this far too often: create a highly interesting character (Opaka) and/or race (Jem'Hadar) and then ignore them almost completely to introduce someone (Dez) and/or something (the Wa) else that is never see nor heard from again.

The only reason I gave this book even one star was out of the hope that some of this wasn't just random, unimaginative filler, but a set up for a future book.

Rating:
Summary: I fail to see how this is 4 or 5 star material.
Review: Well, I finished reading Rising Son. I fail to see what was the big deal in the book though and I'm failing to see why it was given positive reviews on Amazon as well as Trekweb.com.

The main problems with the book is this:
2/3's of the content is pointless. The only character that has any real impact on Jake is Dez, given the similarities with his father and himself. With that said, I'd find it hard to believe that we'll see Dez again unless S.D. Perry is writing the books herself (and if the Dominion is after them, I wouldn't count on it realistically either).

Another problem is that Jake was portrayed as a over-thinking,
over-feeling female. Yep, I'm know that harsh but this wasn't Jake. If you replaced Jake with "Jessica" and took Star Trek off the cover, I don't think anyone would have had a clue it was supposed to be a guy, nevermind trying to attack Jake's character correctly.

Yet another problem is repetition. S.D. Perry constantly reminds you that Jake is thinking about his father, and she doesn't really say anything new or enlightening that she never already stated in Avatar, let alone the 10 or so character reflection she has added in Rising Son. She constantly pushes this "love and lost theme", that is actually very apparant in the Avatar series and simply repeats that here again too. I find that it's fairly easy to replace Julian, Kira, Vaughn, Ezri, Jake, etc. in any of S.D. Perry's reflection moments and (surprisingly), it makes sense for Perry's version of that character. In Rising Son, it does the same for Jake.

Now, don't get me wrong, the book isn't absolutely crap or anything, however, I can see how people might become confused on the book "getting good" after page 100. By that time, the characters actually start to do stuff. So, the first third of the book is pure introduction, reflection and very little action. If you can get by that, then the story (finally) begins.

Jake joins the crew and they start their first mission. Unfortunately, Drang, the selling of the box and just about everything that happens here has very little if any real impact on the story. All this does is escalate other non-important events that nobody cares about. Maybe some of you care about this crew, but I didn't. Dez was the only interesting and tolerable crew member in the book basically at this point. If you cared about the other characters, I have to ask why: they won't be back in future novels and Jake isn't going to think about them ever anyway.

Then the crew goes off doing more stuff, which is all essentially meaningless until they arrive at Ee (a station). Now, I figured since the book was 2/3's done, S.D. Perry had to get on with the story. Knowing that Jake finds Opaka (from the cover and from the ending of Lesser Evil), I figured that can happen one of two ways: Either they visit the moon and free her, or they happen to find her on their journey. Sure enough, she was on Ee.

Now, at this point, everything - literally - that happened before was pointless. This is where the story actually starts in my opinion, but quite frankly, 210 pages later, was it really worth it?

The thing is, any intelligent person before picking up this book
didn't need to know about the Even Odds and they could have predicted (in some fashion) what took place in this book. Now, to give S.D. Perry some credit, the last 90 or 100 pages were interesting. I actually cared about Opaka's story, the new sister aliens next to the wormhole, the path the Prophets laid out for him not only to find Opaka, but to help in the B'Hala excavation. It gave Jake a real purpose to be here, but everything else before this is simply fluff. It would have been nice to see some dependancies, but there wasn't any.

Anyhow, the importance of Tosk was a nice touch too, however I didn't care for Wex either. She still has little importance, but I guess Unity will answer Wex's purpose soon enough (never read it).

Another disappointment was the Wa - it really didn't have any purpose for being there. It could have been absent from the entire story and quite frankly, it wouldn't have changed the execution of the last third of the novel at all. It could have been very readable without the Wa or the Even Odds crew and their stupid adventures altogether.

In the end, Jake and Opaka were the only two characters I even cared about, as it should be I suppose. But I wish Opaka had been found much earlier since that wasn't much of a surprise finding her in the first place. In fact, the only real surprise (if you can call it that) is the importance of tosk and the new relationship of the planet to Bajor - that's it. Everything else could have been omitted or assumed, which doesn't make for an entertaining read unfortunately.

Oh, and Weyoun could have had much better dialog. That wasn't Weyoun either I'm afraid.

In the end, I'd give the book 2 1/2 out of 5 stars. There isn't enough payoff here to warrant anything higher. With inaccurate characterization of Jake and Weyoun, and a lot of unimportant events that take huge amounts of space, I just can't recommend this book unless you are reading it to complete the series. Frankly, I would have been happy to see the last 100 pages of the story be sliced into the Mission Gamma books. That would have been a lot better from my perspective.

I'm sure a number of you will disagree and will refuse to give this review positive votes. Too many people just want to see positive reviews on anything Star Trek when they are a serious fan. That's unfortunate, because this story really isn't that great as people claim it to be and even outside of Star Trek, I'm sure you could find something else better to read than Rising Son as well. What a shame.